A HOST OF ANGELS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 270, 19 August 1915, Page 2

A HOST OF ANGELS.

FIGHTING AGAINST GERMANS. It is no doubt natural thg', times of exceptional strain, such as the present, men’s belief in the supernatural should be stimulated and strengthened. Many occurrences on the battlefield, such as the narrow escape of one man and the unexpected death of another, seem to be almost miraculous. The soldiers are then prone to quote the Scripture that says, “One shall be taken and another left.” In a different and more mysterious category are the stories of angel hosts, or individual J angels, being seen battling on the : side of the British. A most circumstantial account has ben published of a whole troop of angels saving the left wing of the British army during the retreat from Mens. Testimony of Clergymen. The story is told in all good faith, and is accepted in many quarters as literally true. Thus, in the St. Barnabas Magazine, published at Southampton. the vicar states, in a letter to his parishioners, that “the daughter of a well-known canon of the church knows

two officers who themselves saw the

angels who saved our left wing in the • retreat from Mons.’’ The well-known and eminent Congregationalist minister, the Eev. Dr. Horton, has given this and similar accounts of divine interposition the authority of his endorsement. In a sermon preached by him recently at ronghton, he said, as reported in the Manchester Guardian:— “There are wonderful stories coming to us in this time of war—some of them verified and some of them floating about and ifficnlt to verify and to fix —but they are stories which show quite distinctly how men to-day arc kept in the secret places of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty, in the midst of unexampled '■oril. Delivered by Prayer.* “I had news froom the Dardanelles ■•>st week but one. A sailor on cne t our transport ships told me -in the simplest language how airships of the enemy came over the troopships dropping bombs. The captain, who is a man [ of God, gave the order" to the men to j pray.. They knelt on the dock and j • —n Vn .-p n n«i the Lord delivered them. | The IS bombs; which seemed to be fall- j ing from overhead, fell harmlessly into the sea. j

The White-Robed Figure on the Battlefield. “How and again," Dr. Horton continued, “a wounded man on the field is conscious of a comrade in white coming with help, and even delivering him. One of onr men who had heard of this story again and again and had put it down to hysterical excitement' had an experience. His division had advanced, and was not adequately protected by the artillery. It was cut to pieces, and he himself fell. He Tried to hide in a hollow in the ground, and as he lay helpless, not daring to life his head under the hail of fire, ho saw one in white coming to him. The bullets were flying all round. The whiterobed came near and bent over him. The man lost consciousness for a moment, and when, he came round he seemed to be out of danger. The white-robed still stood by him, and the man, looking at his hand, said, 'Yon are wounded in your hand.’ There was a wound in the palm. Ho answered, ‘Yes, that is an old wound that has opened lately. ’ The soldier says that, in spite of the peril and his wounds, lie felt a -jqy he had never experienced in his life before. What Did the Horses See?

"There is a story repeated by so many witnesses that if anything can be established by contemporary evidence it is established—of the retreat from Mens. A section of the line was in imminent peril, and it semed as if it must inevitably be borne dowfl and cut off. Our men saw a company of angels interposed between them and the German cavalry, and the horses of the German cavalry stampeded. Evidently the animal's beheld what our men beheld. The German soldiers endeavoured to bring the horses back to the line, but they fled. Tt was the salvation of our men. The Shadow of the Almighty. "Is it not an extraorndinary fact (Dr. Horton preceded) that, although the carnage is so fearful, there are evidences accumulating every dav of those who are kept under’the shadow of the Almighty—men who are quite conscious that prayer is .hoard and answered for them? These men, if they are ultimately spared, will come back- to our country and our churches to begin a perfectly new ora in the history of Christendom, and to change the whole aspect of our church life. They will come back to tell rs of a living God Who is able to help, and of a Saviour Who shows Himself in the hour of peril and when ail earthly succour seems to fail."