Perfection, Human—Unattainable – Charles Spurgeon

WHENEVER I meet with a person who feels that he is perfect, I conceive at once that he has not yet attained even a remote conception of what true perfection must be. The savage of Australia is satisfied with his weapons of war so long as he has never seen a rifle or heard of a cannon: to him his hovel is a model of architecture, for he has never heard of a cathedral or a palace. I have no doubt that a barn-door bird would be quite surprised at the complaint which an eagle might make about its inability to mount as high as it desires to do. The bird is perfect—perfect up to the condition of its barn-door, barley-scratching life; it knows nothing higher than its roosting-place, and so it concludes itself absolutely perfect and fit for all that is desirable in flight. But oh, could it know where the thunders dwell, and sail above the clouds where the callow lightnings wait the bidding of the Lord, then would the creature feel something of the aspirations and the grief which torment the heart of the royal bird. Men know not what God is, nor the infinity of his perfections, nor the majesty of his purity, else, when highest would they cry, “Higher, higher, higher,” and mourn because they have not yet attained, and need still to mount as on eagle’s wings.