The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-10
A LESSON FROM SOLOMON
TALMAGE BACK IN HIS PULPIT
AFTER ELS VACATION.

Inc Long meter DOXOlORy HOlleo Ou
With New Power by the Enlarged
Organ-His Text Taken From Psalm
XIII, david and the Hunted Stag
BROOKLYN, N. Y, Sept. 9.-The grea
organ, improved and enlarged, rolled on
with new power the long meter doxoloGy
at the opening of the service in the Brook
lvn tabernacle to-day. The great audito
rum was thronged and Overlooking. The
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., has re
turned from his summer vacation, during
which he has spoken in many parts of the
country. and shaken hands, he says, witt
about 100,0 600 people. He closed his tour by
visit to the wilderness in upper New York
state, and spending some time among tat
hunters. This morning he expounded pas
sages illustrative of Solomon's acquaintan {
with natural history.
His text was: Psalm xiii, l. AS the
heart panteth after tho water brooks, SC
panteth my soul after thee, o God" The
great preacher said:
David, who must sometime have seen a
deer hunt, points us here to a hunted stag
making for the water. The tasci ating
animal called in my text the hart, Is the
same animal that in sacred and profare
literature is called the stag, the roebuck,
the hind, the gazele, the 7 lDdeer. In Cen
trial SYRIA in Bible times there were whole
pasture fields of them. as Solomon suggests
when he says: II charge sou by the binds
of the field" Their antierS jutted from the
long grass es they lay down. No hunter
who has been long in John Browns track,
will wonder that in the Bible they were
classed among clean animals, tor
the dews, the showers, the lakes
washed them as clean as the sky.
When Jacob, the patriarch, longed for
venison, Esau shot and brought home a ros-
buck Isaiah compares the sprightiness of
the restored cripple of m,llehuial times IT,
the long and quick jump OF the stag, saying:
1.-THE lame shall leap as the hart" Solomon
expressed his disgust at hu ter who having
shot deer is too lazy to cook it, saying:
THE slothful man roasteth not that which
he took in hunting" But one day David,
while far from The nome from which he had
been driven, and sitting near the door of
lonely cave where he had lodged, and on
the banks of pond or river, hears pack
of hounds in swift pursuit. Because of the
previous silence of the forest the clangOr
startles him, and he says to himself: ~
wonder what those dogs are after Then
there is a cracking in the brushwOod, and
the loud breathing of some rushing wonder
Oh the mOOnS. anu tuc dlitltlS Vi Il 4tteT
rend the leaves OF the thicke5, and by an
instinct which all hunters recognize, plungeS
into pond or lake or river to cool its thirst,
and at the same time, by its capacity for
swifter and longer swimming, to get away
from the foaming barriers. David says to
himself: AHA, that is myself! Saul after
me, AbsalOm after me, enemies without
number after me, | am chased, their bloody
muzzles at my heels, barking at my good
Har of hNlx No.
after my soul. Oh, the hounds, the hounds!
But look there, says David, that reindeer
has splashed into the water. 1t puts it's hot
lips and uostrilS into the cool wave that
washes the lathered TANKS, and it swims
away from the fiery CANNES, and it Is free
at last Oh that / might find in the deep,
wide lake of Gods mercy and cons lation
escape from my pursuers! Oh for the
waters of life and rescued As the hart
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after thee, o God"
! have just come from the Adirondacks
and the breath of the balsam and spruce
and pine is still on me The Adirondacks
are now populous with hunters, and the
deer are being slain by the score. Talking
a few days ago with a hunter, thought
would like to see whether nv
text was accurate in its allusion, and as |
heard the dogs baving little way off and
deer, | said to the hunter in rough corduroy:
"Do the deer always make for the water
when they are pursued" He said: 20, yes.
Mister, you see they are hot and thirsty
animal, and they know where the water is.
and when they hear danger in the distance
they lift their snt.ers ana snuff the breeze
and start for the Racquet, or Loon or
Saranac; and we get into our cedar shell
boat or stand by the runway with rifle
loaded ready to blazs away" Ny friends.
That is one reason why | like the Bible
so much--its illusions are so true
10 nature. It's cartridges are real cartridges,
its ostriches real ostricheS, and its reindeer
real reindeer. | do not wonder that this
antlered glory of the text makes the hunt
er'S eye sparkle and his cheek glow and his
respiration quicken. To say nothing of its
usefulness, although it is the most useful of
all game, its flesh delicious, its skin turned
into human apparel. its sinews fashioned
into bow strings. its antlers putting handles
on cutlery. and the shavings of its horns
used as a restorative, taken from the name
OF hart and called hartshorn. But putting
aside its usefulness, this enchanting crea-
tlire seems made out of gracefulness and
elasticity. What an eye, with a LIQUID
brightness as if gathered up from a hun
dred lakes of sunset The horns, u coro-
nal branching into every possible
curve, and after it seems done, al
vancing into other projections of
exGuisiteness, tree of polished bone, up
lifted in PRIDE or swung down for awful
combat. 1t Is velocity embodied Timiditv
impersonated. The enchantment Of the
woods Eye lustrous in life and pathetic in
death. The splendid animal a complete
rhv IN of muscle, and bone, and color, and
attitude, and loconotion. whether couched
III the grass among tie shadows, or living
bolt scot through the forest, or turning at
hay to attack the hounds, or rearing for its
last fall under the buckshot of the trapper
II is splendid appearance that the pain
ter's pencil fails to sketch, and only a hun
ter's dream on "a pillow of hemicck n. the
foot OF st. Regis is able to picture w
twenty miles from any settlement il mes
down at eveutide to the lakes edge to-.
among the lily pads and, with its sharp
edged hoof, skaters The crystal of Long
Lake, 1t IS very picturesque. But only
when, after miles of pursuit, with heaving
sides and lolling tongue and ewes swimming
IN death the stag leaps from the if into
Upper Saranac, can you realize how much
David had suffered from his troubles. ard
how much he wanted God when he ex-
pressed himself in the words of the text:
"As the heart panteth after the water
brooks, so panteth my soul after thee. o
God"
Well now, let all those who have coming
after them the lean hounds of poverty. or
the black hounds Of persecution, or the
spotted hounds Of vicissitude, or The male
bounds of death, or who are in any wise
pursued. fly TO the wide, deep, glorious lake