Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1893-01-09

window Of the ARK, IN MS mana COO
ing dove so gentle, so innocent, so afee-
tlonate, and he said: Nov, my lit
Ito dove, Ay away over these wa
tiers. explore, and come back and tell
ms whether it is safe to land" After
long flight il returned hungry and
weary and wet, and by its looks and
manners, said Noah to his family: "Ehe
world is lot tit for you TO diSembark."
Noah waited week, and next Sunday
morning he let The dove fly again for
second exploration, and
SUNDAY EVENING IT CANE BACK
with a leaf that had the sign Of just
having been plucked from living fruit
tree, and the bird reported the world
would do tolerably well for bird to
live in, but not yet sufficiently recover
ed for human residence. Noah waited
for another week, aud next Sunday
morning he sent out the dove on the
third exploration, but it returned not,
for it found the world so attractive now
il did not want to be Gagged again, and
then the emigrants from the ante-dilu-
Wan world landed. 1t was bird that
told them when to take possession OF
the resuscitated planet. So the hu-
man race were saved by birds
wing; FOR attempting TO land too
soon, they would have persisted.
Yonder in the Bible sky flies a bird
that is speckled. The prophet describ-
Ing the church cries out: milne her
itage is unto me as a speckled bird, the
birds round about are against her." So
it was then; so it is now. Holiness
picked at. Conservation picked at.
Benevolence picked at. Usefulness
picked at. A speckled bird is pecu-
liar bird, and that arOuses the anti
patty OF all the beaks of the forest.
The Church of God is peculiar insti-
tuition, and that is enough to evoke at
tack Of the world, for il is a speckled
bird to be picked at. The inconsisten-
cies Of Christians are a banquet on
which multitudeS get fat. They as
cribe everything You do to wrong mo-
tives. Put a dollar in the poor box and
they will say that ne dropped it there
only that he might hear il ring. Invite
them TO Christ and they will call you a
fanatic. Let there be contention among
Christians, and they will say "Hurrah!
the church is in decadence. Christ in
ended that His church should always
remain a Specked 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 a tenn
pest. She has gone through the fires OF
Nebuchadnezzar 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 fOundered. Let all earth
and hell try to hunt down this speckled
bird, but far above human scOrn and in
fernal assault it shall sing over every
mountain-top sud fly over every nation,
and her triumphant song shall be: THE
Church OF God 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, l hear
the eagle calling unto the tempest and
lifting its wing to Smite the whirlwind.
Moses. Jeremiah, Hosea and Habak-
kus, at times In their writings, take
their pen from the eagles wing. 1t Is
a bird with fierceness in its eye, its
feet armed with claws Of iron, and its
head with a 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 1t 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 il as it swings down into the
valley to pick up rabbit or lamb or
child and then swings back to its throne
on the rock, something never TO be for
gotten. Scattered about its eryie OF
altitudinous solitude are the bones OF
its contests. 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 mis- treatment Of
his people TO the eagles care OF the
eaglets. Deuteronomy 80, II: GAS an
eagle stirreth up her nest, tluttereth
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 u axe it fly, and then
takes 1t 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 il on her wing again. So
God does with US. Disaster, failure In
business, disappointment, bereavement,
is only Gods way of shaking US out OF
our comfortable nest 10 order that we
may learn how to fly. You who are
complaining that you have no faith or
courage or 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 of, and
when we were about to fall, he came
under US again aud brought US out OF
the gloomy valley to the sunny noun
tain. Never an eagle brooded with
such love and care over her
yonng as Gods wings have been
over US. Across what oceans of trouble
we have gone in safety upon the Al
mighty 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 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 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 Swiss lake.