Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-07-01

connected with home ransacls our entire
nature with holy power, and songs that
| get well started in the nursery or " the
| family hearth roll on after the lips that sung
them are forever silent and the ears that first
heard them forever cease to hear.
Be careful how you treat the birds. Re.
member 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 a
hundred miles no human foot has ever troi
and no human ear has ever listened.
| Put of startling colors, which Brighten the
winged songsters into silence or flight, AMI
| put on your more sober attire and move
noiselessly into the woods farther and far
Their from the main road and have no CONVEX
sation, for many a concert in and out of doors
has been ruined by persistent takers, and
then sit down messy bank
| Where wild stream with hea Hong shock
Comes brawling down a bed Of rock
And after perhapsa half an hour OF intense
solitude there will be tap of beak on
free branch far up, sounding like the tap of a
musical baton, and then first there will be
solo, followed by a duet or quartet, and after
ward 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 one hun
dred and forty-ei. ,hth Psalm of David and
read, Praise the Lord, beasts and all cattle,
creeping things and flying fowl" and then
turn over quietly to my text and read, ''By
them shall the fowls of the heaven have
their habitation, which sing among the
branches, or If under the power of the bird
voices you are transported, as when Doctor
Morgan played so powerfully on the organ at
St. Johns that Richard Cecil said he was in
such blessed bewilderment he could not find in
his Bible the first chapter of Isaiah, though
he leafed the book over and over, and you
shall be so overcome with forest harmony
that you cannot find the Psalms of David,
never mind, for God will speak to you SO
nightly 1t will make no difference whether
you hear His voice from the printed page or
the vibrating throat OF one OF His plumed
creatures.
While this summer more than 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 relig-
lous service and smoking incense on the al
tar. to be listening to the chantresses among
the tree branches? All J 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. Paufs or st. Peters or st. Marks or st.
Sophia's or st, Isaac's. 1t is the cathedral OF
nature That is the church in which the SER
vices of the millennium will be held. The
buildings fashioned out of stone and brick
Again the mount of Olives will be the
pulpit Again the Jordan will be the
baptistry. Again the mount inns 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 hab-
itation, which sing among the
branches" ST. Francis d'Assisi preached
sermon to birds and pronounced a benedic-
ton upon them. but all birds preach to US,
and their benediction is almost supernal.
In the time of Edward " no one was
allowed to own swan except he were
king 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 moment came, and then lifting its
crested beauty it would pour forth
song of almost matchless thrill re-
sounding 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 glory settling round that shall enable
us to utter a song on the wings of which we
shall monnt to where the music never ceases
and the raptures never die.
''What is that, mother?" 'eThe swan, my love;
He is floating down from his native grove
No loved one, nesting nigh
He is heating down by hims- iii to die.
Death darkens his eve and unpumes his wings.
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings.
Live so, my child, that when death shall come
Swanlike and sweet, IT may watt thee home"