INVISIBLE HELPERS/PART 7

 

CHAPTER VII

 

The “Angel Story.”

 

ANOTHER instance of intervention on the physical plane which occurred a short time ago makes a very beautiful little story, though this time only one life was saved. It needs, however, a few words of preliminary explanation. Among our band of helpers here in Europe are two who were brothers long ago in ancient Egypt, and are still warmly attached to one another. In this present incarnation there is a wide difference in age between them, one being advanced in middle life, while the other was at that time a mere child in the physical body, though an ego of considerable advancement and promise. Naturally it falls to the lot of the elder to train and guide the younger in the occult work to which they are so heartily devoted, and as both are fully conscious and active on the astral plane they spend most of the time during which their grosser bodies are asleep in labouring together under the direction of their common Master, and giving to both living and dead such help as is within their power.

 

I will quote the story of the particular incident which I wish to relate from a letter written by the elder of the two helpers immediately after it occurrence, as the description there given is more vivid and picturesque than any account in the third person could possibly be.

 

“We were going about quite other business, when Cyril suddenly cried, ‘What’s that?’ for we heard a terrible scream of pain or fright. In a moment we were on the spot, and found that a boy of about eleven or twelve had fallen over a cliff on to some rocks below, and was very badly hurt. He had broken a leg and an arm, poor fellow, but what was still worse was a dreadful cut in the thigh, from which blood was pouring in a torrent. Cyril cried, ‘Let us help him quick, or he’ll die!’

 

“In emergencies of this kind one has to think quickly. There were clearly two things to be done; that bleeding must be stopped, and physical help must be procured. I was obliged to materialize either Cyril or myself, for we wanted physical hands at once to tie a bandage, and besides it seemed better that the poor boy should see someone standing by him in his trouble. I felt that while undoubtedly he would be more at home with Cyril than with me, I should probably be more readily able to procure help than Cyril would, so the division of labour was obvious.

 

“The plan worked capitally. I materialized Cyril instantly (he does not know yet how to do it for himself), and told him to take the boy’s neckerchief and tie it round the thigh, and twist a stick through it. ‘Won’t it hurt him terribly? said Cyril; but he did it, and the blood stopped flowing. The injured boy seemed half unconscious, and could scarcely speak, but he looked up at the shining little form bending so anxiously over him, and asked, ‘Be you an angel, master?’ Cyril smiled so prettily, and replied, ‘No, I’m only a boy, but I’ve come to help you;’ and then I left him to comfort the sufferer while I rushed off to the boy’s mother, who lived about a mile away.

 

“The trouble I had to force into that woman's head the conviction that something was wrong, and that she must go and see about it, you would never believe; but at last she threw down the pan she was cleaning, and said aloud, ‘Well, I don’t know what’s come over me, but I must go and find the boy.’ When she once started I was able to guide her without much difficulty, though at the time I was holding Cyril together by will-power, lest the poor child's angel should suddenly vanish from before his eyes.

 

“You see, when you materialize a form you are changing matter from its natural state into another - temporarily opposing the cosmic will, as it were; and if you take your mind off it for one half-second, back it flies into its original condition like a flash of lightning. So I could not give more than half my attention to that woman, but still I got her along somehow, and as soon as she came round the corner of the cliff I let Cyril disappear; but she had seen him, and now that village has one of the best-attested stories of angelic intervention on record!

 

“The accident happened in the early morning, and the same evening I looked in (astrally) upon the family to see how matters were going on. The poor boy’s leg and arm had been set, and the great cut bandaged, and he lay in bed looking very pale and weak, but evidently going to recover in time. The mother had a couple of neighbours in, and was telling them the story; and a curious tale it sounded to one who knew the real facts.

 

“She explained, in very many words, how she couldn’t tell what it was, but something came over her all in a minute like, making her feel something had happened to the boy, and she must go out and see after him; how at first she thought it was nonsense, and tried to throw off the feeling, ‘but it warn’t no use - she just had to go.’ She told how she didn’t know what made her go round by that cliff more than any other way, but it just happened so, and as she turned round the corner there she saw him lying propped up against a rock, and kneeling beside him was the ‘beautifullest child ever she saw, dressed all in white and shining, with rosy cheeks and lovely brown eyes;’ and how he smiled at her ‘so heavenly like,’ and then all in a moment he was not there, and at first she was so startled she didn’t know what to think; and then all at once she felt what it was, and fell on her knees and thanked God for sending one of his angels to help her poor boy.

 

“Then she told how when she lifted him to carry him home she wanted to take off the handkerchief that was cutting into his poor leg so, but he would not let her, because he said the angel had tied it and said he was not to touch it; and how when she told the doctor this afterwards he explained to her that if she had unfastened it the boy would certainly have died.

 

“Then she repeated the boy’s part of the tale - how the moment after he fell this lovely little angel came to him (he knew it was an angel because he knew there had been nobody in sight for half a mile round when he was at the top of the cliff just before - only he could not understand why it hadn’t any wings, and why it said it was only a boy) - how it lifted him against the rock and tied up his leg, and then began to talk to him and tell him he need not be frightened, because somebody was gone to fetch mother, and she would be there directly; how it kissed him and tried to make him comfortable, and how its soft, warm, little hand held his all the time, while it told him strange, beautiful stories which he could not clearly remember, but he knew they were very good, because he had almost forgotten he was hurt until he saw his mother coming; and how then it assured him he would soon be well again, and smiled and squeezed his hand, and then somehow it was gone.

 

“Since then there has been quite a religious revival in that village! Their minister has told them that so signal an interposition of divine providence must have been meant as a sign to them, to rebuke scoffers and to prove the truth of holy scripture and of the Christian religion - and nobody seems to see the colossal conceit involved in such an astonishing proposition.

 

“But the effect on the boy had been undoubtedly good, morally as well as physically; by all accounts he was a careless enough young scamp before, but now he feels ‘his angel’ may be near him at any time, and he will never do or say anything rough or coarse or angry, lest it should see or hear. The one great desire of his life is that some day he may see it again, and he knows that when he dies its lovely face will be the first to greet him on the other side.”

 

A beautiful and pathetic little story, truly. The moral dawn from the occurrence by the village and its minister is perhaps somewhat of a non sequitur; yet the testimony to the existence of at least something beyond this material plane must surely do the people more good than harm, and after all the mother’s conclusion from what she saw was a perfectly correct one, though more accurate knowledge would probably have led her to express it a little differently.

 

An interesting fact afterwards discovered by the investigations of the writer of the letter throws a curious side-light upon the reasons underlying such incidents. It was found that the two boys had met before, and that some thousands of years ago the one who fell from the cliff had been the slave of the other, and had once saved his young master’s life at the risk of his own, and had been liberated in consequence; and now, long afterwards, the master not only repays the debt in kind, but also gives his former slave a high ideal and an inducement to morality of life which will probably change the whole course of his future evolution. So true is it that no good deed ever goes unrewarded by karma, however tardy it may seem in its action - that:

 

Though the mills of God grind slowly

 

Yet they grind exceeding small;

    

Though with patience stands

He waiting

 

With exactness grinds He all.