We are told that in the revision of the Bible the passage, “And I
beheld an angel flying through the midst of heaven,” has been changed to
“eagle,” and that all allusions to angels have been changed to “eagles.”
This knocks the everlasting spots out of the angel business, and the
poetry of wanting to be an angel, “and with the angels stand,” has
become the veriest prose.
We have never had any particular desire to stand with angels, not this
year, but there was a certain beauty in the idea that we would all be
angels when we got through whooping it up down here and went to heaven.
Particularly was this the case with children and women, and old persons,
and to have the angel business wiped out by a lot of white chokered
revisers is too much. There are many of us that would never make very
attractive angels, unless we were altered over a good deal, and made
smaller.
Some of us, to pass current among angels, would have to wear wigs. How
would a male bald-headed angel, with a red nose, and one eye gone, look
flying a match through the blue ethereal space with a trim built girl
angel? The other angels would just sit around on the ground, picking pin
feathers out of their wings, and laugh so a fellow would want to go off
somewhere and get behind a tree and condemn his luck.
There are few men who would be improved by fastening wings on their
shoulder blades, and we never believed they could make the thing work,
but the preachers have kept pounding it into us until we all got an idea
there would be some process that could transform us into angels that
would pass in a crowd.
Now, you take Long John Wentworth, of Chicago, a man seven feet high,
and weighing four hundred pounds. What kind of an angel would he make?
They would have to put wings on him as big as a side show tent, or he
never could make any headway. Just imagine John circling around over
the New Jerusalem, until he saw a twenty dollar gold piece loose in the
pavement of the golden streets. He would cut loose and go down there so
quick it would break him all up.
And then suppose angel Storey, of the _Times_, and angel Medill, of the
_Tribune_, should have got their eyes on that loose gold piece, and
got there about the same time before angel John arrived, and should be
quarreling over it? John would knock Storey over onto a hydrant with one
wing, and mash angel Medill in the gutter with the other, and take the
gold piece in his toes and fly off to where the choir was singing, and
break them all up singing, “You'll never miss the water till the well
runs dry.”
We have never taken a great deal of stock in the angel doctrine, because
we knew pretty well what kind of material they would have to be made of,
but we had rather be an angel than an eagle. Who the deuce wants to
die and be an eagle, like “Old Abe,” and eat rats? In a heaven full of
eagles there would be the worst clawing that ever was, and the air would
be full of feathers. Eagles won't do, and the revisers ought to have
known it.
If we have got to be anything let us insist on being angels, via the
Bible, and then we can have some fun. With big flocks of angels, and
good weather, and nothing to do but to sing praises and browse around to
pass away the time, and no rent to pay, and no bills of any kind to
keep track of, it does seem as though some of us could think of some
tableaux, or picnic, or something to have a good time, but let us strike
on being eagles, revisers or no revisers.