The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-05-21
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
An Allegorical Discourse On 'aTho
Return From the Chase.
The HINT For the World and Its Pleas
Hres In the Morning of Life-The
Peace of God the Only Result
Worth Returning With.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage preached an
allegoricaI sermon at the Brooklyn Taber-
nacle, recently, the subject of which he an
nounced as Return From the Chase"
taking for bis text:
In the morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the spoil
fGenesis xix. p.
DR.. Talmage said: There is in this chap
ter such an affiuence of simiIe and ale
CORY, such a mingIiRg of metaphors, that
there are thousand thoughts in it not on
the surface. Old Jacob, dying, is telling
the fortunes of his children. He prophe-
sizes the devouring propensities of Benja-
min and his descendants. With his dim
old eyes he looks off and sees the hunters
going out TO the fields, ranging them all
day and at night-fall coming home, the
game slung over the shoulder; and reach
ing the door of the tent the hunters begin to
distribute the game, and one takes a coney
and another a rabbit and another roe.
In the morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the spoil.
Or, it may be reference to the habits of
wild beasts that slay their prey, and then
drag it back to the cave or lair and divide
it among the young.
There is nothing more fascinating than
the life OF hunter On certain day in
all England you can hear the crack of the
spOrtsman's gun because grouse hunting
has begun; and every man that can afford
the time and ammunition and can draw
bead starts for the fields. On the 20th of
October our woods and forests will re-
sound with the shock of firearms, and win
be tracked with pointers and settlers be-
cause the quail viii then be lawful prize
for the sportsman. Xenophon grew elo-
qUent in regard to the art of hunting. In
the far East people, elephant mounted,
chase the tiger. The American Indian darts
his arrow at the buffalo until the fright
ened herd tumble over the rocks. Europe
an mobiles are often found in the fox chase
and at the stag hunt. Francis 1. was
called the father of hunting. Moses de-
clsCes of NimrOd:
He was mighty hunter before the Lord.
therefore in all ages of the world the
! ina gerry of my text ought to be suggest
| i've, whether it means wolf after fox or
| a man after lion.
In the morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the spoil.
take my text, in the first place, as de-
| scriptive OF those people who, in the morn
! ing of their life, give themselves up to
! hunting the world, but afterward, by the
! grace of God, in the evening of their life
! divide among themselves the spoils of
/ Christian character. There are aged
Christian men and women in this house
! who, if they gave testimony, would tell
you that in the morning of their life they
were after the world as intensely as a
/ hound after hare or as a falcon sWoops
upon a gazeIle. They wanted the worlds
/ pIaudits and the worlds gains. They felt
that if they could get this world they
would have every thing. Some of them
started out for the pleasures of the world.
They thought that the man who laughed
loudest was happiest They tried repar-
tee. and conundrum, and burlesque, and
madrigal. They thought they would like
to be Tom Hoods or Charles Lambs or Ed
gar A. Poes. They mingled wine and
music and the spectacular. They were
worshipers of the harlequin, and the
/ Merry Andrew, and the buffoon, aad
the jester Life was to them foam,
aud bubble, and cachinDa alton, and royster-
ing, and grimace. They were so full of
glee they could hardly repress their mirth,
| even on solemn occasions, and they came
| near bursting out hilariOusly even at the
burial, because there was something
dolor0us in the tone or countenance of the
| undertaken. After awhile misfortune
struck them hard the back. They
found there was something they could not
laugh at. Under their late hours their
health gave way or there was death in
the house. OF every green thing their
soul was exfoliated. They found out that
life was more than joke. From the
| heart of God there blazed into their soul
an earnestness they had never felt before.
They awoke to their sinfulness and inn
mortality, and here they sit to-day at
| sixty or seventy yU6Fs of age, as appre-
/ ciative of all innocent mirth as they ever
were, but they are bent on a style of salts
faction which in early life they never
hunted the evening of their days brighter
than the morning. In the morning they
devoured the prey, but at night they are
dividing the spoil.
Then there are others who started out
| for financial success They see how timber
a mans hat is when he bows down before
some one transpicuous. They felt they
would like to see how the world looked
from the window of $4,000 turnout.
They thought they would like to have
the morning sunlight tangled in the head
gear of a dashing span. They wanted
the bridges in the park to resound under
the ratapIan of their swift hoofs. They
wanted a gilded baldrick, and so they
started on the dollar hunt. They chased
! it up one street and chased it down an
| MOTHER They followed il when burrowed
in the cellar. They treed it in the roof.
| Wherever a dollar was expected to be
they were. They chased it across the
ocean. They chased it across the
land. They stopped not for the night.
Hearing that dollar even in the dark
ness thrilled them as an Adirondack
sportsman is thrilled by looms laugh.
] I'll. FhuF 70 "a "
vault They chased it to the government
treasury They routed it from under
the counter All the hounds were
out-all the pointers and settlers. They
1 leaped the hedges for that dollar,
| and they cried: "Hark away a dollar !
| doIlar!" And when at last they came
upon it and had actually captured it, their
excitement was like that of a falconer who
has successfully flung his first hawk. In
the morning of their life, oh how they
devoured the prev.
But there came better time to their
soul. They found out that an immortal
nature can not live on government bonds.
They took up a Northern Pacific bond nd
there was hole in II through which they
could look into the uncertainty of all
earthly treasures. They saw some Ralstoni
/ living At the rate OF 81, 900 month, leap
ing from San Francisco wharf because
/ he could not continue TO live at the same
ratio They saw the wien and paraiytic
/ bankers who had changed their souls into
molten gold stamped with the image of
the earth, earthly. They saw some great
souls hy avarice turned into homunculi,
and they said to themselves: Il will seek
after higher treasure" From that tine
they did not care whether they walked OF
rode If Christ walked with them; mol
whether they lived in mansion or hut
il they dwelt under the shadow of the Al
mighty nor whether they were Fobed IL
French broadcloth or in homespun If they