VISIT FROM AN ANGEL

Julia A. Shelhamer

     I have been rather slow to believe testimonies of those who claim to have seen angels, but since my late experience I see that heaven and earth are near and it is not unscriptural nor unreasonable that God should visit this earth personally or in the form of His ambassadors as "ministering spirits".

     It was Thursday, just one week after our precious daughter, Evangeline, had been laid to rest, "In the graveyard on the hill". My husband was called away to a meeting and I with our two children wept at home alone. The sad, sad scenes of the past few days pressed themselves in panoramic view before my dazed and wearied vision until I was crazed with fear, for we had met the grim monster Death in open conflict and he had conquered. The house seemed haunted with fear and dread, and old familiar scenes opened the sore afresh.

     Nothing seemed worth while. I would give a world (if I had one) just to have my darling back, for I wondered if she was in Divine order in leaving us at this time when she was so fully prepared to win souls.

     My strength had failed for I could neither eat nor sleep properly, but little did I care, for why should I live? How could I, in such sorrow? I wanted to die, and the sooner the better.

     After giving a lesson in my studio that morning, I strolled sadly across the campus to our home and started upstairs to my lonely room. My heart fluttered and I feared I would faint when, lo and behold, in that dark hour, a most beautiful form appeared at my left side and assisted me up the stairs. I was alone but not afraid, for I knew he was not of earth but from heaven.

     He looked to be about thirty-three years of age, was tall and graceful and of a professional mien. He was dressed in an extremely neat, jet black suit, and had manners of the highest polish. He was extremely dignified, yet full of compassion for me in my sorrow. He took my arm and helped me to my room, then disappeared.

     But despair again soon overcame me; I could not rest and had to arise and pray. I walked the floor in anguish and hoped to die to get relief. I looked up, and the terror in my gaze met again the face of this messenger of mercy I had seen on the stairs. The heavenly serenity of his look calmed my fears. I wish I could describe it, but there are not adequate words in the English language to do so.

     There he stood -- a gentleman of the highest type of culture. With the intelligence of the keenest lawyer, the superb mentality of the greatest financier, the authority of a Gladstone, the polished manners of an English knight, and the dignity of a king -- these all combined with the finest integrity and with God's holiness. Words fail to describe him.

     I felt that he had the wealth of the universe at his command and the power of the Eternal with him, that he was sent expressly to help me, and that whatsoever I asked I should receive of him. When I looked up with fear and terror, I detected by the light of his countenance that the distrust mixed with my thoughts was a silent insult to him. It hurt him, yet he was too polite to say so or even to give me a reproving look. He bore it in the meekest silence, while his innocence, superb integrity and fine capability invited my fullest confidence. His face seemed to say, "Of course you will believe me and cast away your fears, 'for all things work together for good to them that love God.'

     I felt cheap when I saw that look and, placing my confidence in him, I found sweet rest. When the waves of sorrow returned and I prayed again in anguish of soul, that face reappeared as much as to say, "My word is good. You need not repeat your request. I am one of few words. When I speak it is settled. My word is more reliable than an instrument under seal." Then I felt a little as a nervous, illiterate woman would feel were she to walk into a great National Bank and ask the manager to change a dollar bill for her, then quibble and fuss and worry trying to decide whether the change was genuine or counterfeit.

     Though my visitor said nothing, his face and form spoke volumes which might be interpreted thus:

     "You remember that colored Baptist pastor you met in Amarillo, Texas, recently, and the story he told you of his foster daughter who is now a marvelous singer -- how Rockefeller made her a present of $500.00 for one song?

     "When you question my providence, I feel just as the great millionaire would have felt had that colored girl handed back the wonderful gift and coolly remarked, 'I doubt if that check is good'. "To doubt the power and providence of God is as incredulous as for a man to open his safe every morning to read aloud his contracts to the parties of the second part, to remind them of their duty." With this, he disappeared.

     When I met that angel on the stairs, I felt I had met my millionaire and that $50,000,000 would not embarrass him at all.

     The check book he gave me contained such promises as these:

     "If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it."

     "Ask and ye shall receive.

     "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

     "Call unto me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."

     After the angel had gone, I opened the Bible to Hosea 12:4 and read, "He had power over the angel and prevailed: he wept and made supplication unto him."

     Even Christ needed the comfort of angels in the Gar- a den of Gethsemane. How much more do we who live and suffer in a house of clay? Heaven seems so real to me now, and with Daniel I can gratefully declare, "My God hath set his angel."