"And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." — John 1:32.

"And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

"And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

"Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;

"But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

"And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;

"And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

"And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more." — Gen. 8:6-12.

We learn from this first passage that the Holy Spirit is represented under the emblem of a dove, and taking this for a key, we can go back to this other passage from Genesis, and interpret the significance of Noah's dove. We learn from Paul that the events recorded in the Old Testament happened unto them for our instruction, so that all the things connected with the deluge and Noah's ark are to be included in those types of instruction. The metaphors of the Holy Scripture are always consistent, the same metaphor running through the Old and New Testaments. Thus Jesus is compared to a lamb, from the earliest and the latest portion of Scripture. In like manner the Holy Spirit is typified by a dove. The first place in the Bible where the Spirit of God is mentioned, as moving on the face of the deep, the word literally signifies " brooding," as a bird sitting on eggs. There are also certain metaphors or types of Satan. When Satan is spoken of in opposition to Jesus he is compared to a " roaring lion," which is the natural and fiercest enemy of the lamb. And when Satan is put in opposition to the Holy Spirit, he is compared to a raven, the natural enemy of the dove. Thus is the parable of Jesus; when the good seed is sown the fowls of the air, of the raven species, immediately pick up the grain, to prevent the Spirit using it in saving the soul.

Some may argue against this, that the raven which fed Elijah was a minister of good; but the raven is a bird of prey, and, in the East, a great thief as well, often snatching meat from market-places and homes for its young, and God had a sovereign right to cause this bird to drop the meat it had taken at the feet of Elijah.

We see from this Scripture that Noah sent forth the raven first, but not with any specified mission, but the dove he sent forth definitely to see if the waters were abated; and in the recorded behavior of these two birds we see shadowed forth the traits of Satan and the traits of the Holy Spirit. It is said of the raven that it "went to and fro," without returning to the ark, indicating a restless, wandering spirit, as if there were no desire to return home to its master. We find the same spirit alluded to when Satan is compared to a lion. He is called a "roaring lion," going about "seeking whom he may devour." The same Satanic trait is referred to in Job. God said to him, "From whence comest thou?" and Satan answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."

This spirit of wandering from God and from home, and roving over the wild wastes of nature, that cannot rest nor find a center of repose, is the weary spirit of Satan, and the spirit which he has infused into our fallen race. This spirit comes out in a thousand forms in the behavior of men. I have stood by the cage of the lion, and seen him wildly and restlessly pace up and down his cage, as if it were impossible for him to take a moment's rest. That is the spirit that poisons the heart of humanity, and produces all the wild ramblings of men. It causes them to wander from God and from the parental roof, to rush away from mothers' prayers and the gentle restraints of home. It causes the youth to heartlessly neglect decrepit age. It causes many a husband and many a wife to break their vows and move to strange lands. It breaks up many a home and breaks down many a heart. They wander over sea and land, they hide in crowded cities, they sequester in lonely mountains, so that if our eyes could see with the vision of an angel, we would see many thousands of human spirits, the exact type of the raven from the ark, "going to and fro in the earth," far from God and from the circle of love, utterly devoid of rest within themselves and without a center of rest in the universe.

Now it is to save humanity from this wretchedness of soul, this Satanic wandering of heart, that the Holy Ghost, under the emblem of a doves has been sent out from heaven, that He through the means of the atonement may thoroughly renovate the heart, utterly destroy the raven trait, and bring the soul back to its infinite center of repose, bringing it home to God and making it satisfied in and with God.

We may presume it was on the Sabbath when Noah first sent forth the dove. It was evidently the day of worship, the day of gathering up information from God. He waited other seven days and sent her forth the second time, and the third Sabbath sent her forth the third time. Inasmuch as those sendings forth always took place on the Sabbath, we gather the deep religious significance of this threefold sending forth of the dove; and when we add to this the text from St. John, where the Holy Spirit came forth from heaven as a dove, we feel very sure that this threefold visit has its counterpart in the historical visits which the Spirit has made to our race and to our individual hearts. The dove in her first visit found no place for the sole of her foot; in her second visit she found some place to alight on; in her third visit she found all the place ready for occupancy. We find the counterpart of this in the dealings of God's Spirit with our race, in the three historical dispensations of religion; viz., the antediluvian, the prophetic, and the Christian ages; also its counterpart in the dealings of God's Spirit with the individual.

1. At the first going forth of the dove, she found no place for the sole of her foot. As far as her wing could fly or her eye could see, there was nothing but boundless ocean and sky; and when night came on, like a dutiful child she returned to her home in the ark. In this incident we see a fitting emblem of the first visit that the Holy Spirit made to our fallen race. That visit extended over the antediluvian period, in which the Holy Spirit was constantly striving with human hearts if haply He might find a place upon which to build up the kingdom of God. But in those ages society was utterly disorganized. There was no law, no settled forms of government, no regard for the authority of God or of the rights between man and man. The wild passions of men, like a seething sea, surged back and forth, between despotism on the one hand and anarchism on the other. There were giants in physical nature and in intellectual ambition, and men lived long enough to carry out enormous plans of sin and selfishness. Society was like a moral sea, full of fogs, and floating ice towering in cold sublimity, and crashing against each other with terrific force, but upon which no flowers of love ever blossomed. Upon such a scene the Holy Spirit found no material from which He could construct an organic church or inaugurate a great revival. It is true there were many cases of illustrious piety in those times, but they were sporadic cases of religion. Enoch, Noah, and others were witnesses of truth and ministers of warning, but there was no large family or company of believers at any one time through whom God could operate to set up His kingdom or to evangelize the mass of corruption that rapidly gathered and filled the earth. To use a medical phrase, there were cases of sporadic piety, but no means of making an epidemic of religion.

The reason for this, on the human side, was that in all those ages the divine record. does not mention one godly woman; and it is eminently true that as by woman came the fall, so by woman comes the means of redemption. There has never been the beginnings of a church, or a great moral reform in the world, that was not mothered by some strong, saintly woman, some Sarah or Elizabeth or Mary, or Susannah Wesley or Barbara Heck, who nursed into being the agencies that under God have been channels for the Holy Ghost to revolutionize society and set up the kingdom of God. The antediluvian agencies lacking such a mother, the Holy Ghost could get no commensurate foothold upon the social territory; and after striving many long centuries, when the moral darkness grew denser and denser, and God saw that the night of a watery grave was the best alternative, then the Spirit, like Noah's dove to the ark, returned to the throne of God, leaving the night of judgment to settle upon the irreclaimable scene.

A similar visitation of the Spirit comes to the heart of every sinner; on a smaller scale and a briefer period, it is true, but corresponding in type. There is in most lives an antediluvian period of wandering from God, trampling upon restraints, of wild rushing after pleasure, the towerings of vanity or self-seeking; but around the hearts of all sinners there moves the Holy Ghost, searching for a place of lodgment, striving with the conscience, seeking a place to set His foot and build the kingdom of salvation. No soul ever born of the race in civilized or savage lands has escaped these visitations of the Spirit. He has a season of striving with every one. He uses every lawful means for gaining admittance, — the memories of youth, the recollections of a parent's prayer or some early hymn, the warnings of every open grave, of every dangerous or sad event of life, the preached word, the fear of hell, the allurements of heaven, the voice of friends; whatever can appeal to the heart or move the will or pierce the conscience is brought into operation, to lead men to repentance and salvation. But alas! in millions of cases He finds after all no place in human hearts for the sole of His foot, and there is no alternative but the settling down upon such souls the gloom of eternal night. When the Holy Spirit takes His flight judgment sets in. This was so at the deluge; this was so in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; this is so with the individual sinner now; this will be so at the end of the world: when those who have the Spirit are taken out of the earth, judgment will set in. A climax of all woe is to be utterly and forever forsaken of the Heavenly Dove, and if He finds in us no place to abide He must inevitably return to the Father who sent Him forth.

2. The second visit the dove made to find the earth, she found the mountain tops had reappeared, and plucking an olive leaf bore it back to Noah. There is much significance in this. The earth was coming forth into a new life, and the olive leaf was then, and has been ever since, the emblem of peace. The deluge had swept away the vast multitude of sinners, the human race was to start forth again from a single family, the earth was to begin a new career; already the waters were abating, the hillsides were putting forth new verdure, and, in a historic sense, the world had been regenerated. Still the water lingered in the valleys; there was a mixed condition of things, and the earth not sufficiently restored for the dove to make it as yet her permanent abode. This fittingly sets forth the second or prophetic period of the world's history, extending from the days of Noah to the birth of Christ. During this prophetic period, the race historically began a new form of moral life. God and men entered into covenants with each other; divine laws were given, civil governments established, religious doctrines were published, and the worship of God instituted. The biography of saintly patriarchs and the prophecies of the coining Christ furnished light for rules of faith and practice. The Holy Ghost worked through all these agencies, and produced many great religious awakenings. The olive branch of reconciliation between God and man is found all through those ages, so that the Spirit found many places where He could and did work mightily for the truth. Yet it was a period when the Church was in a mixed condition, Remnants of heathenism and idolatry still lingered in the visible Church, and as a body it was not yet prepared for the abiding Comforter.

This same phase of history is applicable to individual religious life. If we yield to the strivings of the Spirit, and are led to the Savior, His forgiveness as completely sweeps from the soul all our actual sins as the flood swept the sinners from the face of the earth, and our moral nature emerges by the power of the Spirit into a new life. The olive branch of peace with God is in the heart. The springtime of a new moral existence has come, and there is an infinite distance between this state of things and that of open rebellion to God. Nevertheless, we find our hearts in a mixed moral condition. The Heavenly Dove finds some place in us, nay, much place, congenial to His presence and in sympathy with His purpose; still there are remnants of evil. The deep ravines of our moral nature, which lie hidden from the general eye, are not yet thoroughly renovated. The graces are more or less mixed with their opposites.

We may have seasons of much religious joy and prosperity; sweet are the visits of the blessed Spirit; but in spite of everything we can do there is something within us that grieves the Holy Spirit, and oftentimes causes Him to leave us in humiliation and sorrow of heart. There is some accursed- thing still lingering, which prevents Him making His permanent abode with us; and in spite of every theological theory, in spite of any view which we may form of what conversion ought to be, the stubborn fact forces itself upon every converted soul that it needs a further work of grace.

3. Upon the third visit of the dove she found the earth dry; the spring sunshine was rapidly bringing out the new growth of vegetation, the hills and valleys were being rapidly clothed with verdure; she found the earth ready for occupancy. It was the season for rearing a young brood, and, obeying the instinctive behests of her life mission, she selected an appropriate spot to build her nest and lay her eggs, and did not return to Noah any more. Now that she found a new world fully prepared for her, her mission with Noah and the ark had ended and her paramount work was to perpetuate her species in the new world.

In all this we see indicated the purport of the third historical visit of the Holy Spirit to our race. The work of the Holy Spirit as indicated in the New Testament is that He is the executive of the Godhead in the plan of redemption; that it is His office to act immediately upon the moral faculties of men; to bridge the distance between the written Word and the human consciousness, and between the personal historic Christ and the soul; to apply the law in conviction, to reveal Christ as a personal Savior, to manifest the love of the Father to the heart. In the carrying forth of the fullness of His ministry there must be a preliminary preparation; he must be furnished with all the essential facts relative to salvation. The Holy Spirit works by using revealed truth; and in the case of a fallen race, as ours, He must work through the atonement; and to carry out His full office He must have willing and obedient subjects upon which to work.

We find a combination of all these facts and circumstances upon the day of Pentecost. The Old Testament and the words of Jesus furnished all essential saving truth. The great sacrifice of Jesus had provided ample atonement for the "sin of the world." The resurrection and enthronement of Jesus had lifted the means of salvation into infinite sovereignty. The infant Church, formed by our Lord and collected in fervent prayer, were willing and believing subjects for all the plenitude of the Spirit's works. Every barrier was out of the way; and when the Holy Ghost descended, He found, 3o far as God's true Church was concerned, all the territory ready for His occupancy. On that day He made His official visit to the Church militant, to make this earth and the Church of God His abode to the end of time. Ever since then the headquarters of the Holy Spirit have been on earth. He is now abroad among all the peoples of the earth, working upon souls in manifold ways; the Convincer of sin, the Inspirer of prayer, the Witnesser to pardon, the Comforter in distress, the Guide to the teachable, the Sanctifier of believers, the Revealer of truth, the Leader of every moral and spiritual movement; without whom the death of Jesus would be but a dry, historic fact, the Word of God would be but a dead letter, and the future world would be mantled in impenetrable gloom. We know not the infinite lines of work the Holy Spirit may be carrying forward among other worlds, among other tribes of intelligence, but from the New Testament we gather that at least during the age of redemption His paramount mission is with the sons of men. Hither has He come from heaven, and here He is carrying forward the greatest plans of infinite love until the Son of Man shall come again.

But this same historical visit of the Heavenly Dove has its counterpart in individual Christian experience. When the believer gets into such an attitude with the perfect will of God as to be perfectly cleansed from the carnal mind, so that the Holy Spirit finds no resistance to Himself in the heart, He will take up His permanent abode there. The application of this truth to personal experience is much more important than to the Church at large. If He cannot be the permanent Indweller of the individual believer, how can He be so with the Church collectively? And as to individual Christians, it is more essential that we have the Holy Spirit with us constantly, than to accept the dogma that He is in a general way with the Church at large. It is our place to see, as far as we are concerned, that the Holy Spirit shall have the right of way to all the territory we control; and if we yield Him the uttermost space of our being and will, we virtually yield Him the territory of the world. When He comes to fill and abide with us, He comes, like Noah's dove, to carry out His mission of reproducing the life of God in us; He comes to plant in us all saving and transforming truth; to unite that truth to our moral nature; to unfold that truth in our experience, life, and destiny. He comes with the words of Jesus and the mind and tempers of Jesus, to fashion them into our souls, that we may forever be like unto Him that redeemed us. And as Noah's dove, in hatching out other forms of life like her own, was doing a greater work than in returning to the ark again, so the Holy Ghost, in reproducing the quality and lineaments of the Christ life in us, is doing a work perhaps infinitely greater than any mission He could perform by taking His official flight to the heavenly world.

It may be interesting to notice some of the traits of the dove as indicating the work of the Spirit in us. Of course there are different species of the dove. The more prominent varieties referred to in the Bible are the carriers and the turtledove. But their character in the main is alike. One trait of the dove is non-combativeness. It has neither the combative spirit in its nature, nor claws or beak with which to fight. Its feet and beak are soft, and not constructed as weapons of attack as is the case with other birds. So far as known, all birds will fight except the dove. In this we have a lesson taught us by the Savior: "I say unto you,... resist not evil"; "Avenge not yourselves"; "Cease from anger." The work of the Spirit is to utterly destroy the raven spirit, with its fighting spirit and its tearing claws, and to fill us with the meekness and gentleness of Jesus.

Another trait of the dove is the permanency of its affections. It is the embodiment of innocence, purity, and love, so far as a mere animal can express those qualities. It differs from all other feathered tribes in that its attachments are life-long. It mates for life; only the death of one of the pair causes it to form another attachment. Most all varieties of other birds mate annually. The work of the Spirit is to bring the heart into fixedness of love: "His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."

"Jesus, Thine all- victorious love

     Shed in my heart abroad;

Then shall my feet no longer rove,

     Rooted and fixed in God."

Believers not fully possessed with the Spirit are often grieved with a tendency to backsliding, with something that interrupts their love to God. But the fullness of the Spirit destroys the incongruity of the soul, unites the heart in a permanent faith and love, causing the soul to exclaim: " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... for I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This is true wedlock of the soul to Jesus, which never anticipates a divorce.

Another trait of the dove is its disposition of watch-care and companionship. They never wander very far from each other. Especially is this true of the turtledove species; except when one of them is detained on the nest, they keep very close together while flying or feeding. Their habit while feeding is to keep up a continuous low call, which can be heard for one or two hundred feet, so that, though they do not see each other in the grass or brush, they can hear one another's voice.

Now it is very remarkable that this very trait of the dove is expressed in one of the names of the Holy Spirit. He is called the "Paraclete," which implies companionship — to be within whisper call; to keep the soul close to Jesus, so that, though out of sight, we may still hear His voice in all the vicissitudes of life. "My sheep hear my voice." "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it." The saintly John, on Patmos said, "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me."

Another trait of the dove is its remarkable speed in flight; this is eminently true of the carrier dove variety. So that if the dove cannot fight as other birds do, it can escape its enemy by flight, and thus come off victorious without the shedding of blood. It is remarkable that it can fly upwards with a facility unknown to all other birds. Birds of prey must swoop down, but the dove flies upward. I have seen them fly up at an angle of sixty degrees. By this faculty they elude their enemy. Thus it is with the soul fully possessed with the Heavenly Dove. It cannot fight its own battles, but it instinctively hides in the Rock of Ages. " From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.. .. I will trust in the covert of thy wings."

When Satan attacks, when friends forsake, when the air seems thick with adversity, like hawks and ravens threatening to pounce upon and tear our souls, then, with " malice toward none, with charity for all," we fly to Jesus for shelter. He is the mighty Conqueror.

"Jesus, lover of my soul,

     Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

     While the tempest still is high;

Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

     Till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the haven guide,

     O receive my soul at last."

The Heavenly Dove hovers over us. Let us yield Him all the space of our hearts for His residence. The more fully we receive Him to our hearts the more certainly we will be received into heavenly habitations.

[*] This sermon was preached at various camp meetings and conventions, and written for this volume on Steamship Pavonia, Cunard line, in midocean, Sept. 5, 1891.