Connecticut western news., 1893-01-12

heard man once say, II now have my old mother on my hands," Ye storks on your way with food to your aged parents, shame himl
 THE PERsEcUTEp CHURCH.
 But wonder in this Bible sky flies 8 bird that is speckled. The prophet de- scribing the church cries out, "Mine heritage is unto me as 8 speckled bird; the birds round about are against her." So it was then; 80 1t is now. Holiness picked at. Conservation picked at. Be nevolence picked at. Usefulness picked at. A speckled bird is 8 peculiar bird; and that arouses the antipathy of all the beaks of the forest
 The church of God is a peculiar insti- tuition, and that is enough to evoke at- tack of the world, for 1t is a speckled bird to be picked at. The inconsistent cies of Christians are banquet on which multitudes get fat. They ascribe every dollar in the poor box and they will say that you dropped it there only that you might hear it ring. Invite them to Christ, and they will call you a fanatic, Let there be contention among Chris tians, and they will say: "Hurrahl The church is in decadence."
 Christ intended that his church should always remain a speckled bird. Let birds of another feather pick at her, but they cannot rob her of single plume. Like the albatross, she can sleep on the bosom of tempest. She has gone through the fires of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace and not got burned; through the waters of the Red sea and not been drowned; through the shipwreck on the breakers of Melita and not been foun- dered. Let all earth and he'll try to hunt down this speckled bird, but far above human scorn and internal assault it shall sing over every mountain top and fly over every nation, and her triumphant song shall be: ''The church of Godi The pillar and ground of the truth. The gates of hell shall not prevail against her."
 But we cannot stop here. From a tall cliff hanging over the sea hear the eagle calling unto the tempest and lift ing it's wing to s1nite the whirlwind. Moses, Jeremiah, Hosea and Habakkuk 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 it's head with dread full beak. Two or three of them can fill the heavens with clangor. But gener- ally 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 domin- ion all for itself.
 The black brown of its back, and the white of its lower feathers, and the fire of its eye, and the long flap of its wing make one glimpse of it as it swings down into the valley to pick up rabbit, or lamb, or a child and then swings back to its throne on the rock some thing never to be forgotten. Scattered about it's eyrie of .altitudinous solitude are the bones of it's 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, il, "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, futtereth over her young, spreading abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, SO the Lord alone did lead"
 WISDOM OF THE EAGLE.
 The old eagle first shoves the young one out of the nest in order to make 1t fly, and then takes it on her back and flies with it and shakes it of in the air, and if it seems like falling quickly files under 1t and takes it on her wing again. So God does with us. Disaster, failure in business, disappointment, bereave- ment, 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.
 Like an eagle, Christ has carried us on his back. At times we have been. shaken off, and when we were about to fall he came under us again and brought us out of the gloomy valley to the sun ny 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 devill
 When our time on earth is closed on these great wings of God we shall speed with infinite quickness from earth's mountains to heavens hills, and as from the eagles circuit under the sun men on the ground seem small and insignificant as lizards on rock, so all earthly things shall dwindle into speck, and the rag ing river of death so far beneath will seem smooth and glassy as Swiss lake.
 Itwas thought in ancient times that an eagle could not only mott its feathers in old age, but that after arriving to great age 1t would renew it's strength and be- come entirely young again. To this Isaiah alludes when he says: "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings of eagles" Even so the Christian in old age will renew his spiritual 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 glad dened child into the bosom of God.
 Yea, in this pathological study sec that Job says, His days fly as an eagle that hasteth to its prey The speed of a hungry eagle when it saw its prey score of miles distant was unimaginable. It went like thunderbolt for speed and power. So fly our days. Sixty minutes, each worth a heaven, since we assembled 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 it's prey" Be hz1I kl,af .I. o4 .-g