146 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



spent a sleepless night ; or, as it is paraphrased in the Chaldee, ' I 

 have watched the whole night long, without once closing my eyes.' 

 Every part of this description directs our attention to some noctur- 

 nal bird, which hates the light, and comes forth from its hiding- 

 place when the shadows of evening fall, to hunt the prey, and, from 

 the top of some ruined tower, to tell its joys or its sorrows to a 

 slumbering world. 



A passage in the eighty-fourth psalm, which was probably pen- 

 ned by the royal minstrel when driven from his throne and the sa- 

 cred temple, by the rebellion of his unnatural son, refers to this bird. 

 Ardently desirous of associating with the people of God in the pre- 

 scribed ordinances of public worship, the pious Psalmist seems to 

 envy these birds their proximity to the sacred altar: 'The sparrow 

 hath found out a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where- 

 she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my 

 King and my God,' ver. 3. Parkhurst's translation removes some 

 of the difficulties of the usual reading: 'Even [as] the sparrow 

 lindeth her house, and the dove her nest where she hath laid 

 her young, [so shall I find] thine altars, O Jehovah of Hosts, my 

 King, and my God.' 



Among the appropriate and felicitous illustrations interwoven 

 with our Lord's arguments for a special or particular providence, is 

 one taken from the care of our heavenly Father exercised towards 

 this mean and generally despised bird : ' Are not two sparrows sold 

 for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground with- 

 out your Father,' (Matthew x. 29) ; or, according to Luke, 'not one 

 of them is forgotten before God,' cli. xii. 6. Not that we are to 

 conclude from these texts, as Pope has falsely done, that 



' He views with equal eye, as Lord of all, 

 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall ;' 



a sentiment not less opposed to the dictates of enlightened reason, 

 than it is to the whole scope of our Saviour's discourse, (Matt, ch, 

 vi.) from which we learn, that the love of God to his creatures is in 

 proportion to their excellence in the scale of being, and that by 

 these considerations the care of his providence is regulated. 'Be- 

 hold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap 

 nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them, 

 Jirt ye not much better than they ? ' ver. 26. 



