Rev. 2:10 Be thou faithful unto death & I will give thee a crown of life. The person speaking is Christ, the person spoken to is one of his angels. But angels are of various orders and of different degrees of importance. I might quote more than one Scripture text which [speaks of our Saviour] refers to the Son of God Himself as our Angel, and you are familiar with the mention of those bright creatures, who, a portion of the inhabitants of heaven, are styled angels: you remember, too, that the devil and his angels are spoken of. / Besides all these, there [are] have been and still are angels also on this earth: styled angels of the Churches, [i.e. their pastors]. And it was to one of [these] this sort that the [text was] words before us [are] were originally addressed: to him who officially instructed and led the Church at ancient Smyrna. / Inasmuch, however, as the Greek [world] word angel, when translated into English, [simply means a] is the same as our word messenger, [a] it follows that every person Faithful unto Death Dec. 1883 Wil 2 who has been [divinely] appointed to discharge a [certain] mission in behalf of the supreme Lord, may be appropriately [regarded] named as [an] a member of His angelic hosts. / There is, ?, a true sense in which each individual who, [by the power of Gods grace,] has been called into [His] Gods spiritual kingdom, is to be regarded as one of his angels: because, [to each of these] by the great King, who has summoned him to His service, to [is] each of these is given a work [to do] which he alone can [achieve.] do. [Just As] The very humblest and obscurest [believer] Christian is, accordingly, auch an angel: a messenger who has been delegated to make known, [the [in] his particular circle of influence,] with what ability he possesses, the good-news of salvation: a pastor to do what in him lies to feed the flock of believers: and a minister to wait upon all with whom he came into contact, with the gospel invitations: [of pardoning love.] and, like the higher angels, to watch over the heirs of salvation. / And thus it is that the promise of the text applies to all who have been brought to see and to [live by] receive the huth as it is in Jesus, and 3 who, by reason of this blessed and this more blessed reception are constrained to live as the children of the day. / And I do not know of any thought that is better calculated to impress the heart of a Christian with either the nobility or the [importance] urgency of his high vocation, than this thought, that he, too, is a bearer of messages from the heaven [to which] [whi] whither he is destined, to the world [in which] where in now he has his dwelling that, at the very moment of his [conversion] being born from above he became as truly an angel sent [on] some special errands of mercy, as if he had Gabriels [wings] pinions with which to fly, or were endowed with Michels [strength] powers with which to overcome: as truly such an angel, I say, though not as [gloriously] [splendidly] illustriously such: having the same commission the declaration of the divine glory although he may alter it in lowlier [in coarser] speech, [and] or convey it by a feebler agency, and bear it along [upon] a narower path: the same in kind although not the same in degree. Wilson = Feb. 27, .98. 4 But, whatever may be thought of this comparison: of redeemed men with resplendent angels; and whatever differences you may able to point out between the yet imperfect and struggling [saint] saint and those high-born sons of glory who flash and flame about the eternal throne, it is certain that you, my Christian brother, [and they] must possess at least one quality in common with them: the essential quality of fidelity. / Like them you are a messenger for God and, like them, you are expected to be [a] His faithful messenger: for all alike, whether [the] yonder spirit that, with untiring wing, speeds to and fro and from world to world in obedience to orders which [you cannot] we could not understand; or [the] yonder soul, that with sins and sorrows still clogging its stumbling [way,] way moves through the duties of many a wearisome [day] hour all alike, soaring seraph and [striving] battling believer, are His servants who has given, to each, each ones [own] separate task. [4] [But, however you may illustrate the Christian character] [one [thing is certain] element it has which is common to]