48 Evolution of Life and Form. 



recognising the part that is played in the world by 

 the angelic hosts, and not only do they regard the 

 Archangels as the great rulers of animated nature 

 the seven chief Archangels taking the place of the 

 seven Gods in other faiths but they also recognise 

 the lower host of angels as concerned continually 

 in administering natural laws, in guiding human 

 evolution ; and indeed they go so far as to say that 

 every individual man is in special charge of a 

 guardian angel, who ministers to him from the 

 cradle to the grave, who tries to help him in 

 danger, to advise him in temptation, to protect him 

 in peril, to ward off all the evils levelled against 

 him, and who, helping him through the gateway 

 of death, accompanies him on the other side through 

 the invisible world, until he surrenders up his 

 charge into the hands of Christ Himself. The 

 Protestant communities, however, breaking off as 

 they did, roughly and abruptly, from the ancient 

 tradition, full of occult truth, have lost, among 

 many other valuable things, this real belief in the 

 work of the angels. Most members of the 

 Protestant communities, while they acknowledge 

 the existence of the angels and vaguely regard them 

 as " ministers of God," have no very definite idea of 

 the part that they play in the world. They do not 

 address them, as do the Roman Catholics and the 



