Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-01-20

that you might near tt ring. Invite them
20 Christ an they will call you a fanatic.
Let there be contention among Christians,
and they viii say: '.HurrahI The churc is
IN decadenca
Christ intande1 that His church should
always remain specalei bird. Let birds
of another feather PICK at her, bat they
cannot rob her OF single piuna. Like the
albatross, she can sleep on the bosom Of
tempest She has gone through the fires of
NebucbadnezzaTs furnace and not got
burned; throuz Oh tae waters of the Red sea
aud not been drowned; through the ship
wreck on thu breakers Of Melitis and not
been foundered Let all earth and nell try TO
hunt down this specified bird but far above
human scorn and internal assault it shall
sing over every mountain top and hy over
be: THE church of God! The pillar and
ground of the truth. The gates OF he'll shall
not prevail against her"
But we cannot stop here. From a tall
cliff hanging over the sea l hear the eagle
calling unto the tempest and lifting its
wings to smite the whirlwind. Moses, Jere-
niah, Hosea and daoakkuk at times In their
writings take their pen from the eagles
wing, It is bird with fierceness In its eye,
its feet armed with claws of iron and its
head with dreadful beak. Two Or three of
them can fill the heavens with clangor. But
generally this monster Of the air is alone
and unaccompanied, for the reason that its
habits are so predaceous it requires five or
ten miles of aerial or earthly dominion all
for itself.
The black brown of its back, AMI the
white Of its lower feathers, and the fire of
its eye, and the long flap of its wing make
glimpse of it as it swings down into the val
ley TO pick I'D rabbit, or lamb, or child
and then swings back TO its throne on the
rock something never to be forgotten. Scat
tered about its eyrie of altitudinous solitude
are the bones Of its conquests. But while
the beak and the claws of the eagle are the
terror of all the travellers of the air, the
mother eagle is most kind and gentle to her
young. God compares His treatment of His
people to the eagles care of the eaglets.
Deuteronomy xxi. II, ''As an eagle stir.
reth up her nest, f1uttereth over her young,
spreading abroad her wings, taketh them.
beareth them on her wings, SO the Lord
alone did lead"
The old eagle first shoves the young one
out of the nest in order to make It fy and
then takes it on her back and flies with it
and shakes it off IN the air, and il it seems
like falling quickly flies under it and takes
it on her Us again. SO God doaS with US.
Disaster, failure in business, disappoint-
ment, bereavement is only Gods way Of
shaking US out of our comfortable nest in
order that we may learn how TO fly. You
who are complaining that you have no faith
or courage of Christian zeal have had it too
easy. You never will learn to fly in that
comfortable nest.
back. At times we have been shaken off,
and when We were about to fail He came
under US again and brought US out of the
gloomy valley to the sunny mountain.
Never an eagle brooded with such love and
care over her young as Gods wings have
been over Us. Across what oceans of trouble
we have gone in safety upon the Almighty
wings! From what mountains of sin we
have been carried and at times have been
borne up far above the gunshot of the world
and the arrow of the devil.
When our time on earth is closed on these
great wings of God we shall speed with in
finite quickneSs from earth's mountains to
heavens hills, and as from the eagles cir
cult under the sun men on the ground seem
small and Insignificant as lizards on a rock,
so all earthly things shall dwindle into
speck, and the raging river Of death so far
beneath will seem smooth and CLASSY as a
Swiss lake.
It was thought in ancient times that an
eagle could not only mott its feathers in old
age, but that after arriving to great age it
would renew its strength and become en-
tirely young again. To this Isaiah alludes
when he says: "They that wait on the Lord
shall renew their strength. Thew shall
mount up with wings OF eagles" Even so
the Christian in old age will renew his spirit.
ual strength. He shall be young in ardor
and enthusiasm for Christ, and as the body
fails the soul will grow in elasticity till at
death it will spring up like a gladdened child
into the bosom OF God
Yea. in this archaeological study I see
that Job says, 'His DAYS fiy as an eagle that
hasteth to his prey" The speed of a hungry
eagle when it saw its pray score of miles
distant was unimaginable. 1t went like a
thunderbolt for speed AMI power So fly
our days. Sixty minutes. each worth
heaven, since we assem- ble1 in this place
have shot like lightning into eternity. The
old earth is rent and cracked under the
swift rush Of days and months and years
and ages Swift as an eagle that hasteth
to his prey" Behold the fowls of the air!
Have you considered that they have, as you
eyes so that one minute they may be tele-
scopic and the next microscopic, now seeing
something a mile away AMI by telescope
eyesight, and then dropping to its food on
the ground, able to see it close by and with
microscopic eyesight?
But what a senseless passage OF Scripture
that is, until you know the fact, which says,
''The sparrow hath found house and the
swallow nest for herself, where she may
lay her young, even thine affairs, y Lori or
Hosts, my King and my God" What has the
swallow TO do with the affairs Of the temple
at Jerusalem? All, you know that swallows
are all the worl1 over very tame, and IN
summer time they used to fly into the win
dows AMI doors of the temple at Jerus alem
and build nest on the altar wnere the
priests were offering sacrifices.
These swallows brought leaves and sticks
and fashioned nests on the affairs OF the tenn
pie and Matched the young sparrowS in those
nests and David had seen the young birds
picking their way out of the she'll while the
old swallows WATCHED, and no one In the
temple was cruel enough to disturb either
the old swallows or the young swallows, and
David burst out i'll Rhapsody, saying, The
swallow hath found a nest for herself, where
he, loxy