Page:Tales of humour and romance translated by Holcroft.djvu/203

 THE

DEATH OF AN ANGEL.

with the angel of the last hour, to whom we give the harsh name of Death, there comes another, the tenderest and most benevolent of spirits, who gently lifts the sinking soul of man, and transports it in his fostering hands unhurt, from its cold receptacle on earth into its warm abode in heaven. His brother is the angel of the first hour, who kisses man twice,—first, when he begins this life, and again, when he awakens to the joys of immortality, and enters smiling into the other life, as he came weeping into this.

Whilst the angel of the last hour was employed on fields of battle steeped in blood and tears, gathering souls trembling on the brink of life, his compassionate eye melted in sorrow, and he said, "I will for once die like a human being, and experience the last pang, that