Emphasis Preaching Journal

Frederick Speakman, in his book Salty Tang, relates the fable of the nightingale which traded its feathers to a peddler for worms. The peddler asked for only one feather from its wings. It was a painless kind of daily transaction. The plot is routine, and we can predict the crisis; for in time, the nightingale had traded so many feathers that it could no longer fly. But could we predict the twist that gives the story a terrifying truth? One day as the peddler went his rounds, he found the nightingale standing by the road.