“THE wheatear trap! What can that be?” says my young friend, who, when GOOD NEWS is brought home, always looks first at the index to see what are the titles of the pieces for the new month. “I should think,” she says to herself, “it must be something about the gleaners; for I have seen some of them carry lots of wheatears that they have picked up in the corn-fields, after harvest, in their aprons. But her little brother, who asks mamma for the book-knife that he may hunt out the pictures, can see that it is not such a trap we are going to speak about. No, my dear children; the wheatear we want to tell you of is a little bird, which spends about half the year in this country, and then leaves soon after wheat harvest. He is very shy, and seems to think there may be danger in everything he sees moving. I first learned this about him when rambling on the Sussex downs, where I saw several traps like the one in the picture. The shepherd who made them, as you may see, had cut out two pieces of turf, with a spade, for each trap. One piece was longer and narrower than the other; this he laid aside, and placed the short and broader piece upside-down over the narrow trench left by the longer piece of turf. Between it and the level ground he laid a stick of wood threaded with a horse-hair noose. The clouds were being carried along by the autumn breeze, and their shadows, chasing each other across the country, alarmed the poor little wheatears, and made them look about for a place to hide in; and so some of them chose the little trench, and, as they ran in, got their necks in the horse-hair.
Now, let whoever is reading this out loud, ask the following question, and wait a little for the answer.
Do you know who the poor little wheatear in the trap is like; and if so, who is it?
“A poor sinner in his sins” is what we would say; for “he who has the power of death, that is the devil,” well knows that “the wages of sin is death;” just as the man who made the trap did it so strongly that no wheatear, once taken, could set himself free. Now in Isaiah 49:24,24Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? (Isaiah 49:24) this question is asked, “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive delivered?” and these words apply to the wheatear more fully than we have yet, explained; for neither can he make his own escape, nor has any one else a right to take him from the trap without leaving a penny in his place; so that if three of you, having only a farthing each, were to set about liberating a wheatear, your kind desire to do so would be a little like God’s mercy in saving us; but it would not, like that grace, reign through righteousness, for the unhappy bird would be the shepherd’s lawful captive until the full penny was paid. But is not Jesus just the Saviour who supplied all this for us? He is mightier far than Satan, whose prey we were; for “by the sacrifice of himself” he made an end of sin, which is Satan’s only means for our destruction. The blood he shed on Calvary has fully satisfied God as the ransom price for our guilty souls; for he raised again, for our justification, him who died for our sins.
And now, before we bid you “good-bye,” we will give you a little verse to learn. It was originally written for a dear little boy when he was three years old, and who at that early age was very fond of asking questions, and hearing about the kindness of God. His name was Mortimer, and you may spell it with the first letters of each line of the verse. We call such verses acrostics, as perhaps you do not all know.
And may God, by his Holy Spirit, enable you with the heart, as by his blessing the little we have told you of the wheatear may help you with the understanding, thus to address him, each one for himself: —
M ake me thy little lamb,
O Jesus, Son of God;
R eveal thy precious name,
T he virtue of thy blood.
I am so full of sin,
M ake me as white as snow;
E nter my heart within,
R elease me from the foe.
T. J.