Exeter Times, 1897-4-1, Page 3THE EXETER TIMES
111, IMMMIOMMIM.111101.M.M.,
MMINIMMIMM
HE SONG OE SPRING,
E ALMIGHTY AMONG THE BIRDS
OF THE AIR.
S rely me Who lammed Such Ingentoniay
Constructed Nests as Those. or the Moho-
link and Sparrow Will Also rrovtee a
Home ror Man.
Rev. Dr. Talmage thus discoursed On
e "Ornithology of the Bible; or, God
along the Birds." The text was Mat-
thew 6, 26: "Behold the fowls of the
air."
The organ -lofts in the. temple of na-
ture are hyrinaless in the winter of na-
ture. Trees which were full of carol
and chirp and chant are now waiting
for the coming back of rich plumes and
warbling voices, solos, duets, quartets,
cantatas and Te Dennis. But the Bible
is fuel of birds at all seasons, and pro-
phets and patriarchs and apostles and
evangelists and Christ Himself employ
them for moral and. religious purpose.
My text is an extract from the Sermon
on the Mount, and perhaps it was at
molaaent when a flock of birds flow
past that Christ waved his hand toward
them, and said: "Behold the fowls of
the air."
Most of the other sciences you may
study or not study as yea please. Use
your own judgment, exercise your own
taste. But about this science of 'orni-
thology we have no option. The divine
command is positive when it says in
my text, "Behold the fowls of the air!"
That is, study their habits. Examine
their colors. Notice their speed. It is
easy for rim to obey the command of
tae text, for I was brought. up among
this face of wings and from boyhood
heard their matins at sunrise and their
vespers at sunset. Their nests have
been to me fascination, and my satis-
faction is that I never robbed one of
them, any more than I would steal a
child from a cradle, for a bled is the
child of the sky, and hs nest is the
cradle. They are almost human, for
they have their loves and bates, affini-
ties, and antipathies, understood jay
and grief, have conjugal and material
instinct, wage wars, and entertain
jealousies, have a language of their
own, and. powers at association. Thank
God for birds and skies full of them.
It is utteless to expect to understand
the Bible unless we study natural his-
tory. Five hundred and ninety-three,
times does the Bible allude to the facts
of nee -urea history, and I do not wonder
that it makes so many allusions orni-
thological. The skies and the caverns
of Palestine are friendly to the wing-
ed creatures, and so many fly and
roost, and nest and batch in that
region that inspired writers do not
have far to go to get ornithological
illustration of divine truth. There are
over forty. species of birds recognized
in the Scriptures. Oh, what a variety
of wings in Palestine! The dove,. the
robin, the eagle, the cormorant, or
pluming bird, hurling itself from sky
to wave and with long beak. clutching
Its prey; the trusb, which especially
dislikes a crowd, the partridge, the
hawk, bold and ruthless, hovering
bead to windward, while watching for
prey; the swan, home among the
marshes and with feet $o constructed
it can walk on de leaves of water
plants; the raven, the lapwing, malo-
dorous and in the Bible denounced AS
inedible, though it has extraordinary
head dress; the stork, the ossitrage,
that always had a habit of dropping on
a stone the turtle it had lifted and
so killing it for food, a,na on oae oc-
casion mistook the bald head of Aes-
chylus, the Greek poet, for a white
stone, and dropping a turtle upon it,
ki.11ing the famous Greek the cuckoo,
with crested head and crimson throat
and wings snow -tipped, but too lazy
to build its own nest, and so having
the habit of depositing its eggs in nests
belonging to other birds; the blue jay,
the grouse, the plover, the magpie, the
kingfisher, the pelican, which is the
caricature of all the feathered creation;
the owl, the goldfinch, the bittern, the
harrier, the bulbul, the osprey, the
vulture, that king of scavengers, with
neck covered with repulsive down in-
stead of attractive feathers; the guar-
relsorne starling, the swallow flying a.
mile a minute, and sometimes ten hours
in succession; the heron, the quail, the
peacock, the bat, the blackbird, and
many others, with all colors, all
sounds, all styles of flight, all habits,
all architecture of nests, leaving noth-
ing wanting in sugnestiveness, They
were at the creation placed all around
on the rocks and in the trees and on
the ground to setrenade Adam's ar-
rival. They look their places on Fri-
day as the first man was made on
Saturday. 'Whatever else he had or
did have, he should have music. The
first sound that struck the human ear
was a bird's voice.
Yea, Christian geology (for you know
there is a Christian geology as well as
an infidel geology). Christian geology
comes in and helps the Bible show
what we owe, to the bird creation. Be-
fore the human race came into this
world, the world was occupied by
reptiles, and by all style of destructive
monsters, millions of creatures loath-
some and hideous. God sent huge birds
to clear the earth of these creatures
before Adam and Eve were created.
The remains of these birds have been
found imbedded in the rocks. The
skeleton of the eae,•le has been found
twenty feet in height, and. fifty feet
from tip of wing to tip of wing. Many
armies of beaks and claws were neces-
sary to clear the earth of creatures
that would have destroyed the human
race with one clip. I like to find this
harmony of revelation and science and
to have demonserated that the God
wha made the world made the Bible.
Meson the greatest lawyer of all
time and a, great man for facts, laed
enough sentiment and poetry and musi-
cal taste 'to welcome the illumined
wings and the voices divinely drilled
into the firse chapter of Genesis. How,
should Noah, the old ship -carpenter,'
six hundred years of age, find out when
the world was fit again for human re-
sidence after the universal freshet? A
bird will tell and nothing else can. No
man can come down from the moun-
tain to invite Noah and his family out
to terra firma, for the mountains were
submerged. Ate a bird first heralded Wad' and that arouses the antipathy
the human race into the, world, now of all the beaks of the forest. The
a bird help the human race back
to the world that had shipped a sea
that whelmed everything. Noah stands
OD Sunday Ripening at the window of
the ark, in his Maul a teeing dove, se
gentle, so innocent, so affectionate, and
he said: "No, my little dove, fly away
over these waters explore, and come
bank an, tell us evhetbee it is safe to
land." After a' Tang flight it return-
ed hungry and weary an wet, and by t,
tt
its looks and manner said to Noah and
his famiae: "The world is not fit "for
you to disembark." Noah waiteet
week, and next Sunday morning he let
the dove fly again for a second ex-
ploration, and Sunday evening it came
back with a leaf that had the sign
of just having been plucked from a
living fruit tree, and the bird reported
the world would do tolerably well for
a bird to live in, but not yet sufficient-
ly recovered for human • residence.
Noah waited another week, and next
Sunday morning he sent out the dove
ca the third exploration, but it return-
ed not, for it. found the world so at-
tractive now it did not want to. be
caged again, and then the emigrants
from the ante-diluvian world landed.
It was a bird that told them when to
take possession of the resuscitated
planet. So the Lumen race was saved
by a bird's wing; for attempting to
and too soon, they would have per-.
Aye, here comes a waole flock of
doves -rock -doves, ring -doves, stock -
doves -and they make Isaiah think of
great revivals and great awakenings
when souls fly for shelter like a flock
of pigeons swooping to the openings
of a pigeon coop, and he ones -out:
'Who are these that as (laves to
their windows?" David, with Saul after
him, and flying from cavern to cavern,
compares himself to a desert partridge,
a bird which especially haunts rocky
places, and boys and hunters to this
day take after it with sticks, for the
Part idge runs rather than flies. David,
chased and clubbed and harried ot
pursuers, says: "I am haunted as a
patridge on the mountains." Speak-
ing of his forlorn condition, he says:
"I am like a pelican of the wilderness,"
Describing his loneliness, he says:
em a swallow alone on ihe house -ton."
Fiezekiale in the emancipation of his
eickness, compares hiniselt to a crane,
thin and wasted. Job awl so mewl)
trouble that be could not sleep nights,
and he described his insomnia, by say-
ing: "I am a companion to fowls."
Isaiah compares the desolations of
banished Israel to an owl and bittern
and cormorant among a city's ruins
Jeremiah describing the cruelty of
parents toward children, coantarea
them to tae. ostrich, who leaves its
egge in the sand uncared for, crying
"The daughter of my people is become
like the ostriches in the wilderness."
Among the provisions piled on Solo-
mon's bountiful table, the Bible speaks
of "fatted foevl." The Israelities in the
desert get tired of manna and they
had quail -quails for breakfast, quails
for dinner, quails for eupper, and they
died of quails. The Bible refers to the
migratory habits of the bird, and says:
"Tbe stork knoweth her appointed
time, and the turtle, and the crane,
and the swallow the time of their go-
ing, but my people know not the judg-
raent of the Lord." Would the pro-
phet illustral e the fate of fraud, he
points to a failure of incubation, and
says: "As a partridge sitteth on eggs
and hatcheth them not, so he that
getteth riches and not by right shall
leave them in the midst of his deers,
and at his end shall be a fool." The
partridge, the most careless of all
birds in choice of its place of nest,
building it on the ground and. often
near a frequented road, or in a slight
depression of ground, without refer-
ence to safety, and soon a hoof, or a
scythe, or a cart wheel ends all. So
says the prophet, a man who gathers
under him dishonest dollars will hatch
clue of them no peace, no satisfaction,
no happiness, no security.
fanatic. Let there be contention among
Christians, and they will say "Hurrah!
the church is in decadence. Christ in-
tended that His church should always
remain a speckled bird. Let birds of
a.nother feather pick at her, but they
cannot rob her of a single plume. Like
the albatross she can sleep on the bos-
om of a tempest. She has gone through
the fires of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace
and not got burned, through the waters
of the Red Sea and not been drowned.
through the shipwreck of the break-
ers of Melita and not been foundered.
Let all earth and bell try to bunt down
this speckled bird, but far above hu-
man scorn, and infernal assault, it
shall sing over every mountain -top and
fly over • every nation, and her trium-
phant song shall be, "The Church of
God! The pillar and ground. of the
truth. The gates of hell shall not pre-
vail against her."
But we cannot stop here. From a
tall cliff, hanging over the sea, I bear
the eagle calling unto the tempest and
lifting its wirtes to smite the whirlwind.
Moses, Jer ' Hosea and Habak-
kuk
kuk at ti -n their writings take
their pen m the eagle's wing. It is
a bird with fierceness in its eye, its
feet armed with claws of iron, and its
head with a dreadful beak. Two or
three of them can fill the heavens with
clangor. But generally this monster
of the air is, alone and unaccompani-
ed, for the reason that its habits axe
predaceous it requires five or ten miles
of aerial or earthly' aominion all for
itself. The black brown of its back,
and the white of its lower feathers,
and the fire of its eye, end the long
flap of its wings make. one glimpse of
it as it. swings down into the valley of
pick up a rabeit, or a lamb, or a child,
and then swings 'back to its throne on
the rock, soenethi rig never to be for-
gotten. Scattered about its eyrie. of
all ml incus soil tide are the bones of
its conquest. But while the beak and
the claws of the eagle are the terror
of' the travelers of the air, the mother
eagle is moet kind and gentle to her
young. God compares His treatment
of Ills people to the eagle's care of
the eaglets. Deuteronomy 32, 11: "As
the eagle st irreth up her nest, - flut-
tenet h over liar young, spreading abroad
her -wings, taketh them, beareth them,
on lien wings. so the Lord alone did
lead." The old eagle first, shoves the
young one out of the nest in order to
make tt fly, and then takes it on her
baek and flies with it, and shakes it
Off in the air, and if it seems like fall-
ing, quickly flies under it and takes it
on her wing again. So God does with
us. Disaster, failure in business, dis-
appointment, bereavement, is only
Goca8 way of shaking us out of our
comfortable nest in order that we may
learn how to fly. You who are com-
plaining that you have no faith or
courage, or Christian zeal, have had it
too easy. You never will learn to fly
in that comfortable nest. Like an
eagle, Christ has carried us on His
back. At times we have been shaken
off, and when we were about to fall
He came under us again and brought
us out of the .gloomy valley to the
sunny mountain. Never an eagle
brooded with such love and care over
her young as God's wings have been
over us.
But what a senseless Passage of
Scripture that is, until you know the
fact which says: "The. sparrow hath
found a house and the swallow a nest
for herself where ehe may lay her
young even thine altars, 0 Lord of
nests me Xing, and my God." What
has the swallow to do with the altars
of the temple of Jerusalem? Ah ! you
know that swallows are all the world
over very tame and in summer time
they used to fly into the windows and
doors of the temple at Jerusalem, and.
build a nest on the altar where the
priests were offering sacrifices. These
swallows brought leaves and sticks and
fashioned nests on the altar of the
temple, and hatched the young swal-
lows in those nests, and David had
seen the young birds picking their way
out of the shell while the old swallows
watched, and no one in the temple was
cruel enough, to disturb either the old
swallows or the young swallows, and
David burst out in rhapsody saying:
The. swallows bath found a nest for
herself where she may lay her young,
even thine altars, 0 Lord of hosts, my
King, and. my Gear
Ye.s, in this ornithology of the Bible
I find that God is determined to im-
press upon us the architecture of a
bird's nest and the anatomy of a bird's
wing. Twenty times does the Bible
refer to a. bird's nest: "Where the
birds make their nest." "As a bird
that wandereth from her nest."
"Though thou see thy nest among the
stars." "The birds of the air have
their nests," and so on. Nests in the
trees, nests on the rocks, nests on the
altars. Why 'does God call us so fre-
quently to consider the bird's nest'? Be-
cause it is one of the most wondrous
of all styles of architecture, and a les-
son of Providential care which is the
most important lesson that Christ in
ray text conveys, Why, just look at
the bird's nest, and see what is the.
prospect that God is going to take care
of you. Here is the blue bird's nest
under the eaves of the house. Here is
the brown thresher's nest in a bush.
Hera is the bluejay's nest in the or-
chard. Here is the grossbeak's nest
on a tree branch hanging over the
water so as to be free from attack.
Chickadee's nest, in the stump of an
old tree. Oh:, the goodness of God in
showing the birds how to build their
nett. What carpenters, what masons,
What weavers, what spinners the
horde are! Out of What small re-
sources they make an exquisite home
curved, pillared, wreathed. Out of
mosses, out of sticks, out of lichens,
out of horsehair, out of spiders' web,
out of threads swept from the door by
the housewife, , out of the wool of the
sheep in the pasture field. Upholstered
by leaves actually sewed together by
its own sharp bill. Cushioned with
feathers from its own breast. Mortared.
together with the gum of trees and the
saliva of its own tiny bill. Such sym-
metry, such adaptation, such conveni-
ence, such geometry of structure.
Rut here is a man, to -day as poor as
Job, after he was robbed by Satan of
everything but his boils; yet suddenly,
to -morrow he is ;tech man. There is
no nm -counting for his sudden affluence.
He has not yet failed often enough to
become wealthy. No one pretends to
account for his princely wardrobe, or
the chased silver, or the full -curbed
steeds that rear end neigh like B•uce-
phalue in the grasp of his coachman.
Did he come to a sudden inheritance?
No. Did he make a fortune on pur-
chase and sale? No. Everybody asks
where did that partridge. hatch? The
devil suddenly threw him up and the
devil will suddenly him come down.
That hidden scheme God saw from the
first conception of the plot. That
partridge, swift disaster will shoot it
down, and the higher it flies the hard-
er it falls. The prophet saw, as you
and I have often seen, the awful mis-
take of partridges.
But from the top of a Bible fir tree.
I hear the shrill cry of the stork, Job,
Ezekiel, Jeremiah, speak of it, David
cries out: "As for the stork, the fir
tree is her house." This large white
Bible bird is supposed without alight-
ing some times to wing its way from
the region of the Rhine to Africa. As
winter comes all the storks fly to
warmer climes, and the last one of
theie number that arrives at the spot
to which they migrate is killed by
them. What havoc it would make in
our species if those men were killed
who are always behind. In oriental
cities, the stork is domesticated and
walks about on the street, and will
follow its keeper. In the city of Ephe-
sus Isaw a long TOW. of pillars, on the
top of each pillar a stork's nest. But
the word '''stork" ordinarily means
mercy and affection, from the fact that
this bird was distinguished for • its
great love to its parents. It never
forsakes them, and even after they be-
come feeble, protects and provides for
them. In migrating, the old storks
lean their necks on the young storks,
and when the old ones give out the
young ones carry them on their back.
God forbid that a dumb stork should
have more heart than we. Blessed is
that table at which an old father and
mother sit. Blessed that altar at which
an old father and mother kneel. What
it is to have a mother they know best
vvhe have lost her. God only knows
the agony she suffered for us, the times
she wept over our cradle and the an-
xious sighs her bosom heaved as we
lay upon the sick nights when she
watched us long after everyone was
tired out, but God and herself. Her
life blood beats in ber heart and her
image lives our face. That' man is
graceless as a cannibal who illtreats
his parents, and he who begrudges
them • daily bread and clothes them
but shabbily, may God have patience
with him; I cannot. I heard: a man
once say: "I now have my old mother
on my hands" Ye storks on your way
with food to emu- aged parents, shame
him!
But yonder in this Bible sky flies a
bird that isspeckled. The. prophet de-
scribing the elaurch cries out; "Mine
heritage is ante me as a speckled bird,,
the birds around about are against
her." So it was then; so it is ,now,
Holiness picked at. Consecration picked
at. Benevolence picked at. Useful pick-
ed at. A speckled bird is a peculiar
Chiurch of God is a peculiar institu-
tion, and that enough to evoke attack
of the world, for it ie S speckled bird
to be picked at. The inconsistencies of
Christians are a banquet on which
multitudes get fat. Thea %scribe
everything you do to weong motives.
Pal a dollae in the poor box, and they
will say that he dropped it there only
that he Meeht hear it ring. Invite
'them to Christ and they will call you a
Surely these n,ests were built by
'tome plan. They did not just happen
so. Who draugbteci the plan: for the
bird's nest V God! And do you not think
that if He plane such a house for a
chaffinch, for an oriole, for a bobolink,
for a sparrow, He will se eto it that
you alwaye have a house? "Ye are of
more value than many sparrows."
Whatever eurrounds you, you can have
what the Bible cells "the feathers of
the Almighty." Just think of a nest
like that, the warmth of it, the softll'esa of it, the safety of It -the feath-
ers of the Almighty." No,
flamingo, out-
fla.shivg the tropical sunset, ever had
euch brilliancy of pinion; no robin red-
breast ever had plumage dashed with
snob crimson., and purple and orange
the gold -"the feathers of the Al-
mighty." Do you not feel the touch
of them new on forehead and cheek,
said spirit and was there ever such
tenderness of brooding -"the feathers
of the Almighty," So also in this
ornithology of the Bible God keeps im-
pressing us witta the anatomy of ' a
bird's Wing. Over fifty times does the
old book allude to the wings, "Wings of
a (love," "Wangs of the morning,"
ispromosemonsommerusreamm,
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"Wings of the wind," "Sun of eight- carries a blessing for others, The saints
eousness with healing in His wings," are the chosen ones of God, in this ca:'
"Wings of the Almighty," "All fowl of Christians. Lydda, to which Peter cam
every wing." What does it all mean? down, lies on the mountain road from
It suggests uzlifting. It tells you a Jerusalem to Joppa, not far from the
you, that you yourself, have wings. I in Neb. 7, 37, and Lud by the ee rian
David cried out, "Oh that I had wingsof to -day.
like a dove, that I might fly away and 33. A certain man, whether he. was a
be at rest." Thank God that you have ; Christian or not is not stated. Eneas.
better wings of any dove of longest A Greek name. Had kept his bed eight
or swiftest flight. ears. (2) "How much we have to be
thankful for in continued health an
strength, and how little we think of
these things until we lose their 1"-W.
M. Taylor. Was sick of the palsy. Bet-
ter, " for he was palsied," Paralysis in
many aggravated forms is common in
the East. (3) 'We owe to the sick and the
crippled our sympathy, not mere pity.
34. Jesus Christ maketh thee whole,
Better, "Jesus, the Messiah, healetb
thee." The Messiahship of Jesus and the
f ' ht It ramie to remind blue Mediterranean. It is called Lod
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
INTERNATIONAL LESSON, APRIL 4.
n'eter Working Miracles." Acts 9. 31-43
tiolden Text. Acts 9. 34.
PRACTICAL NOTES. cetre of the man are so intertwined in
Verse 32. It came to pass. Probably this statement that the second is proof
of the first. The words imply the im-
while Said abode at Taxsus. 'Peter of
fulfillment; and we may sup -
passed throughout all quarters. Better, pose that immediately renewed vital -
"Peter went araccaa all the saints." As ity thrilled and tingled through the
leader of the Christian faith lie took
wrinkled limbs of the patient. Arise,
advantage of the prevailing peace to and make thy bed. Literally, "strew for
visit the churches which haw flourished thyself ;" do at once, as a sign of cure,
throughout Palestine. There eis .evi- what ethers have had to do for thee
deuce that these were many of these. a sign of ill health. "Emits was
How they were planted we can onlas
y
at home, and therefore was not told
conjecture; some probably by mission-
ke'the paralytic of the Gospels to take
axies like Piling, some perliaps earlier i luip
his bed, but to make itee-Ad.ain
by believers returning with the pente-
Clarke. (1) Jesus Christ is the same
costal blessing from Jerusalena. It was
years after the death
yesterday, to -day and forever.
now only ten
§5. All that dwelt. The news of the
and re,surrection of our Lord, and only I
.
three years after the poersecutien that miracle quickly spread. SaranThe
arose about Stephen • It is of interest: Pastoral plain of Sharon, IOW -0119 in ell
ages for rts beauty, flowers, ima fruit -
to note the literary art of this portion of
the Acts of the Apostles. The author is fulness. It stretches from Joppa to
intent on showing bow the Gospel came Caesarea, and even to -day its soil 1.$
tobe preached to the Gentileslie leaves , mph enough to comely all Palestine
the church in Jerusalem, trembling with, eood; but most of it, is now deso-
amid its troubles, to record the conver- I late; in; Peter's day it was exeeedhega
ion of its chief persecutor Saul, who lY populous. Saw him. Peter's "sign"
is afterward to become the great ap- had its effect. The people regarded
ostle to the Gentiles. But Paul is per- the eure of Eneris ae a proof of the
scouted and has to fly from those with
whom a few months earlier he had
sought the destruction of Christianity,
Now we are led back to Peter, and told
of two singular facts which immediate-
ly preceded the opening of Peter's eyes
to the knowledge that the Gospel of
Christ was to be proclaimed as fully
o the Gentiles as to the Sews. came
IVIeseiabehip of Jesus, and turned to
the Lord. This "turning" involved pre-
cisely the same moral change as con-
version does now. The simple mean-
ing of thus verse is that the town, arid
its neighborhood beanie feeventle
Christian. 5. The conversion of sin-
eers, the cure of the morally palsied,
is the hest testimony to the power. of
Others seeing
down; Christ a Wherever a good man goes be s a Saviour. 6
our good works, glorify our Father,
'latch is in heaven.
36. There was at :Tamen The sea-
port of Jerusalem; it stands on a sandy
promontory, directly south of the plain
of Sharon. It was at first a Philistine
city; but was Hebrew as early as the
days of David and Solomon. It is now
called Jaffa. A certain disciple. A
Christian woman, whether maiden,
wife, Or widow we do not know. Ta-
bitha. In Greek Dorms, in English
Gazelle. The name was give.n in im-
plied compliment, as Lily and Rose are
with us, Oriental love songs com-
pare the loveliness of women to that
OL gazelles, which are the most beauti-
ful and graceful of antelopes. Full
of good works. A very suggestive
phrase; the good works that her neigh
-
bees saw were only those that flowed.
over the brim of her heart; she vras
full of them. Notice, too, that it eva,s
for her good works she was esteemed,
not for good words, INilioh are well
enough in their way, but which can
can never be used instead of clothing,
or fuel., or food. "Kind words butter
no parsnips," says Shakespeare. (a) "A
man of words and not of deeds, Is like
a. garden full of weeds:" (8) Let us
beware lest our sympathy evaporates in
empty phrases. Almecteeds. The word
"alms" was introduced into the Eng-
lis'h language by the English Church,
like the words deacon, paschal, priest,
bishop and liturgy.
37. In these days. The days when
Peter was in Lydda. She was sick and
died. 9. God often ta,kes has children
to heaven when to our 'eyes they seem
most aeedecl in the 'ii arI d.; but he knows
best, They laid her in an upper cham-
ber. A room upon the roof, which
would be more retired than a room- on
the ground floor. Burial in the East
is nsuhila On the day of death, but ehe
burial of this woman was delayed in
order to send for blue apostles.
38. Foraemtiole. The meaning tet
Plainer when this word is omitted.
Nigh to joppa. Only nine miles away
Me disciples. It is evident that. the
"disciple.s" of jonpa were already "or-
ganized" to some degree as a local
church. They seat until, bum. They
were all mourners; they needed:Peter's
sympathy. 'Whether or .net • they bed
any thought of the restoration of lif
WC cannot say; probably not. 1.0. Al
Christians should so live that other
can turn easily to them for sympathy.
Two men. Travel had its hazards and
dangers, and few cared to go alone
from town to town, That he would
not delay to come. Web should be
a direct address, "Delay not to come."
39. Them "And." Peter arose and
went. Just. a.s a modern Christian
does when, he hears of others' sorrow.
Widows. All of the widows for whose
comfort Dorcas bad labored. 'the wars
of antiquity made many widows, and
the early church paid special atten-
tion to their comfort. Showing the
coats and. garments. "They exhibited
on themselves the under and upper
clothing" which Dorms made; this was
the simple and beautiful ostentation of
'Sincere gratitude. "Made" here means
"was accustomed to make," or, better,
"used to wea.v•e." (11) How far true
Christian influence outlasts life! (12)
Happy is he who after his death is most
frequently remembered in love by those
who look the love of others.
40. Peter put them all forth. Com-
pare Mutt. 9. 25; Mark 5: 40;Luke S.
54. Every distracting influence must
now be removed; the utmost concentra-
tion possible, to human energy was need-
ed that the apostle's prayer and faith
naught prove effective. Kneeled. down,
and prayed. Perhaps he was not sure,
when the prayer began that life was
about to be restored (13) Prayer is the
Christian's vital breath, the Christian's
native air. When' she saw Peter she
sat up. He was probably a stranger,
and she sat up in surprise at seeing
him. Eight cases of resurrection from
the dead (certainly seven), besides that
et our Lord himself, are recorded in the
Bible; the widow's son at Zarephath;
he Shana.mite's son: the dead man at
Elisha's grave; the daughter of Jaarus;
the son of the widow of liain; Lazaxua
of Bethany; Dorcas; and Eutychus, re-
stored by Paul. '
POOR INVESTMENT.
Wife -Why ere on always coniplain-
ing about that el0 you paid the minister
for marrying us?
Husband -Because I was swiadled.
Lady: --"Arad has the house a cheer-
ful view?" Ilottse Ageine'(Trish-.
Cheerful1 Why, yea, ma'am.; all the
funerals in the town pass the door and
you have a fine view of the cemetery."