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“The eye is a good messenger,

Which can to the heart in such manner

Tidings send as can ease it of its pain.”

Chaucer.

There are so many beautiful passages both in sacred and profane history alluding to messengers, in connection with our subject, that there is no doubt but as civilization progressed the word and its meaning laid the foundation for the many improvements which are to be found in our present postal system,—a system which now connects all nations together by a letter-line mode of communication.

There is a beautiful passage in Holy Writ from which, figuratively, we date the origin of first carrier or messenger: it is that of the dove that went forth from the ark. “And the dove came in to him in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”

THE RETURN OF THE DOVE.

“There was hope in the ark at the dawning of day,

When o’er the wide waters the dove flew away;

But when ere the night she came wearily back

With the leaf she had pluck’d on her desolate track,

The children of Noah knelt down and adored,

And utter’d in anthems their praise to the Lord.

Oh, bird of glad tidings! oh, joy in our pain!

Beautiful Dove, thou art welcome again.”

Mackay.

The name of messenger is derived from the Latin word missaticum, and this from missus, one sent. The old French mes was applied both to the message and the messager.

“But eare he thus had say’d,

With flying speede and seeming great pretence,

Came running in, much like a man dismay’d,

A messenger with letters, which his message say’d.”

Spenser.

Gower, the poet of the fourteenth century, says:—

“The raynbow is hir messagere.”

Angels are called “winged messengers.”

“The angels are still dispatched by God upon all his great messages to the world, and, therefore, their very name in Greek signifies a messenger.”—South, vol. viii. ser. 3.

Milton also thus beautifully alludes to the angel messengers:—

“For will deign

To visit the dwellings of just men

Delighted, and with frequent intercourse

Thither will send her winged messengers

On errands of supernal grace.”

Carriers, in connection with letters, are modern appendages to the post-office, and now form one of its most important branches. They are indeed welcome messengers.

“The very carrier that comes from him to her is a most welcome guest; and if he bring a letter she will read it twenty times over.”—Burton.