Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-01-14
AMONG THE BIRDS.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the Or
anthology of the Bible.
Lessons Taught By the Fowls Of tho Afr
The Partridge and the Fate of Fraud
The speckled Bird-The Eagle
and the Almighty.

In continuing his series of sermons
:at Brooklyn Rev. I. Dewitt Talmage
in a late discourse took for his subject
the "Ornithology of the Bible; or, God
Among the Birds" The text was Mat
thew, vi 70: "Dehold the fowls OF the
air." He said
There is silence now in all our Janu-
AIRY forests. except as the wind whistles
through the bare branches. Our north
.ern woods are deserted concert halls.
The organ lofts in the temple of nature
.nre hymnlpss Trees which were full
of carol and chirp and chant are now
waiting for the coming back of rich
,plumes and warbling voices, solos,
duets, quartets, cantatas and Te
Deums. But the Bible is full OF
birds Mt all seasons, and prophets and
-patriarchs and apostles and evangel-
lists and Christ himself employ them
for moral and religious purposes. My
text is an extract from the Sermon on
the Mount, and perhaps it was at n
moment when flock of birds flew past
that Christ waved his hand toward
them, and said: Behold the fowls OF
the air." And so, in this course of SER
mons on God Everywhere" preach
to you this third sermon concerning
the Ornithology of the Bible, or God
Among the Birds"
1t is useless to expect to understand
the Bible unless we study natural his
tory Five hundred and ninety-three
times does the Bible allude to the facts
of natural history, and do not wonder
that it makes so many illusions orni-
Theological The skies andthe caverns of
Palestine are friendly to the winged
creatures and so many fly and roost
and nest and hatch in that region that
inspired writers do not have far to go
to get ornithological illustration of di-
vine truth. There are over forty species
of birds recognized in the Scriptures.
They were ut the creation placed all
around on the rocks and in the trees
and on the ground to serenade Adams
arrival. They took their places on
Friday rs the first man was made on
Saturday Whatever else he had or did
not have he should have music. The
'IlrSJ SOuI1u blldJ SUIuCh IiC iiuihdh SoA
was birds voice
Moses, the great lawyer of all time
and great man for facts, had enough
sentiment and poetry and musical
taste to welcome the illumined wings
and the voices divinely drilled into the
first chapter of Genesis. How should
Noah, the old ship carpenter, 600 years
of AGO, find out when the world was fit
again for human residence after the
universal freshet? A bird will tell and
nothing else can. No man can come
down from the mountain to- invite Noah
and his family out to terra firma, for
the mountains were submerged. AS
bird first heralded the human race into
the world, now bird will help the hui
man rack back to the world that had
shipped sea that whelmed everything.
Noah stands on Sunday morning at the
window of the ark, in his hand cooling
dove, so gentle, SO innocent, so atfec-
tionate, and he said: snow, my little
dove, fly away over these waters, ex-
plore. and come back and tell us
whether it is safe to land" After a
long flight it returned hungry and
weary and wet, and by its looks and
manners said to Noah and his family:
THE world is not fit for you to disem-
bark" Noah waited q week, and next
Sunday morning he let the dove fly
again for a second exploration, and
Sunday evening it came back with
leaf that had the sign of just having
been pluclSed from living fruit tree.
and the bird reported the world would
do tolerably well for bird to live in,
but not yet sufficiently recovered for
human residence. Noah waited anoth-
.er week, and next Sunday morning he
sent out the dove on the third explora-
ton, but it returned not, for it found
the world so attractive now it did not
want to be Gagged again, and then the
-emigrants from the antediluvian world
landed. 1t was a bird that told them
when to take possession of the resusci-
tated planet So the human race were
saved by birds wing; for attempting
to land too soon, they would have per-
ished
Ave, here come whole flock of doves
.-rock-doves, ring-doves, stoclI-doves-
and they make Isaiah think of great re-
-vivals and great awakenings whom
souls fly for shelter like a flock OF
pigeons swooping to the openings of a
pigeon coop, and he cries out: "Who
are these that fly as doves to their win
-dows?" David, with Saul after him,
and flying from cavern TO cavern. COM
pares himself to a desert partridge, a
bird which especially haunts rocky
places, and boys and hunters to this day
take after it with sticks, for the par
fridge runs rather than flies David,
chased and dubbed and harried of pur-
suers. says: lam hunted as partridge
on the mountains" Speaking of his
-. ..lsAi... hc eng. 81 ilEa n