The Tidings of the Breeze
George H. Morrison
John 3:8
This is one of the most profound sayings that ever fell upon a listening ear, and yet it bears to us every mark of being occasional and unpremeditated. The time was night-the place some quiet cottage-the theme the regeneration of the Spirit. And then it may be, right across the talk, there came the sighing of the night wind around the cottage. And Jesus, whose ear was ever quick to catch and use the parables of nature, said, "Hark, Nicodemus, don't you hear it? The wind bloweth where it listeth." It is Christ's parable, infinitely beautiful, of the life not of the flesh but of the spirit. It is Christ's picture of certain large realities in the experience of the regenerate. And the question which I wish to ask, on this Sunday commemorative of the day of Pentecost, is what features of the breeze does our Lord seize upon as illustrative of the spiritual life?
The first feature which our Lord selects is liberty-the wind bloweth where it listeth. In every literature and for every man the wind is the emblem of glad and glorious liberty. You may tell its direction, whether east or west; you may devise instruments to measure its velocity; you may watch its path across the field of corn, or where the giants of the forest bow before it; but spite of all minutest observation, and all the imprisoning energies of science, the breeze still is gloriously free. You can raise no barriers that will block its progress. You can forge no chains that will confine it. You cannot divert it as it crosses the ocean, or bid it halt in its hurrying for an hour. Tonight, as long centuries ago, when it set the tent of Abraham aquivering, the wind bloweth where it listeth.
Now there are two elements of this liberty which science has made very plain to us, and the first is that it is not a lawless liberty. I do not say that we understand its laws yet as we understand the laws of light, for instance. There is much that is obscure an ...
George H. Morrison
John 3:8
This is one of the most profound sayings that ever fell upon a listening ear, and yet it bears to us every mark of being occasional and unpremeditated. The time was night-the place some quiet cottage-the theme the regeneration of the Spirit. And then it may be, right across the talk, there came the sighing of the night wind around the cottage. And Jesus, whose ear was ever quick to catch and use the parables of nature, said, "Hark, Nicodemus, don't you hear it? The wind bloweth where it listeth." It is Christ's parable, infinitely beautiful, of the life not of the flesh but of the spirit. It is Christ's picture of certain large realities in the experience of the regenerate. And the question which I wish to ask, on this Sunday commemorative of the day of Pentecost, is what features of the breeze does our Lord seize upon as illustrative of the spiritual life?
The first feature which our Lord selects is liberty-the wind bloweth where it listeth. In every literature and for every man the wind is the emblem of glad and glorious liberty. You may tell its direction, whether east or west; you may devise instruments to measure its velocity; you may watch its path across the field of corn, or where the giants of the forest bow before it; but spite of all minutest observation, and all the imprisoning energies of science, the breeze still is gloriously free. You can raise no barriers that will block its progress. You can forge no chains that will confine it. You cannot divert it as it crosses the ocean, or bid it halt in its hurrying for an hour. Tonight, as long centuries ago, when it set the tent of Abraham aquivering, the wind bloweth where it listeth.
Now there are two elements of this liberty which science has made very plain to us, and the first is that it is not a lawless liberty. I do not say that we understand its laws yet as we understand the laws of light, for instance. There is much that is obscure an ...
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