The Edomite, alas, is gone, though the eagle is still left, and she fixes her habitation on the dizzy crag.
"From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off" (ver. 29). The eye of a bird is a marvellous structure. It is a telescope and microscope combined. It has the power of compressing the lens to adapt it to varying distances; and is larger in proportion than the eye of quadrupeds. The kestrel hawk, for instance, feeds on the common field mouse; but this tiny creature is so like the colour of the soil, that a human eye could scarcely detect it at the distance of a few yards. The kestrel, however, has no such difficulty. Her telescopic eye sees it from the sky overhead, and like a bolt from the blue, she swoops down upon the helpless prey. No mistake is made as she nears the ground. Swiftly and almost instantaneously the telescope is compressed into the microscope, and the daring freebooter could pick up a pin.
The same power is possessed by the Griffon vulture or "eagle" of Holy Scripture. "_Her eyes behold afar off_." A dozen eagles may be soaring upwards in the sunlight, until they become mere specks against the blue of heaven, but they are carefully watching each other in their wheeling circles, and diligently scanning the desert below in the hope of discovering some prey. The moment the object is sighted, and even one bird has made a swoop downwards, the movement is detected by the one nearest, which immediately follows; while the second is followed by a third, and the third by a fourth, until in a few minutes, "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." Their vast power of wing and acuteness of sight have led them to the prey.
And the lesson is not far to seek. In the Carlyle use of the word it emphasises the need of being able to _see_. "To the poet, as to every other, we say first of all, _see_. If you cannot do that, it is of no use stringing rhymes together and calling yourself a poet, there is no hope for you." And in religion it is the pure in heart that see God. If the inner eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light. The aged _seer_ on Patmos saw into the heaven of heavens. Like Paul, he heard words not lawful to be uttered; and thus in the symbolism of the Christian Church, he is known as the New Testament _eagle_. He was the one who "saw more and heard more, but spake less than all the other disciples." But all the saints of God may soar and _see_ in some measure as he did—