his angels who will awake the sleeping millions from their tombs and gather together his elect and take them up into the air to be ever with their Lord. _Fourthly_, We may expect that angels will be sent to deliver the saints in the times of trouble. Angels are ministering spirits and are sent forth to minister to those who shall be the heirs of salvation. What a consolation it is that the subjects of the Mediator can apply for help in times of trouble to him who has the hosts of heaven at his command; and who has said he will never leave nor forsake them! The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them who fear him, to deliver them out of all their trouble. If God be for them, who can be against them? [9] Although it is not expected that any intelligent and candid Christian will attempt to say that the arguments which have been advanced may fairly apply to offensive but not to defensive war, yet some weak and unenlightened Christians may make the assertion. In answer to such we would observe that this would be begging the question and taking for granted the very subject in dispute. We cannot be satisfied with anything short of a candid answer, drawn directly from the spirit and precepts of the gospel. When it is fairly proved that under the gospel dispensation our Lord did draw a clear line of distinction between offensive and defensive war, and that he intended all such precepts as have been adduced to apply to the former and not to the latter, then we will acknowledge the weight of the argument. Until this is done we shall not consider our arguments as answered. [10] The writer perceives that he has made too unlimited a statement respecting the disciples who inhabited the valleys of Piedmont. Historians have generally considered those who dissented from the church of Rome during the dark ages as possessing similar sentiments. It is true they did agree in renouncing the authority of the Pope, but in other things they did not all agree. Some courted the protection of earthly powers and united with them in defending their rights by the point of the sword, and were finally destroyed by the sword. Others, instead of defending themselves with carnal weapons, fled from the face of the serpent and were, under divine providence, the seed of the church in the wilderness. It is the latter class to which the writer would be understood as referring.