ONE bright summer’s Sunday morning, on passing through a corn-field on his way to a meeting, a wayfarer noticed a little bird lying dead upon the footpath, and, on taking it up, found it was a young skylark, just fledged, but rather too young to fly. I dare say you know that larks build their nests on the ground, among the tall grass or corn, and there the little hen lays her eggs, and sets to hatch her brood, while the male bird, singing overhead, rises higher and higher in the air, pouring forth his melody till he looks like a speck in the sky. Then, when he is tired of singing, he chops again into the corn, and sets to work to feed himself and help his mate; and, when the eggs have been all turned into little birds, he feeds them too; and a busy time he has of it, I can tell you, working and singing from dawn to dusky twilight. Now, it was in just such a cozy little family as this that the poor little dead bird had once lived; and all day long the parent birds had toiled to feed him and his tiny brothers and sisters on the insects that dwell in the fields and dykes and hedges, thus helping the farmer to keep his lands clear of things which, if they became too numerous, would soon destroy his crops; and, thus cared for, this little bird had grown bigger day by day, until he was nearly old enough to take care of himself. Perhaps he thought he was quite old enough; but, whatever he may have thought about that, it was quite clear that he had, at some time or other, got out of the nest and gone away through the corn; and, once out of sight of the nest, it was not very easy for him to find his way back again. Perhaps he didn’t want to. No doubt there were little paths among the green corn, well known to and often trodden by the parent birds in going to and fro searching for food, — paths they were treading all day long; but the little nestling either knew them not, or, if he did, he took no heed to them, and so he got right out of those pleasant green alleys into the broad footpath. You see the summer sun was shining brightly overhead, and birds were singing, and insects were buzzing and moving on every side, and it must have been so very pleasant to walk away through those shady avenues of tall stems, instead of being cooped up in a nest where there was hardly room to turn about. I dare say the little skylark thought so, and flapped his tiny wings, and pecked at insects right and left, and hopped away rejoicing that he was free — free to go where he liked, and to do as he liked; and, as long as the summer day lasted, no doubt it seemed very much better than the confinement and restraint of that old nest. But evening drew on at last, and the cold dews began to fall. Then darkness gathered round him, and, all alone on the wide unknown footpath, what could the poor little fledgling do then? His feathers were all too few and small to keep him warm in the chilly night-dews, and you may depend upon it that, when he began to feel the cold and all his lonesomeness, he looked about to find the snug warm nest where he had been reared. But, ah, it was too late! He had wandered from “the old paths,” where the parent birds walked, had left the green alleys that had so long sheltered him, and had got upon the broad footpath where there was no shelter at all, far enough from “the narrow way” that led to safety and rest.
Poor foolish little bird! the freedom he had enjoyed so much for a little while had cost him dear indeed. He had quite gone astray, and there was no one now to guide him back; and so, all alone in the cold and darkness, wandering on in “the broad way,” he found, as all will find who take that way, that it “leadeth to destruction.”
It may be that the chills of night, or the heedless footsteps of some passer-by, had killed him; at all events, there he lay, as I have told you, on that bright summer’s morning, dead upon the footpath where the wayfarer found him; and, as he looked on the little bird, he thought that the history of the foolish little fledgling who had gone astray and perished might be useful to little fledglings of another sort — I mean little boys and girls who read GOOD NEWS. Many of them have Christian homes and Christian parents who are walking in “the narrow way that leadeth unto life,” and seeking to guide their little ones into the same “old paths”— paths as old as Enoch, who “walked with God,” and where many a saint of God has walked in ages past and present, and found them “ways of pleasantness and paths of peace.”
Now, I hope that those little boys and girls will take that “way,” and not imitate the little skylark who forsook the old paths and took the broad road to his own destruction. You know Jesus says, “I am the Door; by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.” Therefore, if you have not already done so, go to Jesus, and the; having believed in Him unto everlasting life, “walk even as He walked.”
A time may come when, if you live to grow older, you may have to leave the home nest to go out into the world. Should that time ever arrive, never forget “the old paths” where those that love you are walking. They are “green pastures” “beside the waters of quietness,” fresher by far than the green alleys among the corn. It is possible even for a young believer to go astray for a time and to come into much sorrow; but what shall we say of those that are not believers? Ah! they are “gone astray” already — they are on “the broad road,” and that, you see, “leadeth to destruction!” The little skylark found it so, did he not? Well, where are you? If not in “the narrow way” are treading, you are, even now, like the poor little fledgling, GONE ASTRAY.
J. L. K.