We find in the Scriptures many references to angels. Often men who were engaged in the service of God found that these messengers from Him came to them and afforded them support, protection, or guidance according to their need. For instance, it is related in the twelfth chapter of Acts that an angel appeared to Peter in prison, where he lay chained and closely guarded. As he obeyed the angel's command to arise, the chains fell from him, and he was then led away to safety.
On page 581 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy defines "angels" as, "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality."
Because God is omnipresent, omniactive Mind, His angels, or spiritual impartations, are always present and are available to all. They appear to the receptive consciousness as uplifting, spiritual ideas, and, as these ideas are utilized, they meet our specific needs.
As a hymn so beautifully expresses it (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 9):
God's angels ever come and go,
All winged with light and love;
They bring us blessings from on high,
They lift our thoughts above,
They whisper God is Love.
He knows the angels that you need,
And sends them to your side,
To comfort, guard and guide.
Angels, "spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect," are always with us to direct us aright and to aid us in arriving at right decisions. In order to profit from spiritual guidance, it is requisite that we relinquish self-will and recognize man's inseparability from God, perfect Mind, the source of all good, all wisdom and intelligence. Submission to the will of God makes us receptive of angel thoughts, which are always coming to us to sustain us and lead us into all good. The Bible promises (Ps. 91:11), "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."
Often angels come to us in the form of passages from the Bible or the Christian Science textbook with which we have become familiar through our daily study of these volumes. One who had been informed that the rented house in which she lived was to be sold turned to Mind for the solution of her problem. There came clearly to her thought the statement of Christ Jesus to his disciples (John 14:2), "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you." At once all sense of anxiety and uncertainty left the student, and she became perfectly willing to leave the whole situation in the hands of infinite Mind, Truth, Love. Nothing more was said about selling the house in which she lived, and she was permitted to reside there as long as she desired.
On another occasion when she needed to find an apartment, she recalled God's promise to Moses (Ex. 23:20), "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." A spacious and convenient apartment in a desirable location became available in an unexpected way.
When one who has passed through some harsh or saddening experience turns to God for help and solace, he feels the presence of angels. These sustaining angels lift the anguished thought above the seeming griefs and disillusionments of mortal existence into the atmosphere of Soul, Spirit, where peace and joy continuously hold sway.
Through tribulation one learns the lesson that real satisfaction and enduring happiness result only from complete dependence on God, omnipresent good, for that which concerns one—for healing, companionship, home, supply, and all else. Then it follows that one finds his human needs taken care of by divine Love in ways practical and harmonious.
Angels appearing to one who is progressing in Christian Science awake him to the perpetual harmony of man's true being as the complete expression of God, perfect Mind. One perceives that error is always unreal, untrue, never becoming part of man's eternal spiritual existence. As a result, one ceases to regard discordant experiences of the past as actualities and is no longer troubled by unhappy memories.
Our Leader writes in Science and Health (p. 299): "My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels are God's representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers."
Increasing spirituality gives the student the ability to detect and overcome with Truth anything in his thought which would tend to interfere with his receptivity to the spiritual blessings God constantly bestows upon His children. In our work of correcting our thinking, we are aided by angels, "the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality." These angels make us aware of the nobility and loving-kindness of man's spiritual selfhood as the image of God, Truth, and Love, and we perceive the worthlessness and falsity of discordant or unloving traits. Thus is instilled in us the desire to express only loving, constructive qualities at all times. As this desire is put into daily, hourly practice we enjoy increasingly our God-bestowed dominion and freedom.
God's angels, "all winged with light and love," are ever present and are continually appearing to our consciousness. As we entertain these spiritual visitants they give us a sense of love which is not variable or reserved only for those who love us, but is constant as well as universal in its nature and expression.
Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 306): "When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts. Oh, may you feel this touch,—it is not the clasping of hands, nor a loved person present; it is more than this: it is a spiritual idea that lights your path!"
