ivid as
sometimes to be almost audible, are the evidences of what may be called
spiritual protection. The idea of guardian angels and tutelary deities
arose naturally and inevitably. Many who have been astonishingly
delivered from spiritual peril have been able to find no other
explanation of their escape. Those who receive the confidences of their
fellow-men have little difficulty in believing such a story as was once
confided to me. An able and prominent man who had, resolutely as he
thought, turned from a course of conduct which threatened disaster,
found himself drawn toward the evil from which he supposed that he had
been forever delivered. The attraction seemed to be resistless. Again
and again he was on the verge of falling when the fall would have been
ruin. Then something made it morally impossible for him to enter upon
the path which he had determined to follow. The means used to dissuade
him were various. Sometimes a friend would call, then a duty would
intervene, then some obligation would press until, to use his own way of
phrasing it,--"it seemed as if some unseen person who could read my
thoughts and desires was walking by my side and, as fast as I was in
danger of yielding to evil, ordering events so as to prevent me from
doing what I wanted to do."

Few men who are trying to live on spiritual levels would hesitate to
acknowledge that they have been the subjects of similar protection. The
peculiar feature about it all is that the agents used are so often
entirely unconscious of the influence which they are exerting. An
unseen hand seems to be guiding our moves on the chess-board of life, so
as to check us every time that we are inclined to play falsely. I do not
mean that all are persuaded toward virtue, but I do mean that enough are
protected from moral evil and spiritual peril to justify the belief that
such ministries are around all; and that those who choose to do wrong do
so in the face of spiritual appeals which, if they would but give them
heed, would make resistance of evil easy and successful. If any one who
reads these words doubts my conclusions, let him study his own life,
with a little care, and learn for himself whether there are not many
hours in which he is almost persuaded to accept the ancient doctrine of
guardian angels.

This phase of the spiritual experience is rendered still more vivid when
we remember that the souls of men are perpetually dissatisfied with
present attainments, an