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There is nothing more suggestive than a caged bird. In the down of its breast you can see the glow of southern climes. In the sparkle of its eyes you can see the flash of distant seas. In its .voice you can hear the song it learned in the wild wood. It is a child of the sky in captivity.

1. Now the dead bird of my text, captured in the air, suggests the Lord Jesus, who came down from the realms of light and glory. He once stood in the sunlight of heaven. He was the favoured of the land. He was the King's Son. But one day there came word to the palace that an insignificant island was in rebellion, and was cutting itself to pieces with anarchy. I hear an angel say: "Let it perish. The King's realm is vast enough without the island. The tributes to the King are large enough without that. We can spare it." "Not so," said the Prince, the King's Son; and I see Him push out one day, under the protest of a great company. He starts for the rebellious island. He lands amid the execrations of the inhabitants, that grow in violence until the malice of earth has smitten Him, and the spirits of the lost world put their black wings over His dying head and shut the sun out. The hawks and vultures swooped down upon this dove of the text, until head and breast and feet ran blood — until, under the flocks and beaks of darkness the poor thing perished. No wonder it was a bird taken and slain over an earthern vessel of running water. It was a child of the skies. It typified Him who came down from heaven in agony and blood to save our souls.

2. I notice also in my text that the bird that was slain was a clean bird. The text demanded that it should be. The raven was never sacrificed, nor the cormorant, nor the vulture. It must be a clean bird, says the text, and it suggests the pure Jesus, the holy Jesus. Although He spent His boyhood in the worst village on earth, although blasphemies were poured into His ear enough to have poisoned any one else, He stands before the world a perfect Christ.

3. I remark also, in regard to this first bird, mentioned in the text, that it was a defenceless bird. When the eagle is assaulted, with its iron beak it strikes like a bolt against its adversary. This was a dove or a sparrow — most probably the former. Take the dove, or pigeon, in your hand, and the pecking of its beak upon your hand makes you laugh at the feebleness of its assault. The reindeer, after it is down, may fell you with its antlers. The ox, after you think it is dead, may break your leg in its death struggle. The harpooned whale, in its last agony, may crush you in the coil of the unwinding rope. But this was a dove — perfectly harmless, perfectly defenceless — type of Him who said, "I have trod the winepress alone, and there was none to help." None to help! The murderers have it all their own way. Where was the soldier in the Roman regiment who swung his sword in the defence of the Divine Martyr? Did they put one drop of oil on His gashed feet? Was there one in all that crowd manly and generous enough to stand up for Him? Were the miscreants at the Cross any more interfered with in their work of spiking Him fast than the carpenter in his shop driving a nail through a pine board? The women cried, but there was no balm in their tears. None to help! none to help!

4. But I come now to speak of this second bird of the text. The priest took the second bird, tied it to the hyssop branch, and then plunged it in the blood of the first bird. Ah, that is my soul plunged for cleansing in the Saviour's blood. There is net enough water in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to wash away our smallest sin. Sin is such an outrage on God's universe that nothing but blood can atone for it. You know the life is in the blood, and as the life had been forfeited, nothing could buy it back but blood. What was it that was sprinkled on the door-post when the destroying angel went through the land? Blood. What was it that went streaming from the altar of ancient sacrifice? Blood. What was it that the priest carried into the Holy of Holies, making intercession for the people? Blood. What was it that Jesus sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane? Great drops of blood. What does the wine in the sacramental cup signify? Blood. What makes the robes of the righteous in heaven so fair? "They are washed in the blood of the Lamb." What is it that cleanses all our pollution? "The blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses from all sin."

5. I notice now that as soon as this second bird was dipped in the blood of the first bird, the priest unloosed it, and it was free — free of wing and free of foot. It could whet its beak on any tree-branch it chose; it could pick the grapes of any vineyard it chose. It was free. A type of our souls after we have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. We can go where we will. We can do what we will. You say, "Had you better not qualify that?" No; for I remember in conversion the will is changed, and the man will not will that which is wrong.

6. The next thing I noticed about this bird, when it was loosed — and that is the main idea — is, that it flow away. Which way did it go? When you let a bird loose from your grasp which way does it fly? Up. What are wings for? To fly with. We should be going heavenward. That is the suggestion. But I know that we have a great many drawbacks. You had them yesterday, or the day before; and although you want to be going heavenward, you are constantly discouraged. But, I suppose, when that bird went out of the priest's hands it went by inflections — sometimes stooping. A bird does not shoot directly up — but this is the motion of a bird. So the soul soars towards God, rising up in love, and sometimes depressed by trial. It does not always go just in the direction it would like to go. But the main course is right.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

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KJV: This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:

WEB: "This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest,