ANGELS

Gabriel met Zacharias

From angel to priest came the Word

Your wife will bare a baby boy

Many will be glad – you’ll have joy

He’ll prepare the way for the Lord

2

Gabriel announced to Mary

She was the virgin of choice

To carry the Savior of all men

From David’s throne forever, again

She consented ─ when she found her voice.   

3

An angel conversed with Joseph

To settle his disturbed soul

Mary should not be put away

The child is of the Holy Ghost – stay

Stay – shine in the step-father role.

4

An angel startled the shepherds

Then an awesome story told

They’d find Him in swaddling cloths wound

Earth’s Savior, born in Bethlehem-town

A Great Shepherd to save the fold.

5

An angel also warned Joseph

To take the Child, and his wife

Away from Herod’s bloody reach

(Scribes would kings the birthplace teach)

They left; thus sparing Jesus’ life.

6

An angel, angels, angel throng

Heaven’s messengers to Earth

Meeting, announcing, showing right

Created themselves before sin’s night

Who could tell an angel’s true worth?  

– eab, Dec. ’95

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Edgar Stites – birth, Mar. 22, 1836

“Beulah Land”

 

I’ve reached the land of corn and wine,
And all its riches freely mine;
Here shines undimmed one blissful day,
For all my night has passed away.

 

Refrain

O Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land,
As on thy highest mount I stand,
I look away across the sea,
Where mansions are prepared for me,
And view the shining glory shore,
My Heav’n, my home forever more!

 

2.

My Savior comes and walks with me,
And sweet communion here have we;
He gently leads me by His hand,
For this is Heaven’s border land.

 

3.

A sweet perfume upon the breeze,
Is borne from ever vernal trees,
And flow’rs, that never fading grow
Where streams of life forever flow.

 

4.

The zephyrs seem to float to me,
Sweet sounds to Heaven’s melody,
As angels with the white robed throng
Join in the sweet redemption song.

Edgar P Stites was born this date (3/22/1836) in Cape May, NJ.  He became a Methodist frontier preacher, and missionary (Dakota Territory).  He was a direct descendent of John Howland, who arrived in America aboard the Mayflower.  Stites also wrote “Trusting Jesus.”  He used the pseudonym “Edgar Page.”  His death was on 1/9/1921.

 

 

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Tares and Wheat

The tares and wheat together grow,

At harvest time angels will know,

They’ll separate good from the bad,

The tares to be burned, Oh, how sad!

Are you wheat?  Do you for Christ glow?  -eab, 2/2/07

Penned in eastern Ontario, Canada, while pastoring the Kingston Pilgrim Holiness Church.

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Phillips Brooks – birth, Dec. 13, 1835

“The Sky Can Still Remember”  (stanza 3)

O angels sweet and splendid, throng in our hearts and sing
The wonders which attended the coming of the King;
Till we too, boldly pressing where once the shepherds trod,
Climb Bethlehem’s Hill of Blessing, and find the Son of God.

Phillips Brooks born 12/13/1835 in Boston, Massachusetts.  He was a minister whose people sent him abroad for a year.  His schedule brought him to the Holy Land and on Christmas Eve, brought him to Bethlehem.  The little town (seen in 19th century “lighting”) helped him produced his simple but so loved Carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”   Brooks, who never married, loved children and they him.  After his death a story was told of a litttle girl’s reponce to her pastor being in heaven.  She is said to have said to her mother, “Oh mama, how happy the angels will be.”

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