Doves to Their Windows

“Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” — Isaiah lx., 8.

THERE is to many of ns a complete fascination in the structure and habits of birds. They seem not more of earth than heaven — ever vacillating between the two. No wonder that Audubon, with his gun, tramped through all of the American forests in search of new specimens. Geologists have spent years in finding the track -of a bird’s claw in the new red sandstone. There is enough of God’s architecture in a snipe’s bill or a grouse’s foot to confound all the universities.

Musicians have, with clefs and bars, tried to catch the sound of the nightingale and robin. Among the first things that a child notices is a swallow at the eaves; and grandfather goes out with a handful of crumbs to feed the snow-birds. The Bible is full of ornithological allusions. The birds of the Bible are not dead and stuffed, like those of the museum, but living birds, with flutter¬ ing wings and plumage. “Behold th q fowls of the air” says Christ. “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down,” exclaims Obadiah. “Gavest thou the goodly wings unto th v peacocks?” says Job. David describes his desolation by saying, “I am like a jpelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the des-

* Preached at the reception of ninety members.

ert; I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house¬ top.” “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time; 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” — so says Jeremiah. And in the text Isaiah looks ahead, and sees the gathering of many people unto Christ and the Church, and it makes him think of a flock of pigeons alighting on their coop, and all at once trying to get in at the windows of the coop, and he cries out, “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows f”

This is one of the memorable days of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. On other Sundays we drop the net; to-day we haul it in. On other days we send out the invitations for a king’s party; to-day we sit at the banquet. On other days we fight the battle; now we claim victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we needed any confirmation of this new tabernacle, we have it in the. blessing of to-day. Ye who have toiled, and contributed, and prayed for the success of this institution, take unto your souls the grand satisfactions of this hour. To you, oh men and women, is fulfilled the promise, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Wake up, oh Church of God, and bring garlands and music, and let us celebrate our “harvest home.”

When persons apply for membership into any society, the question is asked, “Who are they, and where do they come from?” and as this multitude of people to-day present themselves for membership, it is right that we should ask, “Who are these that come as doves to their windows?” They are captives whose chains have been broken; they are soldiers who have enlisted for a thirty years’ war. They are heirs of heaven.

They come as doves to the windows, first, because they fly low. The eagle darts up, as if to strike its beak into the sun. There are birds that seem to dwell under the eaves of heaven; you see them as little specks against the sky, so far off that you can not guess the style of their plumage or the shape of their bodies. They float so far away that if the hunter’s gun be discharged at them they do not change their course. Not so with doves or pigeons; they never take any high excursions. They fly around your roof, and alight on the fence, and seem to dislike great altitudes. So these* souls, who come to Christ and to his Church to-day, fly low. They ask no great things; they seek an humble place at the feet of Christ. They are not ashamed to be called beggars for mercy; they are willing to get down on their knees, and to crawl under the table, and to pick up the crumbs of Gospel provision. There were days when they wrere proud, and punctilious, and inexorable, and puffed up; but not now. The highest throne of earth could not tempt Mary away from Jesus’s feet. Stoop, oh pardoned soul, if thou wrouldst enter heaven. A high look and a proud heart God hates. Fly low. It is a mercy that thou canst fly at all. Remember all the years of thy sin; thy days of youthful wandering; thy days of manhood transgressions; thy sins — dark, brooding, deathful — sins against thy soul, against thy Bible, against thy God.

In one of the benevolent institutions of Europe where the destitute are provided for, the newcomers have their photographs taken while in rags and before they are washed, so that they may always have in the picture a reminder of the degradation from which they were lift¬ ed; so, in this book, God keeps before thee a picture of thy former destitution and raggedness of soul. Fly low.

It is an offended God before whom thou comest. Thou deservest his wrath. He scattered the one hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib’s host in a night. Tie abhors sin. He will judge the nations. “Holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty.” Fly low.

A thousand years ago an emperor planted a rose-bush from which roses are plucked to-day. At the foot of the cross, nearly nineteen centuries ago, a rose was planted which blooms to-day; stoop down, if thou wouldst pluck it. Ok for more of the childlike spirit! I rejoice in the belief that those who come to Christ to-day, come aware of their sins and their want, and have learned how to fiy low.

Again: These persons who come to-day are like doves on their way to the dove-cot, because they fly for shelter. The albatross makes a throne of the tempest; the sea¬ gulls find their grandest frolic in the storm- — their merriest hour seems to be that in which the surf of the sea piles most high. Hot so with doves i at the first blow of a northeaster they fly to the coop. Eagle contends with eagle in midair, and vulture fights vulture on the bosom of the carcass, but doves, at the first dash of the bird of prey, speed for shelter from fiery eye, and iron beak, and loathsome talon. So to-day these souls come here for shelter. Every one has a besetting sin; that sin is always after yon. The robber watches you when you come out of the bank, sees in what pocket you put the money, follows you down the street, notices where you go to dine, and where you .sleep, and wdiat kind of a lock you have on your door; so there is some sin ever on a man’s track. It goes with him to the store, it sits on the money-safe, it looks over his shoulder while he makes out the bill of lading, it goes out with him to dine, it walks home with him at night. As to some dog that you do not want to follow ‘you, but persists, you say to it, “Back! home with you!” You stone it away, and start on. After a while, casually turning your eye, you find it close after you, with a sneaking look. Wherever you go, sin goes; where you stay, sin stays. You have watched the hawk above the barn-yard: it sails around and around over the brood of chickens — -around and around, now almost down to the flock, then back again, until at last it drops and seizes its prey. There is a hawk ready to pounce on every dove, and that is the rea¬ son that these doves come to-day to the windows — they want shelter in the grace of God and in Christian associations. They say, K If there is any power in your pray¬ ers, let me have them; if there be any virtue in good counsels, give them to me; if there be any thing elevating in Christian associations, let me feel their influence.” “Where thou dwellest, I will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God.” Open your doors, oh Church of God, and let them come in “as doves to their windows.”

Christ is the only shelter of the soul in trouble. What can you do without him when sorrow comes? Perhaps at first you take valerian to quiet your nerves, or alcohol to revive your spirits; but have you found any thing in the medicines or physical stimulants sufficient? Perhaps in the excitement of the money-market, or in the

merry-making of the club-room, you have sought relief. This world has no balsam for a wounded soul, no shelter for a bruised spirit. The dove, in the time of the deluge, flew north, and it was all water; and south, and east, and west, and it was all water, in which were tossed the carcasses of the dead world; and the first solid tiling the dove’s feet touched was the window of the ark. So the soul in trouble goes out in one direction, and finds nothing substantial to rest upon; and in another direction, and every whither, but there is no rest for the dove save the ark.

‘ Substantial comfort will not grow
In Nature’s barren soil’:

“All we can boast, till ‘Christ we know,

Is vanity and toil.

But where the Lord has planted grade,

And made his glories known,

There fruits of heavenly joy are found,

And there alone.”

You lost a parent: some one said that it was in the regular course of nature that your father should expire. Did that comfort you? You lost a child: somebody said if that child had lived it might have turned out badly. Did that comfort you? You lost your property: they told you that riches were very uncertain. You knew that before. You were sick: they explained to you that the difficulty was in the secretions, or in the sciatic nerve. Did that soothe you? Oh the despicable quackery of earthly comfort! But when Christ comes to the soul, and says, “I took your estate because I want¬ ed to give you more valuable treasures; I made you sick in body that your soul might be brought up to eternal health; I took your loved ones away because I have a better and a brighter place for them in my own presence,” then the wound heals — then the tears dry off the face — then God has become the everlasting portion of the soul. Oh! the air is full of black wings and ravens’ beaks. They join their wings of darkness until they shut out the light of the sun. They have fattened on the carcasses of men. Their clangor is horrible to the ear. Trouble, and Disease, and Death coming down on the wind. No wonder these souls have come for shelter, “as doves to their windows.” What does the pigeons in the coop care for the hawk in the sky?

Safe in Christ, safe forever. The mountains may de¬ part, and the hills be removed, but thy loving kindness shall never fail.

Again: These souls, like doves, fly home. Most of the* winged denizens have no home; now they are at the north, and now at the south, as the climate indicates. This year a nest in one tree; next year a nest in another tree. The golden oriole remains but three months of the year in Germany, and is then gone. The linnet of Norway crosses the ocean to find rest away from the winter’s blast. The heron, the goldfinch, and the grossbeak are migratory. The cranes call each other together several days before going, choose their leader, arrange themselves in two lines, forming an angle, and are gone. But the pigeons, alluded to in the text, summer, and win¬ ter, and always, have a home in the dove-cot. And so Christ is the home of those who come to him. He is a warm home: they rest under the “feathers of the Al¬ mighty.” Christ tells us that chickens find not a warm¬ er place under the wing of the hen than we in him. He is a safe home: our fortunes may go down ten degrees

below zero, the snows of trouble may fall, the winds of persecution may bowl, the jackals of death may stalk forth — all is well, for “great peace have they who trust in God.” From this home we shall never be driven out. The sheriff may sell us out of our earthly house, or the fires may burn it down, or the winds carry it away, but that home shall always be ours.

Men talk as though starting for God were putting out on a trackless moor, or wandering through the sands of a great Sahara. ~No, no; it is coming to the warmest and the best of homes, “as doves to the windows.”

Again: These souls to-day, gathering for membership, are like doves, because they come in flocks. The buzzard, with dripping beak, fluttering up from, the carrion, is alone. You occasionally look up against the wintry sky, and see a solitary bird winging past. But doves or pig¬ eons are in flocks: by scores and hundreds do they fly. You hear the loud whir of their wings as they pass. So to-day we see a great flock coming into the kingdom. It is not a straggler, trying to catch up with his regiment; it is a solid phalanx, taking the kingdom. It is not a drop on your hand or cheek, that leaves you in doubt whether it rains or not, but the rush of an unmistakable shower. It is not the raking up of the. gleanings, but the tossing up of the full sheaves into the mow — “as doves to their windows.” There are all ages in this flock. Some of them are young, and the very first use they make of their wings is to fly into the kingdom; some of them are old, and their wings have been torn with shot and ruffled with the tempest, .and they had almost dropped into the sea. Some of them have been making a very crooked course. They dipped their wings in fountains of sin — they wandered near the gulf of perdition; but they saw their danger — they changed their course. They have come, at last, “as doves to the windows.”

I thank God that I have lived to see this day; to my dying hour I shall not cease to praise him for this manifestation of his grace. Praise him, sun, and moon, and Stars! Praise him, Church militant on earth! Praise him, Church triumphant in heaven! Let the Church beneath raise up its right hand of gratulation, and the Church above reach down its right hand of joy,, and, while the two are clasped, let the elders of the Church put to our lips the wine of earthly celebration, and the cup-bearers of heaven bring up out of the vaults of eternity the oldest wine, prepared Ly Him who “trod the wine-press alone,” and so let two worlds at once keep jubilee!

But while a great flock this day comes to the dove-cot of mercy, the largest flock are- going the other way. It is a very easy thing to tame doves. Go out with a hand¬ ful of corn to feed the pigeons, and they will fly on your shoulders and your hands, so tame are they. God has fed those who are before me with “the finest of the wheat,” and yet you have flown from him all your lives long. You have taken your clothes out of his wardrobe, and your bread out of his hands. God’s Spirit will not always strive. In the morning, after a severe night, you have gone out and seen the birds dead on the snow; so, after a while, God’s mercy will cease, and the earth will be covered with- the bodies of those who perished in the storm. That storm is coming. It will shiver the mast of pride — it will drive into the white reefs of death every cargo of sin. The cedars of the mountain will split in the hurricane, and the islands shall be moved out of their places, and the continents shall be rent asunder, and the hemispheres shall whirl like a top in the fury of that day. The mountains will be blasted, and the beasts, in affright, be pitched from the cliffs in an avalanche of terror. The dead shall rush forth from their sepulchres to see what is the matter, and all those who despise God shall horribly perish.

Now, do you suppose that I can stand here and know that that day is coming without telling you about it? My last resting-place will probably be near yours. What if, when I get up in the resurrection day, I should see you rushing at me across the lots of the cemetery, and hear you cry, “Why did you not tell me of this? If it had not been for your neglect, I should have been on the way to glory.” I can not prepare myself for such a consternation.

“Can you tell me how far it is to hell?” said a young man, as, on Sunday, on horseback, he dashed past a good Christian deacon. At the next turn in the road the horse threw the scoffing rider, and he was dead. He wanted to know how far it was to hell, and found out without the deacon’s telling him.

So thou art mounted on a swift steed, whose hoofs strike fire from the pavement as he dashes past, and you cry out, “How far is it to ruin?” I answer, “Nearvery near /”

“Perhaps this very day

Thy last accepted time may be;

Oh! shouldst thou grieve Him now away,

Then hope may never beam on thee.”

Oh that my Lord God would bring you now to see your sin, and to fly from it; and your duty, and help you to do it; so that when the last great terror of earth shall spread its two black wings, and clutch with its bloody talons for thy soul, it can not hurt thee, for that thou art safe in the warm dove-cot of a Savior’s mercy.

“Come in! come in!

Eternal glory shalt thou win.”

THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDER