The Brookhaven leader., 1886-05-20
TALMAGES SERMON.
An Anegorical Discourse On The
Return From the Chase.
The Hunt For the World and Its Pleas.
ures In the Morning Of Life-Ths
Peace of God the Only Result
worth Returning with.

Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage preached an
anegoricsl sermon at the Brooklyn Taber.
nacie, recently, the subject OF which he an =
nounced as Return From the Chase"
taking for his text:
In the morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the spoil
lGeaesis xix. %.
DR.. Tslmage said; There is In this chap
ter such an afiuence of simile and alle-
CORY, such a mingling of metaphors, that
there are a thousand thoughts in IL 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 of and sees the hunters
going out to the fields, ranging them all
day and at night-fsl 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 a roe.
In the morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the spoil.
Or. it may be a 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 a certain day in
al 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 a
head starts for the fields On the 20th of
October our woods and forests will re-
sound with the shock of firearms, and will
be tracked with pointers and settlers be-
cause the quail will 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 I. was
called the father of hunting. Moses de-
clares of Nimrod:
He was mighty hunter before the Lord.
Therefore in all ages of the world the
imagery of my text ought to be suggest
i've, whether il means a wolf after a fox or
man after q 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
W tall
you that in the morning of their life they
were after the world as intensely as a
hound after a hare or as falcon swoops
upon a gazelle. They wanted the worlds
plaudits 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 repair
tee, and conundrum, and burlesque, and
madrgal. 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 bufYoon, and
the jester. Life was to them foam,
and bubble, and cachinDa ton, 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 so
dOOrous in the tone or countenance of the
undertaken After awhile misfortune
struck them hard on the back. They
FOUND there was something they could not
laugh at. Under their late hours their
health gave way or there was a 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
All earnestness they had never felt before.
They awoke to their sinfulness and i'm.
mortality, and here they sit to-day at
sixty or seventy years of age, as appre-
clative Of all innocent mirth as they ever
we're, but they are bent on a style of salts.
faction which in early life they never
hunted; the evening of their days bri ghter
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
tor 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 a 5000 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 rataplan of their swift hoofs. They
wanted a gilded baldrick, and so they
started on the dollar hunt They chased
IL up one street and chased it down an
mother. They followed it when burrowed
IN the cellar. They freed it in the roof.
Wherever a dolla" 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.
They chased that dollar to the money
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
leaped the hedges for that dollar,
and they cried: "Hark away! dollar
dollar" 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 Northern Pacific bond nd
shere was hole in it through which they
tould look into the uncertainty of all