a very angel of the Lord...

I think the second post ever made in this space was on Thomas Treadwell Stone and he is someone I return to often.  This excerpt from his sermon, "The Secret Attractions" illustrates why...

"The good...whose hearts are always open like day, whether dwelling amidst the dawn of their East, or surrounded by the shadows which persecution loves to cast, represent equally the higher principles; such, the wise men, loving and seeking the Truth; such, Joseph and Mary, types of the holiest qualities and relations of the man and the woman; such, he who is less type and representative than very substance and reality of whatever is enduring, the central form, as of this, so of all history, the Divine Child. Let it be next observed, that there are in every life, perhaps, certain hours of crisis,— hours when these different and opposite qualities and impulses appear, as it were, collected within the circle of open vision, as these their historical types were drawn together in Judea. A new star has risen in the East, inviting the soul to seek the Highest. Beneath this light of the Divine countenance sin looks dark and deformed, such as it really is, passion and pride and selfish pursuits seem as they are, worse than vain and ignoble. Evil is condemned, falsehood denied. Amidst shades and clouds, it may be, but really, the Beauty of the Lord shines from the heavens. The only greatness now is Love; the only reality, Truth. All betokens the approach of a life quickening and exalting the whole manhood. States or processes like these may be called by different names, and may be attended by different forms of conscious feeling and thought, as men are trained in unlike theologies and under unlike methods of discipline, or as their own temperaments are varied. But name and describe them as we may, they can never be other than realities to sincere souls. They present the celestial, appearing amidst the terrestrial. Love rises, even if darkened by hates. The Divine overlooks the clouded and tempestuous abyss. Mark now the secret movements of the roused spirit! All noble aspirations, all unselfish purposes, all kindlier affections, all lofty thoughts, move toward the birthplace of this immortal Promise. I have seen, when one is reading of a martyr deed or a transcendent word, or when he sees or hears either from another, how the eyes will fill, and the lips quiver, and the voice falter, overmastered by the power which is yet tenderness rather and entrancing beauty, taking the man from himself as into a holier Eden. T'is a dawning love, a rising wisdom, a very angel of the Lord coming down to stir the deep fountains, that we may bathe in them and live. Obedient to the heavenly vision, our better affections all come forth, as the star shines, and go toward the holy place of Truth, even onward to where the star rests over the infant life."

Blessings