Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1894 — INSTINCTIVE WISDOM. [ARTICLE]

INSTINCTIVE WISDOM.

‘ '‘The Stork in the Heavens „ Knoweth Her Appointed Time.” The Instructive Lessons Drawn From Birds—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon For the Press. The Rev. Dr. Talmage, who has left India, „and is now on his homeward journey, selected as the subject for his sermon last Sunday, the press,- “-October Thoughts," his text being JerenAiah viii, 7. “The stork in the Heaven knoweth her appointed times, and -< the turtle and the crane, and the Swallow observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the judgtnent of the Lord.” When God would set fast a beautiful thought he plants it in a tree. When he would put it afloat he fashions it into a fish. When he would have it glide the air he molds it into a bird. Mv text speaks of four birds of beautiful instinct —the stork, of such strong affection that it is allowed familiarly to come in Holland and Germany and build its nest over the doorway; the sweet dispositioned turtle dove, mingling in color white and black and brown and ashen and chestnut; the with a voice the clang of a trumpet; the swallow, swift as the dart shot out of the bow of heaven, falling, mounting, skimming, sailing —four birds started by the prophet twenty-five centuries ago; yet flying on through the ages, with rousing truth under glossy wing and in the clutch of stout claw. I suppose it may have been this very season of the year —autumn —and the prophet out of doors, thinking of the impenitence of the people of his day, hears a great cry overhead. ' ~ . Now, you know, it is no easy thing for one with ordinary delicacy of eyesight to look into the deep blue .of noonday heaven, but the prophet looks up, and there are flocks of storks and turtle doves and cranes

and swallows drawn out in long lines -for flight southward. As is their habit, the cranes had arranged themselves in two lines, making an angle, a wedge, splitting the air with wild velocity, the old crane, with commanding call, bidding them onward, while the towns and cities ahd continents slid under them. The prophet, almost blinded from looking into the dazzling heavens, stoops down and begins to think how much superior the birds are in sagacity about their safety than men about theirs, and he puts his hand upon the pen and begins to write, “The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.” I propose, so far as God may help me in this sermon, carrying out the idea of the text, to show that the birds of the air have more sagacity than men. And I begin by particularizing and saying that they mingle music with their work. The most serious undertaking of a bird’s life is this annual flight southward. Naturalists tell us that they arrive thin ftnd weary and plumage ruffled, and yet they go singing all the way—the ground the lower line of the music, the sky the upper line of the music, themselves the notes scattered up and down between. I suppose their song gives elasticity to their wing and helps on with the journey, dwindling one thousand miles into four hundred. Would to God that we were as wise as they in mingling Christian song with our everyday work! 1 believe there is such a thing as taking the pitch of Christian devotion in the morning and keeping it all the day. I think we? might take some of the dullest, heaviest, most disagreeable work of our life and set it to the tune of “Antioch” or “Monnt Pisgah. ” It is a good sign when you hear a workman whistle. It is a better ' sign when you hear him hum a roundelay. It is a still better sign when you hear him sing the words of Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley. A violin chorded and strung, *if some- . thing accidentally strikes it, makes | music, and I suppose there is such a thing as having our hearts so at-* tuned by divine grace that even the rough collisions of life will make - heavenly vibration. Ido not believe that the power of Christian song has yet been full tried. I believe that if you could roll the “Old Hundred” doxology through the street it would ► potanendto any panic. I believe jthat the discords, and the sorrows, and the sins of the world are to be ,<iwept out by heaven born hallelujahs. Some one asked Haydn, the celebrated musician, why he always composed such cheerful music. “Why,” he said, “I Can't do otherwise. When I think of God my soul is so full of joy that the notes leap and dance from my pen." I wish we might all exult melodiously before the Lord. With God for our Father and Christ for our Saviour and heaven for our home and angels for future compan'fons and eternity for a lifetime, we should strike all the notes of joy. Going through the wilderness of this •world let us remember that we are on the way to the summery clime of heaven and from the migratory populations flyjng through this autumnal air learn always to keep singing. I go further and say that the birds of the air are wiser than we, in the fact that in their migration they fly very high. During the summer when they are in the fields they often come within reach of the gun, but when they start for the annual flight, southward they take their

places midheaven and go straight as a mark. The longest rifle that was ever brought to shoulder cannot reach them. Would to God that we were as wise as the stork and crane in our flight heaven ward. We fly so low that we are within easy range of the world, the flesh and the devil. We are brought down by temptations that ought not to come within a mile of reaching us. We go out, and we conquer our temptations by the grace of God aud lie down.* On the morrow those temptations rally themselves and attack us, and by the grace of God we defeat them again, but staving all the time in the old encampment we have the same old battles to fight over. Why not whip out our temptations and then forward march, making one raid through the enemy’s counti-y, stopping not until we break ranks after the last victory.. Do, my brethren, let us have some novelty of combat at anv rate, by changing, by going on, by making advancement, trading off our stale prayers about sins we ought to have quit long ago, going on toward a higher state of Christian character and routing out sins that we have never thought of yet. The fact is, if the church of God, if we as individuals make rapid advancement in Christian life, these stereotyped prayers we have been making for ten or fifteen years would be as inappropriate to us as the shoes and the hats, and the coats we wore ten or fifteen years ago. Oh, for a higher flight in the Christian life, the stork and the crane in their migration teaching us the lesson! Again I remark that the birds of the air are wiser than we, because they know when to start. If you should go out now and shout, “Stop, storks and cranes," don’t be in a hurry!” they would say: “No, we cannot stop. Last night we heard the roaring in the woods bidding us away, and the shrill flute of the north, wind has sounded the retreat. We must go.” So they gather themselves intWcbihpahiesT" and turning uot aside for storm or mountain top or shock of musketry, over land, sea, straight as an arrow to the mark, they go. And if you come out this morning with a sack of corn and throw it in the fields and try to get them to stop they are so far up they would hardly see it. They are on their way south. You could not stop them. Oh, that we were as wise about the best time to start for God and heaven. We say: “Wait until it’s a little later in the season of mercy. Wait until some of these green leaves of hope are all dried up and have been scattered. Wait until next year.” After awhile we start, and it is too late, and we perish in the way when God’s wrath is kindled but a little.

Some of you have felt the pinching frost of sin. You feel it today. You are not happy. I look into your faces, aud I know you are not happy. There are voices within your soul that will not be silenced, telling you that you are sinners and undone forever. What are you going to do, my friends, with the accumu- - lated transgressions of this lifetime? Will you stand still and let the avalanche tumble over you? Oh, that you would go away into the warm heart of God’s mercy. The southern grove, redolent with magnolia and cactus, never waited for northern flocks as God has waited for you, saying: “1 have loved thee with an everlasting love. Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Another frost is bidding you away—it is the frost of sorrow. Where do you live now? “Oh,” you say, “I have moved.” Why did you move? You say, “I don’t want as large a house now a 9 formerly.” Why do you not want as large a house? You say, “My family is not so large." Where have they gone to? Eternity! Your mind goes back through that last sickness and through the almost supernatural effort to keep life, and those prayers that seemed unavailing, and through that kiss which received no response because the lips were lifeless, and 1 hear the bells tolling and I hear the hearts breaking while I speak I hear them break. A heart! Another heart! Alone, alone, alone! This world, which in your girlhood and boyhood was sunshine, is cold now, and, oh, weary dove, you fly around this world as "though you would like to stay, when the wind, and the frost, and the blackening clouds would bid you awav into the heart of allcomforting God. The world comes up and says, “Oh, it is only the body of your loved one that you have put into the ground." But there is no comfort in that. That body is pre cious. Shall we never put our hand in that band again, and shall we never see that sweet face again? Away with your heartlessness, O world! But come Jesus, and tell us that when the tears fall they fall into God’s bottle; that the dear bodies of our loved ones shall rise radiant in the resurrection, and that all the breakings downs here shall be listings up there, and “they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat, for the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes.” You may have noticed that when the chaffinch, or the stork, or the crane starts on its migration it calls all those of its kind to come too. The tree tops are full of chirp and whistle and carol and the long rollcall.. The bird does not start off’ alone. It gathers all of ft#* kind. Oh, that you might be as wise in this migration to heaven and that you might gather all your families

ana you friends with you! I would' that Hannah might take Samuel by the hand, and Abraham might ta¥T Isaac, and Hagar might take Ish-» mael. I ask you if those who sat at your breakfast table this morning will sit with you oin heaven? I ask you what influences you are tryind to bring upon them —what example you are setting them. Are you calk ing them to go with you? Aye, ave, have you started yourself? Start for heaven and take you* children with you. Come thou and all thy house into the ark. Tell youj little ones that there are realms o) balm and sweetness for all those whf fly in the right direction. Swifted than eagle's stroke put out foi heaven. Like the crane or the stork stop not night nor day until you fin. the right place for stopping. Seatei today in Christian service, will yoi be seated in the same sgloriou service when the heavens hav, passed away with a great noise, ant the elements have melted with fer{ vent heat, and the redeenied arl gathered around the throne of Jesus?