Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all His words most wonderful; Most sure in all His ways! The foe blasphemed the Holy Lord, As if He reckoned ill, 780 In that He placed His puppet man The frontier place to fill. For even in his best estate, With amplest gifts endued, A sorry sentinel was he, A being of flesh and blood. As though a thing, who for his help Must needs possess a wife, Could cope with those proud rebel hosts, Who had angelic life. 790 And when, by blandishment of Eve, That earth-born Adam fell, He shrieked in triumph, and he cried, "A sorry sentinel; The Maker by His word is bound, Escape or cure is none; He must abandon to his doom, And slay His darling son." ANGEL And now the threshold, as we traverse it, Utters aloud its glad responsive chant. 800 FIFTH CHOIR OF ANGELICALS Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all His words most wonderful; Most sure in all His ways! O loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, A second Adam to the fight And to the rescue came. O wisest love! that flesh and blood Which did in Adam fail, 810 Should strive afresh against the foe, Should strive and should prevail; And that a higher gift than grace Should flesh and blood refine, God's Presence and His very Self, And Essence all divine. O generous love! that He who smote In man for man the foe, The double agony in man For man should undergo; 820 And in the garden secretly, And on the cross on high, Should teach His brethren and inspire To suffer and to die. ß6 ANGEL Thy judgment now is near, for we are come Into the veiled presence of our God. SOUL I hear the voices that I left on earth. ANGEL It is the voice of friends around thy bed, Who say the "Subvenite" with the priest. Hither the echoes come; before the Throne 830 Stands the great Angel of the Agony, The same who strengthened Him, what time He knelt Lone in the garden shade, bedewed with blood. That Angel best can plead with Him for all Tormented souls, the dying and the dead. ANGEL OF THE AGONY[32]