Noah's Dove

Here we have Noah's dove, as in the story of Tezpi and Menaboshu we have other birds substituted for it.

The frightened soul flits hither and thither across the waste of waters, seeking some place on which to rest its feet, and finding none; and unlike Noah's dove there is no ark to which it can return.

It was God’s purpose now to allow David to feel his own weakness; he was to pass through that terrible ordeal when, tossed on a sea of trials, one feels like Noah’s dove, unable to find rest for the sole of one’s foot, and seems on the very eve of dropping helpless into the billows, till the ark presents itself, and a gracious hand is put forth to the rescue.

I am hunted from one retreat to another, and since I left your Ark, like Noah's dove I can find no resting place.

Thus religion and liberty have well-nigh perished together, and their present resting-place on earth resembles rather the one found by Noah's dove on her second flight, than the broad home, illimitable but by the world's circumference, which as philanthropists we hope, and as Christians we pray, they may soon enjoy.