Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-09-19
THE DEER HUNT"
LAS THE HART PANTETH AFTER
THE WATER BROOKS. SO PANT
ETH MY SOUL AFTER THEE,
O, GODW

ETH n SOUL AFTER IHEE
O, GODp'
PEOPLE PURSUED BY LEAN
HOUNDS OF POVERTY, OR
BLACK HOUNDS OF PERSE-
CUTION.
DIR. TALMAGE's SERMON, SUNDAY, SEPT. 3.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, September 9.-The
great organ, improved and enlarged, rolled
out with new power the long metre dox-
Brooklyn Tabernacle to-day. The great
auditorium was thronged and OVERLOOKING.
The Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., has
ret urned from his summer vacation, during
which be has spoken in many parts of the
country, and shaken hands, he says, with
about hundred thousand people. He
closed his tour by visit to the wilderness
in upper New York State and spending
some time among the hunters. This morn
ing he expounded passages illustrative Of
Soloman's acquaintance with natural
history.
His text was Psalm K | i l., L: Gas
the hart panteth after the water brooks, so
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 fascinating
animal called in my text the hart, is the
same animal that in sacred and profane
literature is called the stag, the roebuck,
the hind, the gazelle, the reinder. In Gen.
tral Syria in Bible times there were whole
pasture fields of them, as Solomon suggests
when he says: ''charge you by the kinds
of the field" Their antlers jutted from the
long grass as 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, for the
dews, the showers, the lakes washed them
as clean as the sky. When Jacob, the
longed for venison, Esau shot
and brought home roebuck. Isaiah COM
pares the sprightliness of the restored Grip
pie of millennial times to the long and
quick jump of the stag, saying ''The lame
shall leap as the hart.' Solomon express
ed his disgust at hunter who having shot
a deer is too lazy to cook it, saying: 1.-THE
slothful man roasteth not that which he
took in hunting" But one day David,
while far from the home from which he had
been driven, and sitting near the door of a
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: Il
wonder what those dogs are after" Then
there is cracking iu the brushwood, and
the loud breathing of some rushing wonder
of the woods, and the antlers of deer
rend the leaves Of the thicket, 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 harriers.-
David says to himself: "Aha, that is my
self! Saul after me, Absalom after me,
enemies without number after me, l am
chased, their bloody muzzles at my heels.
barking at my good name, barking after
my body, barking after my soul. Oh, the
hounds, the houndsl But look there, +"
says David, "that render has splsshed
into the water. It puts it's hot lips and
nostrils into the cool wave that washes the
lathered fanks, 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 consolation escape from
my pursuers! Oh, for the waters of life
and rescue! AS the hart panteth after the
water brooks. SO panteth my soul after
Thee, o God"
I have just come from the Adiropdacks
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 hunter, / thought |
would like to see whether my text was &C
curate in it's allusion, and as l heard the
dogs baying little way off and supposed
they were ON the track of a reindeer, l said
to the hunter in rough corduroy: "Do the
deer always make for the water when they
are pursued?" He said: 80, 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 antlers and snuff the breeze and
start for the Racquet, or Loon, or Sarapac;
and We get into our cedar shell boat or
stand by the runway with rifle loaded
ready to blaze away" My friends, that is
one reason why like the Bible so much
its illusions are SO true to nature. Its
partridges are real partridges, its ostriches
are real ostriches, and its reindeer real
reindeer. l do not wonder that this ant
Tered glory of the text makes the hunters
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 restorative, taken from the name
of the hart and called hartshorn. But put
ting aside its usefulness, this enchanting
creature seems made out of gracefulness
and elasticity. With an eye, with liquid
brightness as if gathered up from hun.
dred lakes of sunset! The horns, coronal
branching into every possible curve, and
after it seems done, advancing into other
projections of exquisiteness, tree of pol
ished bone, uplifted in pride, or swung
down for awful combat. 1t is velocity EN-
bodied. Timidity impersOnated. The en-
chantment of the woods. Eye lustrous in
life and pathetic in death. The splendid
animal complete .fhythm of muscle, and
bone, and color, and attitude, and locomo-
tion, whether couched in the grass among
the shadows, or living bolt shot through
the forest, or turning at bay to attack the
hounds, or rearing for it's last fall under the
buckshot Of tho trapper. 1t is splendid
appearance that the painters pencil fails to
sketch, and only hunters dream on pill
low of hemlock at the foot of St. Regis is
able to picture. When twenty miles from
any settlement it comes down at eventide
to the lakes edge to drink among the lily
pads and with its sharp-edged hoof skaters
the crystal of Long Lake it is very
picturesque. But only when, after miles
of pursuit, with heaving sides and lolling
tongue, and eyes swimming in death the
stag leaps from the cliff into Upper Sara
nae, can you realize how much David had
suffered from his troubles and how much
he wanted God when he expressed himself
in the words of the text: Gas the hart
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after Thee, 0 God"
Well, now, let all those who have coming