tery than a flower. It has higher potencies and wider possibiHties. Little, timid, 

 quivering, fluttering, scary thing, what is it but a ball of mystery wrapped in 

 feathers? How singular that a thing like this should come out of the earth. 

 How remarkable that out of the primeval protoplasm such a creature should be 

 developed. How amazing that a bird should come out of the star stuff! At 

 first, say the scientists, there was nothing but a vast mass of fiery mist. Large 

 pieces flow off and became stars, small pieces flew off and became planets, tiny 

 bits flew off and became birds. In the huge ball of fire mist, then, the seeds of 

 bird life must have been hidden, and out of the mist there flew, in the fulness 

 of time, a little creature with wings in whose heart a spark of the primeval fire 

 is still burning. Birds are the hottest of all creatures. They have a blood tem- 

 perature which would, if we had it, quickly burn us up. They are older than we, 

 nearer to the primeval fire. 



How could a bird come out of the fire mist? Only because it was first in 

 the heart of God. From eternity the bird idea was in the divine mind. One 

 day God said : "Let us make birds," and they were made. He said that before 

 he said : "Let us make man." We sometimes, in our lordly way, look upon them 

 as intruders, saucy upstarts, but they were here long before the first man was 

 created. The ancient Greeks used to think that birds are the oldest of all cre- 

 ated things. Before the sun and winds, before mankind, and even before the 

 gods, they were. -It was because they were supposed to possess primal powers 

 and to reach back into antemundane times, that soothsayers in many lands 

 watched their flight, and tried to find out from them the will of God. 



Why do you suppose God created birds? The common answer is that God 

 created them for man. They are inferior creatures and they were created for 

 our uses. This explanation is pleasing to our vanity, but it is hardly satis- 

 factory. If birds were made solely for man, then why did they exist millions 

 of years before man was created? Why did they fly and sing through un- 

 counted ages when there was no human eye to see their movements and no 

 human ear to catch their song? And why, even to the present hour, does God 

 fill thickets and jungles and mighty forests with thousands of the most beauti- 

 ful of all his winged creatures, far removed from all human habitations, if 

 birds are made primarily for man? Why are they permitted to flash their 

 gorgeous plumage in the sun where no man beholds them, and to pour their 

 melodies on the air where no human heart is gladdened by them, if they were 

 created simply for the joy of man? 



A better answer, it seems to me, is that God created birds for himself. He 

 created them because he wanted them, because he knew he would like them, 

 because he was certain they would fill up the measure of his joy. He shares 

 them with man, but he never ceases to enjoy them himself. He likes them. 

 He is fond of their movements. He admires their plumage and he enjoys their 

 song. Lincoln used to say that God must like the common people, because he 

 makes so many of them. If this be sound reasoning, then God must be ex- 



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