Arranged by
The Old Talmudic legend of Sandalphon, the angel of prayer, suggest a wonderful transformation as taking place in the human petitions that go up from earth’s lowly places and from unholy lips to heaven’s gate. Longfellow has wrought the beautiful legend into verse, telling of Sandalphon, the angel of prayer, waiting at the outer most gates of the City Celestial.
“And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands–
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal,
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.”
This old rabbinical legend, though but a legend, surely does not exaggerate the truth about the acceptableness of prayers. Earth’s sighs of faith and love and heart hunger, though without beauty, sweetness, or worthiness in themselves, float upward and are caught by the listening Intercessor, and in his holy, radiant hands are transformed into lovely and fragrant flowers, and pour their perfume throughout all heaven’s glorious mansions.