The seraphim were winged for service even while they stood above the
throne and pealed forth their thunderous praise which shook the Temple.
May we not discern in that a hint of the blessed blending of two modes
of worship which will be perfectly united in heaven, and which we should
aim at harmonising even on earth? 'His servants serve Him and see His
face.' There is possible, even on earth, some foretaste of the
perfection of that heavenly state in which no worship in service shall
interfere with the worship in contemplation. Mary, sitting at Christ's
feet, and Martha, busy in providing for His comfort, may be, to a large
extent, united in us even here, and will be perfectly so hereafter, when
the practical and the contemplative, the worship of noble aspiration, of
heart-filling gazing, and that of active service shall be indissolubly
blended.

The seraphs sang 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' but they, and all the hosts of
heaven, learn a new song from the experience of earth, and redeemed men
are the chorus-leaders of the perfected and eternal worship of the
heavens. For we read that it is the four-and-twenty elders who begin the
song and sing to the Lamb that redeemed them by His blood, and that the
living creatures and all the hosts of the angels to that song can but
say 'Amen!'




THE MAKING OF A PROPHET

'Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine