kinds of birds which visited her back yard in a single year. It is a shame that 

 we should ignore them when they are so beautiful, so companionable, and so 

 friendly. 



The purpose, then, of this sermon is to persuade you to make a place in 

 your life for the birds. Look at them ! Listen to them ! Think now and then 

 about them. Read what you can about them. This is a religious privilege. 

 It is one of the means of grace. God makes the birds. He gives them their 

 ways and nature. He sends them to you. He has something to say to you 

 through them. If you ignore them you lose a part of his message. 



This sermon is specially for boys. Many boys do not appreciate a bird. 

 They stone one every time they get a chance. This is because they do not 

 think. A stone may break a bird's wing. A bird with one wing broken cannot 

 use the other wing, and so it is left with no wings at all. A bird without wings 

 is like a boy without hands or feet or eyes. It is helpless, pitiable, ruined. There 

 is nothing left for it but death. If a boy only realized the tragedy of a broken 

 wing, he never again would throw a stone. 



This sermon is specially for girls. Girls are often cruel because they do 

 not stop to think. To make their hat look beautiful, they are willing that the 

 milliner shall place on it the body of a bird that is dead. If thousands of girls 

 want birds on their hats, then thousands of birds must be killed. Boys and men 

 must be trained to kill them, and the killing may become so furious and merci- 

 less as to blot out a beautiful species of birds altogether. Some of the loveliest 

 specimens of all the birds which the good God has created for the beautifying 

 of the earth have become well-nigh extinct simply through the thoughtlessness 

 and vanity of girls. 



This sermon is specially for grown men and women. Many of us are not 

 so happy as we ought to be. We would be happier than we are if our interests 

 were only wider and more varied. We are not enthusiastic over a sufficiently 

 large number of things. If we could only increase the circle of things in which 

 our mind and heart find delight, we should add to our joy and possibly increase 

 the number of our days. We get old too soon. Old age comes on us as soor^ 

 as we lose interest in the world around us. Nobody gets old who succeeds in 

 keeping up a living interest in a large number of fascinating subjects. It may 

 be that some of us are losing interest in the things that once appealed to us. 

 They have become commonplace and dull. They stimulate and cheer us no 

 more. Why then, not begin to look at the birds? Go out into the bird kingdom 

 and keep a record of the things you see and learn. It is impossible to grow 

 old so long as we take genuine delight in the birds. 



Birds are dififerent from all our other friends in that a wider gulf divides 

 us. Birds are man's companions the wide world over, and yet what a vast 

 chasm yawns between a bird and a man ! The chasm is wider and deeper than 

 that which lies between a man and his horse, or a man and his dog. Animals 

 come close to us. They like to be petted, handled, caressed. A bird resents all 



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