The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-25
DIR. TALMACE'S SERMON.
sv TIE REV. FRANK DE WITT rALMAeE. D. D.

ander Wilson, the naturalsl. Statements made bv this Scottish-Amerean traveler were endorsed by John Audubon Among the ornithological authorities there can he no better indorsement than this: 'sMr Wilson wrote that down in Kentucky In a place which migrating doves used to visit annually, their multtudes were ! so great that they literally destroyed whole forest regions. In this tract about which he wrote the branches of every tree were filled with dove nests wherever | nest could be built. In many trees over one hundred nests had been con | l structed Above the trees the multi | tndes of the pigeons wings were so great that their Tapping wings sounded like the boomings of a tornado. So great was the noise of their Tapping wings that the horses of the farmers in that region often became unmanageable and coul.: not be driven. Near Frankfort, Ky. Alexander Wilson saw flock of migrat- ing doves. The naturalist estimated that the single flock was 240 miles long and had an enrolment of at least 223O00O,- PIP birds
 Isaiah describing the consecrated wor- shipers Hooking to the millennial church could not have chosen more expressive figure "These that fly as a cloud ana as readers of his time would realize by it what countless throngs of men he saw in prophetic vision hastening into the king dom of God. Migrating doves of old were so many in numbers that Alexan- der Wilson said their moving wings often formed a curtain able to shut out the light of the sun and changed midnoon into , the twilight of evening. The church of God is now great in membership, but church members do not look forward in holy ectasy to the time when the thou sands who are worshiping Christ now shall be changed into the millions? Do you not long for the millennial day when Christs disciples shall flock through the church doors in innumerable multitudes as the doves fly to their windows?"
 Men of Living Faith
 The figure is expressive not only of numbers, but of spiritual qualities. The church of the future is not to have a padded roll. It is not to be composed of a lot of members who, as the five fool ish virgins of Christ's parable, lounged around and slept and had no oil for their spiritual lamps. It is not to be composed of men and women who occupy their church pews only on Sunday and then when the benediction of the sermon is given turn and shut their pew doors and say: "Goodby religion I must go home now. You just stay here for week, and next Sunday morning I will come back and see you and pat you on the back for an hour again while the choir sings and the pastor prays." But in that church which Isaiah saw in prophecy not only shall there be multi tudes of worshipers, but all these multi tudes shall be consecrated worshipers. These many worshipers shall be men of living faith. to whom the presence of God is an abiding reality, influencing them wherever they go and in every mo- ment of their lives. As Dr. Josiah Strong wrote in his opening chapter: 'The supreme need of the world is a real God; not a great perhaps but the great l am; not God of yesterday or tomor- TOW, but of today; not an absentee God, but one who is precisely here; not a Sum day God but an everyday God" Such shall be the spiritual quality of the null titudes of worshipers seen by Isaiah in the symbol of the flying doves.
 The symbol of the dove Is also signifi- cant on account of the habits and dispo- sition of the bird It is used as a simie for gentleness and affection. The dove always will be recognized from among all feathered tribes as the most excep-
 
 laureate of England, in a beautiful rhyth- mic masterpiece. once enunciated the doc Urine that multitudes can make an ob- ject despised when it should be admired Said he:
 Once in a golden hour cast to earth seed
 Up there came fiower-the people said,
 a weed.
 To and fro they went through my gar
 den bower
 And muttering discomfort, cursed me and
 my flower.
 Then it grew so tall 1t wore a crown of
 light.
 But thieves from OCT the wall stole the
 seed by night,
 Slowed 1t far and wide by every town and tower,
 Till all the people cried, Splendid is the
 fower.'
 Read my little fable; he that runs may
 read.
 Most can raise the flowers now, for all
 have got the seed.
 And some are pretty enough, and some
 are poor indeed
 And now again the people call it but a.
 weed.
 But though "black eyed Susanse or the golden spore" or the "blue eyed vio- lets on account of their great multitudes may be called a common flower-a weed the dove, in spite of her multitudes, has never been called a common bird. The dove always has been and always will be the symbol of purity, gentleness and love. This symbol was recognized in heather times. Because the dove sig nifed purity Venus had this bird as her emblem. Dean Stanley in relating his oriental travels writes thus about the ruins of Ascalon: "The temple erected to the Syrian Venus is destroyed, but the sacred doves-sacred by innumerable le- gends of the spot and celebrated there even as lata as Eusebius-stil fill with their cooings the 1uxuriant gardens which grow in the sandy holows within the ruined walls.''
 Nurtured by Dove.
 In the beautiful mythologcal legend Semiramis. the queen, was said in her youth to have been nurtured by dove and at death to have been changed Into a dove. We find, however in Christian nomenclature the dove Is also the symbol of purity and gentleness and divine love. | In the Bible the dove has the most hal- | lowed of associations. It was as a dove | that the Holy Spirit appeared at the baptism of Jesus. It was two doves that the blessed Virgin presented at the tenn pie as an oblation for her purfcation | after the divine birth. What says the psalmist in reference to the mans re- demption from sin and his cleansing through the blood of Jesus Christ? "Though ye have lain among the pets, ,1..