Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-06-19
EQUINE ETHICS.
No More Religion In Going Slow
Than Fast. I
The King of Animals-HUw He Should be
Treated, Fed and Caied For-Ibe (
Evils Of Betting Which Affiict /
the Turf.
MORNING SERMON

mage, al tne ldoeIhaSie' 'AAs
snbiect-"The horse and his rider"
Text-Job xxx, 49, 81 and 25: "Hast
thou given the horse strength Hast thou
clothed his neck with thunder? The glory
of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth IN
the. valley and rejoiceth in his strength
He goeth on to meet the armed men. DE
sayeth among the trumpets ha, ha, and he
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder oil
the captains and the shouting" -
In this summer season, when we have
long columns of intelligences from the race
courses, and the crowds are thronging all
the watering places to attend the equine
competitions, and there is lively discus
sions in all families as to the right or wrong
of these exhibitions of mettle and speed,
and there is heresy abroad which seems
to imply that the cultivation OF horses
speed is an iniauity instead OF commend
able virtue, sermon is demanded from
every minister who desires to guard pubic
morals on the one side and is not willing
to see an unrighteous abridgment OF inno'
cent amusement on the other. l shall fol-
low no sermonic precedent in this discus
siap, but advance independently what l
consider the Christian and common sense
view of this potent, far-reaching and agitat'
ing question OF the turf
There needs a readjustment OF coronets
among the brute creation. The lion has for
a long while been called the king of beasts.
knock off his crown and give it to the
horse-in
Every Way Nobler,
whether in shape, or spirit, or affection or
memory, or sagacity, or usefulness. He is
semi-human, and knows how to reason on
a small scale The Centaur, which was half
horse and half man may well suggest that
the horse is more than beast. In my text
Job suggests his strength, his majesty, his
painting breath, his impatient paving, his
enthusiasm for battle. What Rosa Bonheur
did for the cattle, and does Landseer for the
dog, Job. with mightier pencil, does for the
horse Eighty eight times does the Bible
speak of him. He is present in every inn
posing procession, in every triumph and on
every great occasion. 1t j. evident that
Moses, and David, and Solomon, and Isaiah
and jeremiah, and Zachariah and st. John
were fond of the horse He appeared in
much of their imagery. The red horse
meant war, the black horse famine, the pale
horse death, the white horse victory. One
of the entrances Of Jerusalem was called the
ho,se-gate. Good Mordecai rides the horse
while wicked Haman holds the bride. The
Church's advance is compared to
Company OF Horses
in Pharoah's chariot. jeremiah cries out:
How can'st thou content with horsesY
miriam sings: THE horse and his rider
hath he thrown into the sea-" lslah says:
Their horses hoofS shall be as flint st.
John sees Christ going forth conauering
and to conquer seated on q white horse. In
the great parade of heaven John makes us
hear the clatter of hoofs on the golden
pavement, as he says: The armies which
were in heaven followed him upon white
horses. From the way horses are beaten
and banged and hurt on earth should not
wonder if there was another state OF being
for them where the wrongs done here may
be righted, the horses that John saw not so
much fgurative as literal. Not only does
the Bible make favorite Of this splendid
creature of the fields. Patriarch, prophet,
and evangelist stroking his sleek and silk.
tenderly lifting his exquisitely constructed
hoof. and have spoken of him in eucOmistic
numbers. Virgil in his Georges ALMOST
plagiarizes from Jobs description in the
text. The Duke of Wellington allowed ne
one irreverently to touch the war horse Co
penhagen which the Duke rode without
dismounting.
Fifteen Hours at Waterloo.
When Copenhagen died his master ordered
a military salute fired over his grave. John
Howard, showing that he did not expend
all his kindness upon the human race
wrote home while sick in a lazaretto: lis
nv chase horse gone blind or spoiled"
French literature has hardly more pa
thetic passage than the lamentation oyeI
the old war horse Marchegay. You SEE
Walter Scott's fondness for the horse as in
st. Romans Well" he orders the girths
slackened and the blankets thrown ovel
| the smoking tianks. Alexander was over
come with grief at the death of his charger
| thirty years old. Edmund Burke in thu
| park at Beaconsfield, musing over the past
| threw his arms over the worn.opt horse o
I his dead son Richard and wept on his neck
| the horse seeming to sympathize in the pa
| thetic memories. Rowland Hill, the grea
English clergyman, was derided because b,
supplicated at family prayers for the re
covery of his sick horse, and when tn,
animal, contrary to the decision of the far
riers, got we'll, the prayer did not appear sc
much of an absurdity.
What shall say of those who offend Goo
by the abuse OF this divinely .honoreC
| creature? II Thomas Chalmers felt called
upon in his day to preach a sermon on
Cruelty 90 Animals,
how much more need now for such repress
sive discourse? All honor to Henry
Bergh, the chief apostle of the brute crea
tion. for the mercy he has demanded and
achieved for the king of beasts. A mar
who owned 1000 horses, and some say 40,
600, wrote in the Bible: "a righteou!
beasts" and Sir Henry lawrence
| treatment of his horse Conrad was beauti
| fully Christian. He said: II take so much
care of him that / suspect he will die.
| That he may come in cool always wall
him in the last three or four miles, and as
/ walk myself the first hour, it is in the
middle of the journey l get over the
ground" The Ettrick shepherd was right
when in his "Ambrosial Nights" he calls
| the abuse of the horse a practical bias
| phemy. ! am not ready to severely de
nounce the doctrine of TRANSPORTATION o.
| souls for the people who slash and cut aud
CAD and whack and melt his splendid ser
want of the human race, pulling Its bur.
dens and giving it rapid transportation
and running for its doctors and dragging
its plows and turning its treadmillS and
threshers-such outrages on the brute, de-
serve to go into other bodies after death
through transmigrstion of souls, and bt
over-driven and over-fed and frozen ant
heated. an eternal stage horse a traveller
| over an eternal tow path, or tied to an eter
nal post in an eternal winter, or smitter
with
Eternal Epizooties.
1t seems outrageous that the dumb crea
lures which first had possession of thi!
world. should be so maltrested by the hu,
man race which came afterwards, the frs
comers abused by the last comers, the fish
and the fowls created on the::fifth day, and
the horses and cattle created on the morn
ing of the sixth day, assaulted by the hu
man race, which was started on the evenins
OF the sixth day. Letit be understood tha
he who over.drives a horse, or feeds il
when heated, or hammers q nail into the quiz
of his foot or shoes him so that his fellock'
are red with blood, or cruelty spurs him
for the sake of seeing him prance, or un
necessarily clutches his tongue in twisted
bit, or chucks his head so high that every
step is torture, or puts collar on his raw
neck, or clips his hair until he has no de
4 - -,aNA h