The Dullest Life has Angelic Light Behind It
Bishop Carpenter, D. D. Matthew 18:10 Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say to you… Is it not true also in regard to human life? Over all the dark angel of contempt hovers. But is there not, if we look wisely at human life, a marvellous display of real angelic force? Mark this life you will be disposed to despise. Who can find anything of angel ministers and poetry in that of a mere labourer of the fields, whose to-day is just like yesterday — rising early, ploughing, casting in the seed, reaping, and with an ignorant and dull brain following the plough, and pursuing the field labour from day to day, no other thought leaping up in his mind but a moody anticipation of next year's harvest. Yet, if you look aright, there is a light as of an angel's presence behind such a life as that. This is one of God's ministers. Is it nothing to stand before the face of the great Creator and receive from His hand, as the disciples did of old, the bread to be distributed to the sons of men? Behind the most prosaic life there is an angel form for those who look through it. Take the dull round of the man of medicine. With its weariness there grows upon him the feeling that life is nothing but a monotonous round of visits — fruitless visits if he has to minister to the miserable hypochondriac — and then follows despair that his life is a useless one. Yet behind it there is the light of the angel's wing, for when he is present that poor hypochondriac has her powers and energies strengthened to excite themselves against the weakness of her nature. His is the soothing hand that restores to the tired nerves their power. Yes, the dullest life, the hardest existence, the most monotonous career, has an angel of light behind it. (Bishop Carpenter, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. WEB: See that you don't despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.