"Glory to God," the first clause of this song, does not, therefore, necessarily involve good will towards men; and no more does the second, "peace on earth." Peace! Peace was in the valley where the prophet stood with the grim wrecks of war around him,--friend and foe sleeping side by side, skeletons silently turning to dust, and swords to rust. Peace is in the battle-field when the last gun is fired, and, the last of the dying having groaned out his soul in a gush of blood, the heaving mass is still. Peace was on the sea and the storm suddenly became a calm, when the waves leaping up against the flying ship obtained their prey, and from the deck where he stood summoned by the voice, Arise, O thou that sleepest, and call upon thy God, Jonah was flung into the jaws of death. Peace was in that land he had ravaged of whom men said, "He made a solitude, and called it peace,"--all its homesteads lay in ashes, and its cities stood in silent ruins. Peace was in Israel, when, provoked by their sins, God cast His people out: swept them all into captivity. The land had its Sabbaths then. The Angels' Song might have announced a similar, but greater, judgment--that, as a landlord clears his estate of turbulent, lawless, bankrupt tenants, God, who had repented long ago that He had made man, was at length coming to clear the earth of his guilty presence, and make room for better tenants; a purer, holier race. It is the last clause of this hymn, therefore, that gives it an aspect of mercy--the revenue of glory which God was to receive, and the peace which earth was to enjoy, flowing from that fountain of redeeming love which had its spring in God's good will. Of this Christ was the divine expression, and angels were the happy messengers.