Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-01-19
GUDAMONG THEBIRD
DR.. TALMAGE DRAWS MANY LES
SONS FROM THE FOWLS.

birds in the Scriptures and Always to
Teach an Important Lesson-ornithoI.
ogy Is Surely n Divine Science.
BROOKLYN, Jan. s.-Dr. Talmage this
forming continued the course Of sermons
gun a few Sabbaths ago. Having
reached about the Astronomy Of the
Bible; or, God Among the Stars" and the
Chronology of the Bible; or, God Among
the Centuries" this morning he discoursed
on the "ornitholo2y OF the Bible; or, God
Among the Birds" The text was Mat
thew vi, %, Behold the fowls of the airl''
There is silence now in all our January
forests, except as the winds whistle through
the bare branches. Our northern woods
! are deserted concert halls. The organ lofts
In the temple of nature are hymnless. 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 TIE Deums
But the Bible is full of birds at all seasons
and prophets and patriarchs and apostles
and evangelists and Christ himself employ
them for moral and religious purposes
My text is an extract from the sermon on
the mount, and perhaps 1t was at a moment
when flock Of birds flew past that Christ
waved his hand toward them and said,
Behold the fowls Of the airl" And so, in
this course of sermons on God everywhere
preach to you this third sermon concern,
ing the Ornithology of the Bible; or, God
Among the Birds.
oRNITHoLoGy Is DIVINE.
Most of the other sciences you may study
or not study as you please Use your OWL
Judgment; exercise your own taste. But
about this science of ornithology we have
no option. The divine command is posi-
tive when 1t says in my text, Behold the
fowls of the air" That is, study their hab.
bits. Examine their colors. Notice theil
speed. See the hand of God in their con,
struction. 1t is easy for me to obey the
command of the text, for was brought ur
among this race of wings and from boyhood
heard their mathis at sunrise and their YES
pers ut sunset.
Their nests have been to me a fascina,
tion, and my satisfaction is that l never
robbed one of them, any more than would
steal child from a cradle, for bird is q
child Of the sky, and it's nest is the cradle
They are almost human, for they have
oAASAA tS'Oo tAId AfhoOov
thies, understand joy and grief, have conju.
gal and maternal instinct, wage wars and
entertain jealousies, have a language oi
their own and powers of association. Thank
God for birds and skies full of them. II
is useless to expect to understand the Bible
unless we study natural history.
Five hundred and ninety-three times does
the Bible allude to the facts of natural his
tory, and do not wonder that it makes SC
many illusions archaeological. The skies
and the 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 divine
truth. There are over forty species of birds
recognized in the Scriptures. Oh, what a
variety of wings in Pslestinel
The dove, the robin, the eagle the cor.
morant, or plunging bird, hurting itself
from sky to wave and with long beak
clutching its prey; the thrush, which espe-
cially dislikes Il crowd; the partridge; the
hawk, bold and ruthless, lowering head to
windward while watching for prey; the
swan, ut home among the marshes and
with feet so constructed it can walk on the
leaves of water plants; the raven, the lap
wing, malodoroUs, and in the Bible de-
nounced as inedible, though it has extraor-
dinary headdress; the stork, the ossifrage,
that always had habit of dropping on q
stone the turtle it had lifted and so killing
1t for food, and on one occasion mistook
the bald head of Echylus, the Greek
poet, for white stone and dropped q
turtle upon it, killing the famous Greek;
the cuckoo, with crested head and crimson
throat and wings snow tipped, but too lazy
to build its own nest and so having the
habit of depositing its eggs in nests belong
ing to other birds; the blue jay, the grouse,
the plover, the magpie, the kingisher; the
pelican, which is the caricature of all the
feathered creation; the owl, the goldfinch,
the bittern, the harrier, the bulbul, the
osprey; the vulture, that king of scav-
engers, with neck covered with repul-
sive down instead Of attractive feath-
ers; the quarrelsome startling, the swal-
low, flying q mile q minute and some
times ten hours in succession; the
heron, the quail, the peacock, the ostrich,
the lark, the crow, the kite. the bat,
the blackbird and many others, with all
colors, all sounds, all styles of fight, all
habits, all architecture of nests, leaving
nothing wanting in suggestiveness. They
were at 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, as the first man was
made on Saturday. Whatever else he had
or did not have, he should have music. The
first sound that struck the human ear was
birds voice.
THERE IS A CHRr9T1AN GEOLOGY.
Yea, Christian geology-for you know
there Is Christian geology as well as an
inidel geology-Christian geology comes
in and helps the Bible show what we owe
to the bird creation. Before the human
race came into this world the world was
occupied by reptiles and by all styles Of
destructive monsters-millions of creatures
loathsome and hideous God sent huge
birds to clear the earth of these creatures
before Adam and Eve were created. The
remains of these birds have been found i'm
bedded in the rocks. The skeleton Of one
eagle has been found twenty feet in height
and fifty feet from tip Of wing to tip Of
wing Many armies Of beaks and claws
were necessary to clear the earth of crea-
lures that would have destroyed the human
race with one clip. like to find this har-
mony Of revelation and science and to
have demonstrated that the God who made
the world made the Bible.
Moses, the greatest lawyer Of all time and
q great man for facts, had enough senti-
ment and poetry and musical taste to wel-
come the illumined wings and the voices
divinely drilled into the first chapter of
Genesis. How should Noah, the old ship
carpenter, 600 years of age, find out when
the world was flt again for human residence
after the universal freshetf 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 firna, for
the mountains were submerged. AS bird
first heralded the human race into the
world, now bird will help the human race