The dove is one of the swiftest of birds. The carrier pigeon "has been
known to accomplish a flight of three hundred miles in little more than
two hours." Its wings are its strength. Upheld by them she can fly for
many hours, and the birds of prey cannot overtake her. Homer himself
mentions the dove as the emblem of swiftness and timidity. It is to
this that the Psalmist refers in Psalm lv. 6, when he beheld the rock
pigeon scudding across the sky in the direction of her mountain home:
"Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at
rest.... I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."
Truly a wise resolve when in the presence of strong temptation! "O man
of God, flee these things." "Flee also youthful lusts." If you cannot
fight like the eagle, fly like the dove, and, like the carrier pigeon,
let your flight be _homeward_. May the homing instinct be as strong in
you as in her. For it is only there, in the mountain home of God's
grace, that your soul can find shelter. Speed, then, your flight "as the
doves to their windows." "Man's spiritual existence is like the flight
of a bird in the air: he is sustained only by effort, and when he ceases
to exert himself he falls" (Froude's "Bunyan"). Let your spiritual
advancement, then, be like the flight of a bird. Imitate the dove in
its swiftness.