Angel Guardians - Sample Chapter from A Present Help by Marie Monsen

It was at an out-station. We were almost at the end of some Bible classes. Early one morning there was a fever of unrest everywhere because of rumors that there was a revolt among the soldiers in the city where we had our main station. If anything should happen, I knew I ought to be there, as the missionary in residence had a weak heart, his wife was expecting an addition to the family very soon and the nurse who had come to help her had bad nerves. 

At last I succeeded in getting a donkey-cart. We crawled along for about ten miles and were the last to squeeze in through the city gate as it was being shut for the night. 

When I reached home, I heard from one who knew some of the soldiers, that the General, who had no money, had promised them that one night they could loot the city instead of receiving their pay. It was expected to happen that night. A couple of soldiers had called at our mission compound in the morning to calculate how many rifles they would need to use there for the night’s work. Someone had heard them say that they could manage it with eighteen rifles. Some claimed that they had heard from reliable sources that the looting was to begin at 10 o’clock when a fire was to be lit in a particular house in the center of the city quite near us. No fire was lit there, however, but in many other parts of the city. The soldiers were too impatient to wait for the signal, and began looting at 8 o’clock. We heard shooting and noise all night, until towards morning it grew quiet. 

No soldiers visited us, but many of our neighbors in fear and distress came climbing over the walls round our mission compound, each carrying a little bundle of valuables. 

As I was physically the most fit, I had to take charge of all these neighbors and see them comfortably installed. When we ran across the open courtyard, bullets whistled above our heads, and I realized that it was for this particular piece of work I had had to come home. The whole time the lovely old words kept sounding in my heart: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day,” Psalms 91:5, and I added on my own account: “Nor for the bullets that have replaced arrows.” 

The Chinese Christians on our mission compound immediately testified boldly to the terrified heathen who had taken refuge with us. The Christians scattered naturally among them, so that there were a few of them in each room, and they truly made the most of this unusual opportunity. The heathen saw some of their own people who were quite different from themselves, without the fear they felt. We heard the noise outside all the time, but no butt-end of a gun battered at any of our four gates. 

Next day, several of our neighbors across the street came in to see us. There were no walls round the houses on their side of the street, and they asked if they might knock at our gate and come in and stay with us next time there was trouble, “For you have protection,” they said. I heard that remark several times before I realized that they must mean something special by the protection they spoke of. What they told me sent me calling on all the neighbors in the houses across the street, so as to hear it from several eye-witnesses. 

All our neighbors had kept their doors locked that night until they were forced to open them by the roars of the soldiers and their thundering knocks. But now and again they had opened their doors to peep out and see if there was a fire anywhere near. That was when they had seen our “protectors.” Three soldiers stood on guard up on the high roof of the Gospel Hall, one at each end and one in the middle. A fourth had been seated on the porch over the main gate. These soldiers had kept watch in every direction. 

“Who did you think it was?” 

“Soldiers the General had sent to protect you.” 

“Did they look like the General’s soldiers?” 

“They were taller than any soldiers we had seen.” 

“Were they armed?” 

“We didn’t see that, we only saw their silhouettes, we didn’t dare take time to look at them carefully.” 

“Could you see their faces?” 

“We saw them best of all.” 

“How was that?” 

“They shone.” 

“Who were they like?” 

“They were foreigners.” (i.e. not Chinese.) 

Later in the day a Christian woman brought in a heathen man. She was bursting to speak and dancing from one foot to the other in her eagerness. She said to the man: 

“Now, you can ask yourself.” 

“Who were standing out on the east verandah all last night?” 

“There was no one there. I locked the door to the verandah myself and all who were in the house were downstairs.” 

“No, there were many people there each time I opened my door to see if there was a fire anywhere near us. I couldn’t understand it, because everyone else wanted to be under cover on such a night.” 

“It must have been angels on guard.” 

“There, listen to that,” the woman said, “now you have heard it yourself, that is just what I said too.” 

The heathen saw them, it was a testimony to them, but they were invisible to us. It came powerfully to me and showed me how little we reckon with “The Lord, the God of hosts,” who sends forth His angels, mighty in strength, “to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14 RV). 

From that time, Psalms 84:12 was a word I learned to abide in consciously by faith for the rest of my time in China: “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.” 

This special protection was given for the sake of the three who were so unfit just then to face the grim things happening in the city; and the rest of us on the compound were included in it.

[This is a sample chapter from the book A Present Help by Marie Monsen]