The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-07-07
I preach this sermon Just before many


weeks in the country. Be careful how
YOU treat the birds. Remember they
are Gods favorites, and if you offend
them you offend him. He is so fond of
their voices that there are forests
where for hundred miles no human
foot has ever trod and no human ear
has ever listened. Those interninable
forests are concert halls with only one
auditor-the Lord God Almighty. He
builded these auditoriums of leaves and
sky and supports all that infinite min
strelsy for himself alone. Be careful
how you treat his favorite choir. In
Deuteronomy, he warns the people:
"If birds nest chance to be before
thee in the way in any tree or on the
ground, whether they be young ones
or eggs, thou shalt not take the dam
with the young, that it may be we'll
with thee, and that thou mayest pro-
long thy days" So You see your own
longevity is related to your treatment
of birds. Then go forth and attend
the minstrelsy.
Put off startling colors, which fright
en- the winged songsters in silence or
fight, and put on your more sober at
tire, and move noiselessly into the
woods, further and further into the
main road, and have no conversation,
for many a concert in and out of doors
has been ruined by persistent takers,
and then sit down or a messy bank,
Where a wild stream with headlong shock
Comes bawling down a bed of rock,
And after perhaps half an hour of in
tense solitude, there will be tap of a
bealx on n tree branch, far up, sounding
like the tap of a musical baton, and
then first there will be solo, followed
by duet or quartet, and afterward by
doxologies in all the tree tops and
amid all the branches, and il you have
a Bible along with you, and you can,
without rustling the leaves, turn to
the 14sth Psalm of David, and read:
"Praise the Lord. beasts, and all cat
tie. creeping things AMI flying owl"
and then turn over quietly to my text
and read, by them Shall the fowls of
the heaven have their habitA;iOn,
which sing among the branches"
While this summer more thaa usual
out of doors, let us have what my text
suggests. an out-of-doors religion.
What business had David with all the
advantages of costly religious service
and smoking incense on the altar to be
listening to the chantresses among the
tree branches? All! he wanted to make
himself and all who should come after
him more alert and more worshipful
amid the sweet sounds and beautiful
sights of the natural world.
There is an old church that needs to
be rededicated. 1t is older than st.
Pauls or st. Peters or St. Marks or st.
Sophia's or St. lsaac's 1t is the cathe-
dral of Nature. That is the church in
which the services of the millennium
will be held. The buildings fashioned
out of stone and brick and mortar will
not hold the people. Again the Mount
of Olives will be the pulpit. Again the
Jordan will be the baptistry. Again
the mountains will be the galleries.
Again the skies will be the blue ceiling.
Again the sunrise will be the front
door and the sunset the back door of
that temple. Again the clouds will be
the upholstery and the morning mist
the incense. Again the trees will be
the organ-loft where the fowls of
heaven have their habitation which
sing among the branches" Saint
Francis d'Assisi preached sermon to
birds and pronounced a benediction
upon them, but all birds preach to us,
and their benediction is almost super
nal.
While, this summer, among the works
of God, let us learn responsiveness.
Surely if we cannot sing, we can hum
a tune, and if we cannot hum n tune,
we can whistle. If we cannot be an
oriole, we can be quail. In some way
let us demonstrate our gratitude to
God. Let us not be beaten by the
chimney swallow and the humming
bird and the brown-thresher. Let us
try to set everything in our life to
music, and if we cannot give the
carol of the song sparrow, take
the plant of the hermit thrush.
Let our life be an anthem of
worship to the God who created us
and the Christ who ransomed US, and
our last song. May it be our best song!
The swan was thought by the ancients
never to sing except when dying. In
the time of Edward ". no one was al
lowed to own a swan except he were
kings son, or had considerable estate.
Through 100 or 200 years of life that
bird was said never to utter anything
like music, until its last moments were
come. and then, lifting its crested
beauty, it would pour forth song of
almost matchless thrill, resound-
ing through the groves. And so
although the struggles of life may
be too much for us, and we may
find it hard to sing at all, when the
last hour comes to you and me may
there be radiance from above and a
glory settling round that shall enable
us to utter song on the wings of
which we shall mount to where the
music never ceases and the raptures
never die.
What is that mo:hery' 1.-The swan, my
love:
He is floating down from his native grove.
No loved one. no nesting nigh.
He Is floating down by himself to die.
Death darkens his eye and unplumes his
wings,
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings,
Live so, my child, that when death shall
come,
Swan-like and sweet, il may watt thee homer"
African Slavery.
One of the curiosities of domestic
slavery in darkest Africa is that while
the native slave owner can, by custom,
compel his slaves to fight for him, and
possesses other extensive powers over
them. he cannot legally compel his
slaves to work for him. On the Congo
and its affiuents, native mot Moham-
Inedanl slave owners nay NaCeS to their