for war who slightly bend and use their hands as cups, but all that lying prone shall lap the water up like dogs will surely fail in battle." The result left Gedeon scarce three hundred men, and yet they fought the enemy and gained a glorious victory. Oh blessed teaching of our angel guide, which proves the kingdom of God suffereth violence and that not the timid but the violent bear it away! To conquer in the struggle for salvation, we must not cling too closely to the world, nor drink too deeply of its pleasures, nor too eagerly feast upon its delicacies, but with our faces as much as may be ever turned to God we should seek and take from earth no more than our necessities demand. But not alone from unseen perils do our angels guard us, but from visible dangers too. Let Josue, Ezechias and Eliseus testify how angel hosts did battle for them in their hour of need. Judith returning with Holofernes' head declared: " The angel of God hath been my keeper going hence, and abiding there, and returning hither." From wild beasts, too, the angels guard us, as witness Daniel in the lions' den and the martyrs in the arena. From inanimate objects, too, as for example, the three youths in the fiery furnace. But most of all our angels stay the arm of God's wrath deservedly upraised to strike us. You remember the parable of the fig-tree, barren for three long years and which the owner ordered finally to be cut down and burned; but the gardener begged for one year more to prune and water it. Ah! how many a soul through boyhood, youth, and manhood bears no
