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travelers. They have thwarted the spoiler’s purpose and turned aside
the stroke of the destroyer.
Though the rulers of this world know it not, yet often in their
councils angels have been spokesmen. Human eyes have looked upon
them. Human ears have listened to their appeals. In the council hall
the court of justice, heavenly messengers have pleaded the cause of the
persecuted and oppressed. They have defeated purposes and arrested
evils that would have brought wrong and suffering to God’s children.
To the students in the heavenly school, all this will be unfolded.
Every redeemed one will understand the ministry of angels in his
own life. The angel who was his guardian from his earliest moment;
the angel who watched his steps, and covered his head in the day of
peril; the angel who was with him in the valley of the shadow of death,
who marked his resting place, who was the first to greet him in the
resurrection morning—what will it be to hold converse with him, and
to learn the history of divine interposition in the individual life, of
heavenly co-operation in every work for humanity!
All the perplexities of life’s experience will then be made plain.
Where to us have appeared only confusion and disappointment, bro-
ken purposes and thwarted plans, will be seen a grand, overruling,
victorious purpose, a divine harmony.
There all who have wrought with unselfish spirit will behold the
fruit of their labors. The outworking of every right principle and noble
deed will be seen. Something of this we see here. But how little of
the result of the world’s noblest work is in this life manifest to the
doer! How many toil unselfishly and unweariedly for those who pass
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beyond their reach and knowledge! Parents and teachers lie down in
their last sleep, their lifework seeming to have been wrought in vain;
they know not that their faithfulness has unsealed springs of blessing
that can never cease to flow; only by faith they see the children they
have trained become a benediction and an inspiration to their fellow
men, and the influence repeat itself a thousandfold. Many a worker
sends out into the world messages of strength and hope and courage,
words that carry blessing to hearts in every land; but of the results he,
toiling in loneliness and obscurity, knows little. So gifts are bestowed,
burdens are borne, labor is done. Men sow the seed from which, above
their graves, others reap blessed harvests. They plant trees, that others
may eat the fruit. They are content here to know that they have set in