What are the characteristics of life with wings ?
1. Buoyancy. — "We become endowed with power to rise above things ' How often we give the counsel one to another, " You should rise above it !" But too often it is idle counsel, because it implies that the friend to whom we give it has the gift of wings ; too frequently he is only endowed with feet. If, when we give the counsel, we could give the wings, the things that bind him to the low plains of life might be left behind.
2. Loftiness. — We speak of a " lofty character " as opposed to one who is low or mean. There are men with low motives, and they move along the low way. There are men with mean affections which do not comprehend a brother. Now, it is the glorious characteristic of the Christian religion that it claims to give loftiness to the life. There is no feature that the Bible loves more to proclaim than just this feature of " aboveness." It distinguishes the disciples of Christ. See how the ambitions of the Book run: "Seek the things that are above"; "Set your mind on things above." It speaks also of dwelling " with Christ in the heavenly places."
If We cry, 0 for the wings of a dove ! God says, " You have the wings, use them ; but do not seek to fly away ; fly up, and though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold." There is a sense in which we ought to have the wings of a dove ; and there is a sense in which we may be said actually to have them, only we do not use them enough. God's message to us is not merely that we may soar, but that we ought to soar easily above the things that depress us and keep us down ; and if we are in fellowship with Christ, and in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, we will.2
3. Comprehensiveness. — High soaring gives wide seeing. Lofti- ness gives comprehension. When we live on the low grounds
^ J. Vaughan, in Contemporary Pulpit, 2 Ser., iii. p. 166. 2 G. H. Knighb.
254 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
we possess only a narrow outlook. One man otfers his opinion on some weighty matter, and he is answered by the charge, " That is a very low ground to take." The low ground always means petty vision. Men who do not soar always have small views of things. We require wings for breadth of view. Now see ! The higher you get the greater will be the area that comes within your view. We may judge our height by the measure of our outlook. How much do we see ? We have not got very high if we only see ourselves ; nay, we are in the mire ! " Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." It is well when we get so high that our vision comprehends our town, better still when it includes the country, better still when it encircles other countries, best of all when it engirdles the world. It is well when we are interested in home missions ; better still when home and foreign work are comprehended in our view.
IT If we only lived more habitually above the world, we would have larger freedom, larger joy, and larger safety. Have we not noticed how very helpless any bird is on the ground, though on the wing it is both strong and safe ? To fight temptations on their own level is not always the most successful way. It is better to rise so far above them that we shall feel as little enticed by them as God's pure angels were enticed by the iniquities of Sodom.'-
4. Proportion. — To see things aright we must get away from them. We never see a thing truly until we see it in its relation- ships. We must see a moment in relation to a week, a week in relation to a year, a year in relation to eternity. Wing-poweiJ gives us the gift of soaring, and we see how things are related one to another. An affliction looked at from the lowlands may be stupendous ; looked at from the heights it may appear little or nothing. " Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." What a breadth of view ! And here is another. " The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to usward." This is a bird's-eye view. It sees life " whole." ^
1 G. H. Knight. » J. H, Jowett.
ISAIAH 255
They shall run and not be weary.
There are many meanings which this may bear. But the pith of them all seems to be Capacity for the most strenuoiis exertion. They shall run. Wherefore ? Because the King's business requireth haste. "Would that the King's servants always felt this. We are too ready to imagine that our work is to be literally easy, and our Christian witness- bearing literally light. But if ever the world is to be won to Christ, we shall have to endure hardness for Him. We shall have to ponder deeply the great questions of the social and moral well-being of what are called " the masses," the ignorance and depravity of our large towns, the semi-serfdom of the agricultural population, the great problem of the drunkenness that disgraces our national life and what can be done to remove it, and many kindred subjects that, as yet, we have hardly looked at.