neral name of angels, and teaches that they are
'ministering spirits;' but what is their ministry, what the nature
of their work, what their relationship to human beings?--all that
was part of the instruction given in the Lesser Mysteries, as the
actual communication with them was enjoyed in the Greater, but in
modern days these truths have sunk into the background. For the
Protestant the ministry of angels is little more than a phrase."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Law of Prayer.]

Mrs. Besant notes that it seems almost impossible for the ordinary
student to discover the law according to which a prayer is or is not
productive. "And the first thing necessary in seeking to understand this
law," she says, "is to analyze prayer itself." Mrs. Besant classifies
prayers as: (1) those which are for definite worldly advantages; (2)
those which are for help in moral and intellectual difficulties, and for
spiritual growth; and lastly, those which consist in meditation on, and
adoration of, the Divine Perfection; and then we find her saying:--

"In addition to all these man is himself a constant creator of
invisible beings, for the vibrations of his thoughts and desires
create forms of subtle matter, the only life of which is the
thought or the desire which ensouls them; he thus creates an army
of invisible servants who range through the invisible worlds
seeking to do his will. Yet, again, there are in the world human
helpers, who work there in their subtle bodies while their physical
bodies are sleeping, whose attentive ear may catch a cry for help.
And to crown all, there is the ever-present, ever-conscious life of
God Himself, potent and responsive at every point of his
realm,--that all-pervading, all-embracing, all-sustaining Life of
Love, in which we live and move. As naught that can give pleasure
or pain can touch the human body without the sensory nerves
carrying the message of its impact to the brain centres, so does
every vibration in the universe, which is His body, touch the
consciousness of God, and draw thence responsive action. Nerve
cells, nerve threads, and muscular fibres may be the agents of
feeling and moving, but it is the man who feels and acts; so may
myriads of intelligences be the agents, but it is God who knows and
answers. Nothing can be so small