PROVERBS ABOUT BIRDS. HE Book of God often sends us down among our humbler fellowmortals to learn; but, probably, from none do we learn with more pleasure than from birds—those bright and mystical creatures, who have given to them so much more than we have attained to, of wing, voice, and skill-the bright, beautiful orphanage of the sky and the woods. "Yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them." They are among the most beautiful of God's creatures, and "not one is forgotten before God." Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, even Thine altars; "just as we find them building now in the old ivy-mantled church, or its turreted pinnacle. The Gothic ornaments of the old grey tower are not of much account with it; only there, amidst its carvings and foliations, it is able to find a home. And thus God, who cares for little things and little creatures, is able to enfold us. "Ye are of more value than many sparrows," and thus you have your dwelling-place in the great Church not made with hands, and build your nest in the Eternal Habitation. As the prophet says, "Leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the side of the hole's mouth; " be like a bird in the temple; so said an old writer, "God give me the sparrow's and the swallow's nest." Some would scorn that, and desire rather the glorious home of the eagle, or the solitary and distant sea-crag in which the sea-bird finds her home. But the Bible has an analogy and a blessing in both—in the eagle, which "renews its youth," and its likeness to lofty, spiritual states; and in the humbler nature which finds its nest in the shade of the altar and of the temple. God loves birds. It is like the tenderness of that Book,-so thoughtful, although often apparently so cruel,-that it thinks of the lone bird in the forest." When you have been in the deep shades of the wood, have you not seen some little bird, noiselessly passing from bough to bough, or to the spring bubbling up in the centre of the leafy shade? God has thought of that little bird. It is written, "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way, in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs. thou shalt not take the dam with the young, but thou shalt in anywis let the dam go, and take the young to thee, that it may be well with the and that thou mayest prolong thy days." Doth God take care of birds? 306 A PARABLE IN A TAILOR-BIRD'S NEST. Yes, even birds are not beneath His notice-He has thought of them and He loves them. God cares for the lone bird of the forest. Let us stop and think of a bird's nest. True, says the proverb, "A little bird wants but a little nest;" but then, says the other proverb, "Though a bird be ever so small, it always seeks a nest of its own;" and, "By little and little the bird makes its nest." And, anyhow, let it be ever so insignificant, what a wonderful little piece of architecture it is; not Gothic fanes nor Corinthian pillars, not the fluted marble nor the flowers of the Alhambra, are more wonderful, are so wonderful. He who wrought it had no tool, no knife to cut, no nail to fix, no glue to join ; his little beak was all-and yet how neatly finished. Not long years of apprenticeship, with all aids of tools and appliances to boot, could, in your hands or others, make such another. A bird's nest! A bird's home! Stop, Christian! Stop beneath those branches. Thy Saviour says, "Behold the birds!" Naturalists tell us of birds in the wide-spreading forests of America— the little woodpecker for instance. The top of the tree in which it usually builds is inhabited by monkeys,―fierce, cunning, and cruel,—of a particular kind; lower down, large snakes coil and twine about the trunk, waiting till some unwary animal comes within their spring; but yet, on the very edges of these trees, the bright woodpecker cheerfully builds his nest. There it hangs like a little bag from the tree; neither beast nor snake can touch it, or venture near its ingenious little home, its beautiful little pensile palace! Did you ever see The Little Tailor-bird's Nest? Also a wonderful little home, wondrously wrought—a leaf or two, a little tiny nest, so warm, so safe. One looks at it and says, "How good it is to be small!" And there it hangs; rave the tempest never so loudly, it is twisted so tightly to the branch, that the wind which tears the leaf from the tree will not touch it. Beautiful little tailor-bird! God devised for it, God designed for it. Go to the birds; "Ye are of more value than many birds." Why did God give to the little tailor-bird such instincts, and so cunning a bill, and place it there among the leaves? "O you of little faith," have you no nest in the tempest ? Know you not how to build in the storm? Take a leaf of the promises. Take that—“ You are of more value than they." He who taught them has taught you. He who taught them to use leaves, has taught you to use holy texts, the Holy Word. Wrap yourself warm in some precious text, or textlet; twine yourself round the branches of the Tree of Life; and then, let the winds raven ever so loudly, let the storms come on, how safely you are resting there, in the pensile palace of the Promise. You talk of Divine intelligence; but has God given intelligence of only one sort, or for one kind of creature? You think what intelligent creatures they are, be you intelligent too; they are wise, be you wise; they use their wisdom with wondrous sagacity, use yours to build yourself, your spirit, a home. PLEASANT PARABLES FROM A PAIR OF BISHOPS. 307 Why these words? why these thoughts? Put thy thought against God's word, and believe that He who provided for those has provided for thee. Go to the birds, and learn from them to rise to the altars of the Lord of Hosts, thy King and thy God; thy Refuge-the sparrow's refuge ! Wise men have found sweet parables while they have studied the birds. Bishop Hall has a beautiful meditation upon the occasion of a red-breast coming into his chamber, "Pretty bird, how cheerfully dost thou sit and sing, and yet knowest not where thou art, nor where thou shalt make thy next meal, and at night must shroud thyself in a bush for a lodging. What a shame it is for me, that I see before me so liberal provisions of my God, and find myself sitting warm under my roof, yet am ready to droop under a distrustful and unthankful dulness. Had I so little certainty of my harbour and purveyance, how heartless should I be, how careful, how little list should I have to make music to thee, or to myself; surely thou comest not hither without a providence. God sent thee, not so much to delight as to shame me, who, under more apparent means, am less cheerful and confident. Reason and faith have not done so much in me as, in thee, the mere instinct of nature; want of foresight makes thee more merry, if not more happy, here, than the foresight of better things maketh me. O God, Thy providence is not impaired by those powers Thou hast given me above these brute things; let not Thy greater helps hinder me from a holy security and comfortable reliance upon Thee." Thus our Lord's parabolic proverb, telling us to consider the birds, was turned by the meditative old bishop to very good account. John Pulsford's sermon of a little bird is very well known; and, to others, birds have been very effective preachers. The good bishop, Jeremy Taylor, sweeps with a noble wing of meditation, following the lark in his flight, " So have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and in hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighing of an Eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than all the vibrations of his wings served to exalt him, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was overpast; and then it made a prosperous flight, for then it did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from some angel, as he passed some time through the air. So is the prayer of a good man when agitated by any passion; he fain would speak to God, and his words are of this earth, earthy; he would look to his Maker, but he could not help seeing that which distanced him, and a tempest was raised, and the man overruled; his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled; his words ascended to the clouds, and the wanderings of his imagination recalled them, and, in all the fluctuating varieties of passion, they are never like to reach God at all; but he sits him down and sighs over 308 THE PARABLE OF THE MEROPS. his infirmity, and fixes his thoughts upon things above, and forgets all the little vain passages of this life, and his spirit is becalmed, and his soul is even and still, and then it softly and sweetly ascends to heaven. on holy wings, and dwells with God, until it returns laden with blessings and the dews of heaven." Otherwise man realizes in himself The Parable of the Merops. The proverb says, "He was in great want of a bird, who gave a groat for an owl," but, if all owls talked as wisely as in the following parable, they would be worth the money. "I have something more to ask you," said a young eagle to a learned, melancholy owl. "Men say there is a bird, by name Merops, who, when he rises in the air, flies with his tail upwards and his head towards the ground. Is that true!” "Certainly not," answered learned old spectacles, "it is only a foolish tradition of man; he is himself a Merops, for he would fly to heaven without for a moment losing sight of earth." Such is the parable of Lessing; it is only the meditation of Jeremy Taylor beneath another image. What suggestive things wings are! although the suggestion has always depended much upon the bird. "Noctua volavit," "An owl flew by us," was a variously interpreted proverb. These creatures with wings-how they rise, how they gleam! How the throat of the lark shows like speckled gold as he goes up through the blue lift! How the wing shows far out at sea like a white silvery sail! Our efforts to rise and to travel -our balloon, how clumsy-our railway, how slow, how ungainly, compared with their flight who only breathe and respire, and, as they respire, aspire and ascend! Behold the birds! Oh, the little things are full of mystery. A falcon was once set at liberty in Fontainebleau, and the next day it was found, by its ring, in Malta. In 1833 a Polish gentleman put an iron collar round a stork, with the inscription, "This stork comes from Poland," and set it at liberty. In 1834 the same bird returned to the same spot, to the same person, with a collar of gold, and the inscription, "India sends back the stork, to the Poles with gifts." Before such incidents, how can we talk of the laws of nature? Yet so true it is, "Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time, and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord." How marvellous are those migrations! They know. Behold the birds! They know; unerring instinct points the way for them. See that mighty flock on its way through the sky; no regiment ever marched with more order. See how they part company as the separate detachments arrive at the wellknown fields and woods. They know. Go to the birds! Has man no instincts, or, if he has, are they only the instincts of an animal and a creature? Is there nothing within thee which invites to flight? You have not wings, but you have instincts. How suggestive are the wings WHERE ARE THE BIRDS IN WINTER? of birds! Suggestive of what? 309 Hast thou no heaven, no blue lift or country beyond the blue? Hast thou no home? Hast thou not a fatherland? Who has not from childhood to age rejoiced to see the bird, "Whom man loves best The pious bird with scarlet breast, Our little English Robin ? The bird that comes about our doors The bird who by some name or other Of whom the same poet, Wordsworth, says "He needs not fear the season's rage, The love of these pleasant little creatures is very simple and natural ; and our affection to them has the advantage over many other affections, that it does not need to be stirred up with a golden spoon. What is that within thee which brings a tear to thine eye while the lark, poised on the wing, shakes down its notes from the upper air? "That happy, happy liver, With a song as strong as a mountain river, What makes the shout of the cuckoo so mystical through the depths of the wood, from the far-off hill? We think it is something from afar echoing that cry, saying, "Come home! come home! come home!" We think it is something within thee, saying, "I will take wing-I will arise and go to my Father." Very suggestive is a bird on the wing. Through birds we get to love all creatures; they are so pensive, and yet so confident. Often it seems to us that Providence, cheerfulness, and purpose all gleam out to us as we see the dear flash of a bird's wing. Go to the birds. Whither do they go in the winter? How safely they sleep so long, and each little head buried beneath its wing; or, as we have seen, they travel far away; some presentiment, even when all things are bright and fair, bids them to begin their journey, and away. Exquisite sensibility, almighty law, and then the winter rest. Almighty intelligence, let me adore thee, “for who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?" Let us think of God; what He does with the birds in winter. We often think that perhaps God buries the birds. They do not meet us in our walk; they do not lie dead beneath our feet. God cares for them. Where do they die, and where do they fall in winter? "Ye are of more value than the birds." "Be of good cheer." Go to the birds, and learn faith in Almighty protection; think what the sparrow finds"a place," "a rest for herself," "there she lays her young." We hope |