the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Purpose: Unity of Purpose
Spurgeon's Illustration Collection
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When Audubon the celebrated American ornithologist was in Paris he grew quite weary of it, and his diary does not contain a cheerful word about that gay city until he writes, 'The stock-pigeon roosts in the trees of the garden of the Tuileries in great numbers; blackbirds also do the same, and are extremely noisy before dark; some few rooks and magpies are seen there also. In the Jardin, or walks of the Palais Royal, common sparrows are prodigiously plentiful. The mountain finch passes in scattered numbers over Paris at this season, going northerly.' So also when in London the great naturalist was quite out of his element, and only seemed pleased when a flight of wildfowl passed over the city. Here was the secret of his success: his complete absorption in his one study: birds alone had charms for him. We who would attain to eminence in the service of Christ must let the love of souls, in an equal way, master and engross us. When writing a paper for the Natural History Society upon the habits of the wild pigeon, Audubon says, 'So absorbed was my whole soul and spirit in the work, that I felt as if I were in the woods of America, among the pigeons, and my ears were filled with the sound of their rustling wings.' We should all write, speak, and preach for our Lord Jesus far more powerfully if our love to the Lord were a passion so dominant as to make the great realities of eternity vividly real and supremely commanding in our minds.
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Spurgeon, Charles. Entry for 'Purpose: Unity of Purpose'. Spurgeon's Illustration Collection. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fff/p/purpose-unity-of-purpose.html. 1870.
