Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-06-13

rs Wen as 10 learn UOW 10 ueIeuu upon
ourselves. We must learn to trust
ourselves to the Heavenly Fathers
strength and care, as the eaglet trusts
| the mother bird 1t is a lesson of de-
| pendence as well as of effort. had a
| lesson of this kind when, with my
| Arab guides. some years ago. | climbed
the Egyptian pyramid of Cheops.
Each stone of that pyramid is about
| five feet high and two feet wide You
| give your outstretched hands to your
dusky guides. They pull and push you
up. Your head is dizzy with the awful
abyss you can see beneath, but still
| they keep on pulling and pushing you
up. You help them as much as you
can. Without your help they could do
nothing, but If you did not have their
| help you would be doomed Like that
| of the English tourist who, a few
| years ago, tried to climb the pyramid
alone, your body would soon be a man
| gled corpse below. As we must learn
from the text the duty of depending
| upon ourselves, so we must also learn
the duty of absolute dependence upon
| God.
But there is still another great les
son from the figure of an old parent
| eagle stirring up her nest After the
| young birds have once been pushed
off the eyrie and learned their own
| limitations, and also learned to trust
the parent, then they are ready to be
taught by the parentSbirds by object
lessons. When the eaglet once learns
! that if it-.does not obey the parent
| bird it viii be punished, then it will
not only willingly, but after awhile
gladly, obey what the mother and
| father bird teach it to do. First comes
| fear, then trust, then the attempt to
| initiate and to do as the parent bird
does.
1t has never been my privilege to see
an old eagle teaching her young how to
fly, but Sir Humphry Davy, the great
| English chemist, once saw this inter-
| esting spectacle. He gives a full de-
scription of the scene. First, the eagles
followed out exactly the picture of my
text. The young birds, with fear and
trembling, clrng to the rocks where
they were Matched, but the old birds
Sd11 10 lueuiSeIN6S 1u1S WOl 10, ILLS
won't do. These young birds must be
taught to fly" So the parent birds first
tried to coax the young to leave the
| nest. Then, when coaXing accomplish
ed nothing, they struck right and left
with their besks. With their powerful
talons they scattered the nest. Then
they gave the young big push, and off
the fedgelings went. Then the young
were carried back to the nest by the
broad wings of the parent bird. The
mother and father birds seemed to stop
awhile to have little talk. They
| seemed to say: Now, children, you
must obey me, whether you will or no.
And, as you must obey me l want you
to do it willingly. l want you to fol-
low my every movement. See how [
| raise my wings, so. l beat them in the
air just so. And now l begin to circle
round and round. Come, boys; come,
| girls. That is right. Now, try again
| Are you ready? Here we go up and up
and up. See how easy it is
Let me describe this object lesson in
| almost the same language with which
| Sir Humphry Davy described it when
| he saw the two old eagles, by their ac-
| tons, teaching their young how to fly
| above the crags of Ben Nevis: after
| the old birds had coaXed the eaglets off
| the eyrie they made small circles, which
| the young eaglets tried to initiate.
| Then the parent birds made larger and
larger circles in a gradually ascending
spiral until the birds, old and young,
were finally lost to view in the great
heaven of blue" Ah,> yes, the old
eagles teach the young eagles to fly,
first, by the sharp blow of the beak
and the pushing off the nest; second,
by the rescue and the bringing back to
the nest; third, by the object lessons,
which say: Come, children, do as l
am doing now. Come, lift your wings
as my wings flap, and go up and
up" God teaches US how to fly by
pushing us off into the great abyss of
trouble. He rescues us by the infinite
power of the atoning cross. He then
teaches US how to so up and up and up
by the object lessons Of Christ's earth
| ly life.
Ohrhsfs Life an Object Lesson.
Have you and 1 ever stopped to fully
consider how Christs earthly life was
| meant to be an object lesson for sinful
men, as the tapping wings of the old
| eagles are meant to be visible object
lessons to teach the young eagles how
to fly! God did not tell US how to be
good merely in the abstract, but he
tells US to be good as Jesus Christ was
good, because Christ was born bone of
our bone and flesh of our flesh and
suffered as we suffer and was tempted
as we are tempted. Thus Christ's life
is an object lesson to US in all our
trial We must do as he would do if
he were in our place.
He knows the bitter, weary way,
The endless strivings, dayNby day,
| The souls that weep, the souls that pray.
He knows. He knows.
But there is still another lesson to