You may have seen in our mountain glens, in the solemn twilight, birds winging their way to their nests. There may be lovely bowers, gardens of fragrance and beauty, close by,—groves inviting to sweetest melody, Nature's consecrated haunts of song. But they tempt them not. Their nests—their homes—are in yonder distant rock, and thither they speed their way! So with the soul. The painted glories of this world will not satisfy it. There is no rest in these for its weary wing and wailing cry. It goes singing up and home to God. It has its nest in the crevices of the Rock of Ages. When detained in the nether valley, often is the warbling note heard, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away, and be at rest." And when the flight has been made from the finite to the infinite—from the lower valleys of sense to the hills of faith—from the creature to the Creator—from man to God,—as we see it folding its buoyant pinion and sinking into the eternal clefts, we listen to the song, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul!"
Reader! may this flight be yours. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found!" The creature may change, He cannot. The creature must die, He is eternal. "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.... Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee." (Ps. lxiii.)
II.
The Hart Wounded.
"I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since. With many an arrow deep infix'd
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew,