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LIKE A POOR DOVE....
From Spurgeon's "Marvelous Increase of the Church"
I can recollect when, like a poor dove, sent
out by Noah
from his hand, I flew over the wide expanse of waters, and
hoped to find some place where I might rest my wearied
wing.
Up towards the north I flew; and my eye looked keenly
through the mist and darkness, if perhaps it might find some
floating substance, on which my soul might rest its foot, but it
found nothing.
Again it turned its wing, and flapped it, but not so rapidly as
before, across that deep water that knew no shore; but still
there was no rest.
The raven had found his resting-place upon a floating body,
and was feeding itself upon the carrion of some drowned
man's carcass; but my poor soul found none.
I went on: thought I saw a ship floating out at sea; it was the
ship of 'the law' and I thought I would put my feet on its
canvass, or rest myself on its cordage for a time, and find
some refuge.
But ah! it was an airy phantom, on which I could not rest;
for my foot had no right to rest on the law, I had not kept it,
and the soul that does not keep it must die.
At last I saw the barque Christ Jesus- that happy ark;
and I thought I would fly there; but my poor wing was weary,
and I could fly no further, and down I sank into the water,
but as providence would have it, when my wings were
flagging, and I dropped into the stream to be drowned,
just below me was the roof of the ark, and I saw a hand put
out from it, that took me, and said-- "I have loved you with
an everlasting love, therefore I have not delivered the soul of
my turtle dove into the company of the wicked; come in,
come in!"
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