“The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world;” “the grace that hath appeared unto all men;” and “the invisible things of the Creator, clearly seen and understood by the things which are made,” are propositions which have the formal warrant of our sacred books to back the authority of logical demonstration. Moreover, it is pleasant and profitable to believe that “He hath not left himself without a witness” among any of the tribes of men. The human _brotherhood_ is so involved in the divine fatherhood, that the individual’s hold on the infinite and eternal must stand or fall with the universality of His regards and providence. If Canaan had been without a “Prophet of the Most High,” if Chaldea had been left without soothsayer and seer, and classic Greece and Rome destitute of oracles and Sibylline revelations, the Jewish theology and the Christian apocalypse would stand unsupported by “the analogy of faith,” and our highest hopes would be shifted from the broad basis of an impartial benevolence, to a narrow caprice of the “Father of all Men.” But, happily, the sympathies of nature, the deductions of reason, and the teachings of the Book, are harmonious on this point, for we find Melchisedec, who could claim no legal or lineal relation to the Levitical priesthood, the chosen type of the perpetual “High Priest of our profession;” and Balaam, notwithstanding his heathen birth, and ministry among the Canaanites when their cup of iniquity was full; and the eastern Magi, who brought their gifts from afar among the Gentiles, to the new-born “King of the Jews,” all alike guided by the same light, and partakers and fellow-laborers in the same faith, with the regular hierarchy of Mount Zion. So, the Star of Jacob is the “desire of nations,” and the heart and hope of the wide world turneth ever toward the same essential truth, and strive after it by the same instinct through a thousand forms, “if haply they may find it.” The religious system of the Jews and Chaldeans agreed, with wonderful exactness, in the doctrine of angelic beings and their interposition in the affairs of men. The superintendence of the destinies of nations and individuals, and the allotment of provinces, kingdoms and families among these ministering spirits, are as distinctly taught in the book of Daniel of the old testament, and in the gospel of St. Matthew of the new, as in the popular beliefs of the Arabians and Persians; indeed, the Bible sanction is general, particular, and ample, for the doctrine of angelic ministry as it has been held in all ages and throughout the world.