boat, and taught the crowds of people who stood on the shore; and He knew
how disappointed those tired fishermen must be. Presently He spoke to
Peter, and said, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a
draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the
night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the
net."
Night is the best time for fishing, and all night they had toiled in vain.
The empty nets were there; but in Simon's boat was the One who had made the
fish, and He caused them to fill the nets in such numbers that the slender
cords broke, and both the boats were overladen.
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from
me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
He felt what it was to be in the presence of the Lord; how unfit he was to
be near Him; but yet he could not bear to let Him go; Jesus said to Peter,
"Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."
"What does it mean?" May asked, when she had read this verse, "How could
Peter catch men?"
To find the answer to her question, we read in the second chapter of Acts
about the first time Peter preached at Jerusalem, and how he told the
very people who had taken Jesus of Nazareth, and "by wicked hands" had
"crucified and slain" Him, that God had raised Him from the dead, and "made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." We read
that while he spoke of Him three thousand people received his word gladly.
Surely at that time there was a fulfilment of the Lord's promise to him.
Peter had indeed become a fisher of men--rescued from the cold waters of
death, caught away from the grasp of Satan, henceforth to belong to Christ
for ever.
But before this time there had been that other scene beside the Galilean
lake, of which we read at the end of the gospel of John.
Again after a weary night's fishing, the disciples had taken nothing;
again, at the word of the Lord, the net was cast over the side of the boat,
and drawn in "full of great fishes."
The Lord Jesus, after he rose from the dead, was still the same, always
thinking of His dear disciples, and caring for them. You remember that He
would not allow the crowds of people, who had come from far to hear them,
to go back to their homes hungry and tired, but that He made them rest on
the green grass while He fed them with the loaves and the little fishes.
Now He knew all about Peter and James, and John and Thomas, and those two
others who had gone fishing with them. They had been out all night, and
were very hungry, and directly they came to land they could see that their
Lord had been thinking of how they would feel; for all that they wanted was
ready--a fire of coals on the shore, and fish laid upon it, and bread--and
they heard the voice which was so dear to them, that well-known voice which
had once come to them across the stormy waves saying, "It is I; be not
afraid," now bidding them, "Come and dine." And it was from those kind
hands, which had been pierced when He suffered the cruel death of the
cross, that they received the bread and the fish which was prepared for
them.
What a wonderful time to remember! I think Peter must have been thinking of
it when he said to Cornelius, We "did eat and drink with Him after He rose
from the dead." Perhaps he also thought of another time when the Lord asked
for some food, "and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them"--to show them, while
they yet believed not for joy and wondered, that it was indeed Himself who
was standing among them, risen from the dead.
You will find that there are a good many places in the Bible where fish
are spoken of. I hope you will have in your list one which was given me by
Sharley only; although I had expected that everybody would have found it.
It is mentioned in the gospel by Matthew, alone. We are not told what sort
of fish it was in whose mouth Peter found the "stater," a piece of money
worth about three shillings, which was exactly enough to give, as the Lord
told him, to those who had come to ask for money to meet some expenses
belonging to the temple. Every Jew paid a fixed sum, and this piece of
money in the fish's mouth was just twice that sum. How beautiful that the
One who was God, and had power over the fish of the sea, to send them into
Peter's net, or to make even a fish bring to Him the coin which was wanted,
should put Himself beside Peter, and say, "Lest we should offend them, go
thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh
up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money:
that take, and give unto them for Me and thee"! Ah, but we know that the
Lord Jesus Christ was "meek and lowly in heart" and He loved to put His
disciples with Himself, as children of God His Father!
A writer who lived at the time when our "King James's" Bible was
translated, speaking of the sea as "the great pond of the world," says, "We
know not whether to wonder at the element itself, or the guests which it
contains."
As we have been learning a little of the ways of the inhabitants of the
ocean of air, as well as those that people the world of water, let me close
this chapter by quoting an American poet's beautiful verses:--
"TO A WATER FOWL.
"Whither, midst falling dew
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
"Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
"Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
"There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
"All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
"And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.
"Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
"He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright."
W. C. BRYANT.
THE FIFTH DAY.
FLYING FOWL.
"_Gavest Thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers
unto the ostrich?_"
"_Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the
south?_"
"_Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?_"--JOB
xxxix. 13, 26, 27.
"_The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land._"--SONG OF SOLOMON
ii. 12.
It was on the FIFTH DAY of Creation that the silence was broken by the
voice of birds. We are so accustomed to the various cries of animals,
the buzzing of insects, and above all to the chirping and twittering and
singing of birds, that we can hardly imagine what a voiceless world would
be like.
I have heard that far away in New Zealand, travellers who try to make
their way through the great tangle of trees and creepers which is called
the "Bush," speak of the silence and loneliness of the dense forests as
dreadful, and they particularly mention that there is no voice of bird to
be heard there. Very different is a place I know, where, although the trees
in which they perch are by the roadside, and noisy carts and carriages are
coming and going all day long, yet the sparrows overhead keep up such a
constant chatter and flutter that once as I passed that way a countryman
looked up at the trees and smiled, and said to me, "Plenty of company up
there!"
When I told the children this they were much amused, and I am sure they
thought it would be very dull never to hear the crowing of a cock or the
"quack, quack" of a duck--to say nothing of the soft cooing of doves in the
wood, and the sweet, rich notes of the thrushes and blackbirds.
A Frenchman, who has written a very large book all about birds, says that
if we were not so accustomed to them we should think a bird flying through
the air the most wonderful thing we had ever seen--and I think he is right;
but before we speak of these wonderful and beautiful creatures, let us read
once more the verses in Genesis which tell us of their birthday, beginning
with, "And God said," and ending with, "And the evening and the morning
were the fifth day."
We have been speaking of the living creatures which the waters brought
forth, and now we must think a little of the "winged fowl," which were made
to people the "expansion," and are sometimes called the "fish of the air,"
as the fishes are called the "birds of the ocean."
Of all the happy living things I think none _seem_ so full of joy as the
birds. Their very flight has such buoyancy and gladness in it, and their
songs seem always to be telling of happiness. Did you ever watch the
sea-gulls flashing and darting about, and then floating quietly above your
head, or the swallows in their rapid flight, wheeling round and round, and
think how beautiful a thing it is just to see them on the wing, fluttering,
soaring, floating in that ocean of air which is their home?
[Illustration: A "WINGED FOWL."]
Birds are marked off from all other vertebrate animals by the possession
of feathers. How wonderful is the wing of a bird; spread wide when it is
flying, and folded up like a fan when it is resting, perched upon the
branch of a tree, swaying to and fro in the sunshine. But how sad it is to
see such a wild, free creature as a lark, or even a thrush or a linnet,
pent up in a narrow cage, where there is no room to stretch those wings
so strong and light, no swinging branch to rest upon; but all the little
prisoner can do is to hop from one perch to another, and beat its wings
against the "wiry grate" which shuts it in so hopelessly. I suppose we
don't think so much of captive birds as of other captives, because a bird
in a cage is such a common sight, and when we hear it sing so sweetly it
seems as if it could not be _un_happy; but when we say "as happy as a
bird," I doubt if it is of birds in cages we are thinking after all.
The cage may be of gilded wires, or of willow twigs; but both are alike
prison bars which keep the birdie back from the liberty to which it was
born. At least this was what an English sailor felt when he met a man
carrying a cage full of birds. He had been a prisoner himself, away
in France, and had many a time longed to be free; and now when he saw
the birds in their gilded prison, he was not happy until he had made a
bargain and got them, cage and all, to do what he liked with. What was
the astonishment of the man from whom he had bought them, when he saw the
sailor open the cage door and let them out, one by one, until all the
little prisoners were free!
As you have watched the birds in their flight, I daresay you have wondered
how they can keep themselves up in the air. Even the little wren has some
weight; much more the crows which make their nests in the topmost branches
of the trees. We say "as light as a feather"; yet the downiest feather has
some weight, and will find its way to the ground if not kept up by wind or
breath.
It is true that the "feathered fowl," as all kinds of birds are called
in the Bible, are very much heavier than the air in which they float and
swim, using their wings for oars, just as the fish use their fins. But
do you remember that little balloon inside the fish, which enables it to
rise through the water? A bird is almost a live balloon; as it flies, it
breathes air into every part of its body; this air becomes heated, and is
kept warm by the feathers; and as hot air becomes light, the bird is so
much lighter than the air which surrounds it, that it can easily rise
higher and higher, until, like the skylark, its little quivering body seems
almost lost in the far blue sky, and its "waterfall of song" alone shows
where it is.
[Illustration: "THE WHITE SEA-GULL, THE BOLD SEA-GULL, A JOYFUL BIRD IS
HE."]
The bones of a bird are very strong, but they are also very light; if you
look at the bones of a chicken, you will see that some of them are hollow;
when the bird was alive, those hollow places were all filled with air. Take
a dead bird and look at the quills at the roots of the feathers; and now
watch that swallow as it darts so rapidly hither and thither. The bird is
able to fill each tiny quill with air, so that its body becomes like a
balloon, and it rises high above the roofs of the houses; then, like the
fish, when it wishes to sink, it can breathe out all the air again, and so
constantly change its weight, and fly, now high, now low, faster than any
train can rush or ship sail.
There is a wonderful bird which sailors have seen a thousand miles from
land. It is called the Frigate-bird, and has never been known to rest on
the sea; it lives upon sea-creatures, but makes its nest on shore. Each of
its wings, if stretched out as when the bird is flying, measures more than
the height of a man; yet even such an enormous bird as this does not sink
down by its own weight, but flies mile after mile upon its strong wings,
every feather of which unites strength and lightness, never resting till
its airy voyage is over, and it finds its nest. It is said that when storms
sweep over the sea, this "ocean eagle" mounts upward until it has reached
the calm which lies above the storm, and so sails upon its untroubled way.
The feathers of birds are to them what its scales are to the fish, and
hair and wool to other animals--a protection. They are not only light and
strong, but warm, and by their means, as a bird soars into colder regions
of air, it is protected from the cold: while for aquatic birds there is a
special provision--by pressing with their beaks an oil-gland near the tail
they can waterproof their feathers! Now look again at your dead bird; you
will see that the wings and tail are formed of quills, while the surface
of the body is covered with short feathers--even the ear being protected
by a little tuft--and all the spaces between are filled with the softest,
warmest down. Could any creature be more beautifully equipped for its
journey through the fields of air?
Then this soft, warm, light dress is renewed once or twice a year,
generally so gradually that the change is imperceptible--but you may have
seen fowls and ducks straggling about the farmyard with half their feathers
gone--on the principle of being off with the old coat before they are on
with the new.
The eyes of both fishes and birds have an extra lid formed of very thin
skin, which can be moved quickly over the surface of the eye, serving to
cleanse it and protect it.
There are three thousand distinct kinds of birds, but it would be
impossible to learn about so many, they have been divided into five
groups--birds of Prey, Perching birds, Scratching birds, Wading birds, and
Swimming birds.
I must tell you that Chrissie and Sharley and May had learnt something
about these groups from a book of which they are very fond; it is called
_The First Year of Scientific Knowledge_, and there are pictures in it of
the different birds, beasts, and fishes which are mentioned.
Now, let us think of some of the birds in the first group. Birds of Prey
are those which hunt for their food, and eat the flesh of other birds,
or of small animals, such as rats, and mice, or of snakes. All these
birds--vultures, hawks, owls--have sharp hooked beaks, and long claws, also
very sharp; they fly quickly, and soon overtake their prey, whether they
hunt by day or by night.
The two birds of prey most often mentioned in the Bible are the Raven and
the Eagle. You remember how, when the terrible flood, which God sent upon
the earth because of the violence and wickedness of men, was over, and the
Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat, Noah opened the window of the Ark,
and sent forth a raven. This bird of prey could find food for itself, as it
"went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth,"
and it never came back to Noah; unlike the gentle dove who found no rest
for the sole of her foot, but twice returned to her refuge, the second time
carrying in her bill the fresh green "olive-leaf plucked off," which showed
Noah that the waters were indeed gone. How wonderfully God, who feeds the
young ravens which cry to Him, used those birds of prey to bring to Elijah
"bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening,"
all the time that they were commanded to feed the prophet in his lonely
hiding-place by the brook Cherith. The Raven is the patriarch among birds;
it lives to be a hundred years old--beyond the age of man!
The Eagle, the king of birds, is a large and beautiful creature with very
strong wings, and has its home in rocky places, difficult to reach. Like
all birds who live upon prey which they catch alive, it is bold and fierce.
There is a verse which speaks of it as "hasting to the prey." Eagles seize
rabbits, hares, lambs, and young deer, and have even been known to attack
a pony. They often carry off ducks and wild birds to their rocky eyrie, as
food for their young ones. The Sea-eagle lives upon fish which swim near
the surface of the waves; it sees them afar off with its keen eyes, and
darts down upon them.
[Illustration: "THE OWL WILL BUILD BESIDE A BARN, OR IN A HOLLOW TREE."]
Most likely you remember the story of the Highland mother, whose baby was
carried away by a great eagle, and how she climbed the steep rocks until
she reached its nest, and rescued her child. Her strong mother-love took
away all fear of the dreadful height which even a young sailor feared to
climb, and of the wild birds who flapped their great wings at her, and then
fled screaming away; but I need not say more of this Scotch story, which
you may have so often heard, so I will tell you of what happened once in
Switzerland to a little girl about five years old.
She was playing near her mountain home, when a great eagle saw her, darted
down, and was just catching her curly little head in its strong talons,
when a man with a gun, not far off, fired. He had been watching the eagle,
but did not see the child, or he would have been afraid to fire, lest he
should kill her. When he came to pick up the dead bird he found the little
girl beside it. She had been saved by the shot which killed the fierce
eagle; but I have heard that when she had grown to be a woman the scars of
deep wounds made by its talons upon her head could still be seen. No doubt
she often heard the story of how God had saved her from a double danger,
and by-and-by she felt that she must ask Him to make her His servant all
her life long, God heard her prayer, and allowed her to go as a missionary
to a far-off land.
There is a beautiful verse in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, in
which God compares His care for His people to the way in which the eagle
cares for its young ones, and teaches them to fly.
I do not know whether you know many of the second group, the
Perching-birds; but I am sure you have seen parrots, and heard them too.
These clever, gay birds must look beautiful indeed in their forest home
in tropical countries, as they flash and gleam in the sunshine; but their
screaming--you know what it is like if you have ever paid them a visit
at the Zoo--takes something away from their charm. They have been called
"feathered monkeys," because they are so well able to climb trees. Look at
their dark grey toes, and you will see that two of them are turned forward
and two backward, so as to enable them to take a firm hold upon branch or
twig. They have such hard bills because they live upon nuts and seeds. You
have seen how Polly holds a nut, and shells it with the sharp point of her
beak, keeping her eye on you all the time.
[Illustration: "FEATHERED MONKEYS."]
Perhaps you would not think it, but parrots are affectionate birds. A story
is told of one that was very fond of a servant girl in the house where he
lived. When she had a bad finger he would not leave her, and groaned as he
sat beside her bed, as if he were himself in pain; and when she recovered
he became quite cheerful again. But I think the account which Dr. Franklin
gives of the kindness of a parrot to its mate is more interesting still.
He says he knew two parrots who had lived together four years, when the
female became so ill from gout that she could not get down from her perch
to reach her food. For four months the male bird went on carrying the
food to her in his beak; and when at last she fell from her perch through
weakness, he kept constantly near her, trying to raise her, and showing the
greatest care for her.
When she could no longer eat, he tried in vain to open her beak, so as to
give her food, uttering sad cries; or stood with his eyes fixed on her,
mournful and silent. From the time of her death he pined away, and died a
few weeks afterwards.
Such stories are very beautiful, because they show, as a lover of animals
once said, "what kindness God has put into the heart of His creatures."
Of the Scratching birds, there is none which you know so well as the hen;
indeed this group is often called by a Latin name, which means that all
belonging to it are of the hen tribe.
Our fowls come from India, but they have been at home in this country for
a long time, and are very common in Palestine. If you have ever seen a
mother-hen taking care of her chicks, calling them to her when she fears
any danger for them, and hiding them beneath her soft warm wings, you will
better understand the words which the Lord Jesus spoke when He beheld
Jerusalem, the beloved city, and wept over it. Think of these words when
you hear the hen call her chickens, and see them all come running to her,
and hiding away under her wings, to be kept in safety from some foe which
_you_ cannot see, but which _she_ knows to be lurking near, or perhaps
hovering above, ready to pounce upon a stray chick and carry it off.
[Illustration: HARK!]
You may often see the Turkeys, Pheasants, Peacocks, and other birds of
this Hen-family, scratching up the gravel; and you know, I daresay, that
grain-eating birds have a little mill inside them called a gizzard, which
grinds their food for them. Birds of prey have no gizzards, because their
food does not need to be ground before they can digest it.
The Wading-birds have long bare legs because they live in marshy places,
and long necks and beaks to catch the small animals upon which they feed.
Snipe and Woodcock have long tapering bills which are alive to the very
points with what are called nerves, so that they may be able to feel for
worms as they dig for them in the soft sand and mud, where they cannot see
them. Two birds of this family, the Stork and the Crane, are mentioned in
the Bible in connection with a wonderful power which God has given to some
birds, by means of which they know when the time is come for them to leave
a country where their food is over and gone, and where the winter is too
cold for them, for a warmer land, where they may find food convenient for
them, and from which they will know right well how to come back again when
spring returns, with its food and foliage. Such birds are called birds of
passage; the Swallow is the one you know best, and it also is mentioned in
the verse in which so many migratory birds are grouped together, "The stork
in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and
the swallow observe the time of their coming." It is God who bids these
birds "observe the time of their coming": no one knows why they go south
for the winter, nor how they can tell their way over land and sea, and come
back again to the very place from whence they took their flight.
The Stork must be to the People in Palestine just such a "guest of summer"
as the swallow is with us, for it regularly arrives about the end of March,
and flies away in the autumn.
Ships make their long voyages to the other end of the world and back with
wonderful regularity, but though the helmsman has a compass to guide him,
they do not arrive in port so exactly at their appointed time as the little
swallow, who has only the sense which we call "instinct" to guide it; only
its own light, strong wings to carry it on its swift way, flying a mile a
minute--for even to its little bones and feathers, every part of its body
is filled with air, rendering it the most buoyant of winged creatures.