Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1890 — WINGS OF LOVE. [ARTICLE]

WINGS OF LOVE.

THE SUBJECT OF DR. TALMAGE'S SUNDAY SERMON. Eternal Safety is Found Under Their Gentle Folds—Bat When He Flops Them the Universe Will Perish. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Text: Ruth ii, 21. He said: First: I remark that they were swift wings under which Ruth had come to trust There is nothing in all the handiwork of God more curious than a bird’s wings. You have been surprised, some times, to see how far it could fly with one stroke of the wing; and, when it has food in prospect, or when it is affrighted, the pulsations of the bird’s wing are unimaginable for velocity. The English lords used to pride themselves on the speed of their falcons. These birds, when tamed, had in them the dart of lightning. How swift were the carrier-pigeons in the time of Anthony and at the siege ot Jerusalem ! Wonderful speed ! A carrier-pigeon was thrown up at Rouen and came down at Ghent, ninety miles off, in one hour. The carrier-pigeons were the telegraphs of the olden time. Swallows have been shot in our latitude having the undigested rice of Georgia swamps in their crops, showing that they had come 400 miles in six hours. It has been estimated that in the ten years of swallow’s life, it flies far enough to have gone around the world eighty-nine times, so great is its velocity. And so the wings of the Almighty, spoken of in the text, are swift wings. They are swift when they drop upon a foe and swift when they come to help God’s- friends. If a father find be walking by the way and the child goes too near a precipice, hWlong does it take for the father to deliver the child from danger? Longer than it takes God to swoop for the rescue of his children. The fact is that you can not get away from the care of God. If you take the steamship or the swift rail-train, He is all the time along with you. “Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, and whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If 1 ascend up into heaven Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold ! Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Thy hand shall hold me.”

The Arabian gazelle is swift as the wind. If it gets but one glimpse of the hunter it puts many crags between. Solomon, four or five times, compares Christ to an Arabian gazelle (calling it another name) when he says: “My beloved is like a roe.” The difference is that the roe speeds the other way; Jesus speeds this, Who but Christ could have been quick enough to have helped Peter when the water pavement broke? Who but Christ could have been quick enough to help the Duke of Argyle when, in his dying moment, he cried: “Good cheer! I could die like a Roman, but I mean to die like a Christian. .Come away gentlemen. Re who goes first, goes cleanest.” I had a friend who stood by the railroad track at Carlisle, Penn., when the ammunition had given out at Antietam, and he saw the train from Harrisburg, freighted with phot and shell as it went thundering down toward the battle field. He said that it stopped not for any crossing. They put down the brakes for no grade. They held up for no peril. The wheels were on fire with the speed as they dashed past. If the train did not come up in time with the ammunition it might as well not come at all. So; my friends, there are times in our lives when we must have help immediately or perish. The grace that comes too late is no grace at aH. What you and I want is a God—now. Oh! if it not blessed to think that God is always in such quick pursuit of his dear children? When a sinner needs pardon or a baffled soul needs help, swifter than thrush’s wing, swifter than ptarmigan's wing, swifter than flamingo’s wing, swifter than eagle’s wing, are the wings of the Almighty. I remark further, carrying but the idea of my text, that the wings under which Ruth had come to trust were very broad wings. There have been eagles shot on i the Rocky Mountains with wings that were seven feet from tip to tip. When the king of the air sits on the crag, the wings are spread over all the eaglets in the eyrie, and. when the eagle starts from the rock, the shadow is like the spreading of a storm cloud- So the wings of God are wings. Ruth had been under those wings in her infantile days; in the days of her happy girlhood in Moab; in the day when qhe gave her hand to Mahlon, in her first marriage; in the day when she wept over his grave; in the day when she trudged out into the wilderness of poverty; in the days when she picked up the few straws of barley dropped by ancient custom in the way of the poor.

Oh! yes. the wings of God are broad wings. They corer up all our wants, all our sorrows, all our sufferings. He puts one wing over our cradle, and He puts the other over our grave. Yes. iny dear friends, it is not a desert in which we are placed; it is a nest. it is a Very hard nest, like th&t of the eagle, spread on the rock, with ragged moss and rough sticks, but still it is a nest; and although it may be very hard under us, over us are the wings of the Almighty. There sometimes comes a period in one's life when he feels forsaken. You said. • ‘Everything is against me. The world is against me. The Church is against •me. No sympathy; no hope. Every jbody that comes near n t me. I wondpr if there is a God any how!" Everything seems to begoi”

and at haphazard. There does not seem to be any hand on the helm. Job’s health fails. David’s Absalom gets to be a reprobate. Martha’s brother dies. Abraham’s Sarah goes into the grave of Machpelah. “Woe worth the day in which 1 was born,” has said many a Christian. David seemed to scream out in his sorrow as he said: “Is His mercy clean gone forever? And will He be favorable no more? And hath He in anger shut up His tender meroies?” Job, with his throat swollen’and ulcered until he could not even swallow the saliva that ran into his mouth, exclaims: “How long before thou wilt depart from me, and leave me alone, that I may swallow down my spittle?” Have there never been times in your life when you envied those who were buried? When you longed for the grave digger to do nis work for you? Oh, the faithlessness of the human heart! God’s wings are broad, whether we know it or not. Sometimes the mother bird goes away from the nest, and it’ seems very strange that she should leave the callow young. She plunges her beak into the bark of a tree, and she drops into the grain field, and into the chaff at the fearh door, and into the furrow after the plowboy, Meanwhile the birds in the nest shiver, and complain, and call, and wonder why the mother bird does pot come back. Ah, she has gone for food. After a while there is a whirr of wings, and the mother bird stands on the edge of the nest, and the little ones open their mouths and the food is dropped in; and then the old bird spreads out her feathers, and all is peace. So, sometimes, God leaves us. Ho goes off to get food for our soul, and then He comes back after a while to the nest and says: “Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it;” and He drops into it the sweet promises of His grace, and the love of God is shed abroad, and we are under His wings—the broad wings of the Almighty. Yes; they are very broad. There is room under those wings for the 1,600,000,000 of the race. You say: “Do not get the i nvitation too large, for there is nothing more awkward than to have more guests than acconimodations.” I know it. The Seamen’s Friend Society is inviting all the sailors. The Tract Society is inviting all the destitute, The Sabbath schools are inviting all the children. The Missionary Society is inviting all the heathen. The printing presses of the Bible Societies are going night and day, doing nothing but printing invitations to this great Gospel banquet. And are you not afraid that there will be more guests than accommodations? No! All who have been invited will not half fill up the table of God’s supply. There are chains for more. There are cups for more. God could with one feather of his wing cover up all those who have come, and when He spreads out both wings, they coyer all the earth and all the heavens. Ye Israelites, who went through the Red Sea, come under! Ye multitudes who have gone into glory for the last 6,000 years, come under! Ye 144,000, and the thousands and thousands, come under! Ye flying cherubim and archangel, fold your pinidns, and come under! And yet there is room! Ayl If God would have all the space under his wings occupied, He must make other worlds, and people them with other myriads, and have other Resurrection and Judgment Days; for broader than all space, broader than thought, wide as eternity, from tip to tip, are the wings of the Almighty! Oh, under such provisions as that can you not rejoice? Come under, ye wandering, ye weary, ye troubled, ye sinning, ye dying souls! Come under the wings of the Almighty. Whosoever will come, let him come. However ragged, however wretched, however abandoned, bowever woe-begone, therg~~ty—rnimr enough under the wings—under the broad wings of the Almighty! Oh, what a Gospel! So glorious, so magnificent in its provisions! I love to preach it. It is my life to preach it. It is my heaven to preach i£

I remark, further, that the wings under which Ruth came to trust were strong wings. The strength of a bird’s wing, of a sea fowl’s wing, for example, you might guess it from the fact that sometimes for five, six or seven days it seems to fly without resting. There have been condors in the Andes that could overcome an ox or a stag. There have been eagles that have picked up children and swung them to the top of the cliffs. The flap of an eagle’s wing has death in it to everything it strikes. There are birds whose wings are packed with strength to fly, to lift, to destroy. So the wings of God are strong wings, mighty to save, Mighty to destroy. 1 preach Him—“the Lord, strong and mighty; the Lord, mighty in battle!” He flapped His wing, and the anted!* luvlan world was gone. He flapped His wing and Babylon perished. He flap ped His wing and Herculaneum was buried. He flapped His wing and the Napoleonic dynasty eeased. Before the stroke of that pinion a fleet is nothing. An army is nothing An empire is nothing. A world is nothing. The universe is nothing. King —Eternal, Omnipotent—He asks no counsel from the thrones of heaven. He takes not the archangel into His cabinet. He wants none to draw His chariots, for they are the winds. None to load His baiteried, for they are the lightnings. None to tie the sandals of His feet, for they are the clouds. .Mighty to save. Our enemies may be strong, our sorrow violent. Our sins may be great But quicker than an eagle ever hurled from the crage a hawk or raven will the Lord strike back our sins and our temptations, if they assault us when we are at once seated on the eternal rock of His salvation. What a blessed thing it is to be defended by the strong wing of the Almighty! Stronger than the pelican's wing, stronger than the albatross’wing,

stronger than the condor’s wing are the wings of the Almighty. I have only One more thought to present. The wings under which Ruth had eome to trust were gentle wings. There is nothing softer than a feather. You have noticed when a bird returns from flight how gently it stoops over the nest. The young birds are not afraid of having their lives trampled out by the mother bird; the whip-poor-will drops into its nest of leaves, the creole into its casket of bark, the humming bird into its hammock of moss—gentle as the light And so says the Psalmist, He shall cover thee with His wing. Oh, the gentleness: of God! But even that figure does not fully set it forth, for I have sometimes looked into the bird’s nest and seen a dead' bird, its life having been trampled out by the mother bird. But no one that ever came under the feathers of the Almighty was trodden on. Blessed nest!, Warm nest! Why will men stay out in the cold to be shot of temptation and to be chilled by the blast, when there is divine shelter? More beautiful than any flower I ever saw are the hues of a bird’s plumage. Did you ever examine it? The blackbird, floating like a flake of darkness through the sunlight; the meadowlark, with head of fawn and throat of velvet and breast of gold; the red flamingo l flying over the Southern swamps like sparks from the iorge of the setting sun; tho pelican’s white and black, morning and night tangled in its wings, give but a very faint idea of the beauty that comes down over the soul when on it drop the feathers of the Almighty. Here fold your wings. This is the only safe nest. Every other nest will be destroyed. The prophet says so: “Though thou exalt thyself like the eagle, and set thy nest among the stars, yet will I bring thee down, saith the Lord of Hosts.” Under the swift wings, under the broad wings, under the strong wings, under the gentle wings of the Almighty, find' shelter until these calamities he overpast. Then when you want to change nests it will only be from the valley of 1 earth to the heights of heaven, and instead of “the wings of a dove,” for which David longed, not knowing that in the first mile of their flight they would give out, you would be conducted upward by the Lord God of Israel,' under whose wings, Ruth, the beautiful Moabitess, came to trust. God forbid that in this matter of eternal weal or woe we should be more stupid than the fowls of heaven, “for the stork knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their going; but my people know not the judgments of the Lord.”