The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-09-13

skaters the crystal of Long lake, il 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 SaYanac, 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, o God"
Well now, let all those who have COM
ing after them the lean hounds of pow
erty or the black hounds of persecution
or the spotted hounds of vicissitude or
the pale hounds of death or who are in
any wise pursued, fly to the wide,
deep, glorious lake of divine solace
and rescue. The most of the
men and women whom happen to
know at different times, If not now have
had trouble after them, sharp muzzled
troubles, swift troubles, all devouring
troubles Many of you have made the
mistake of trying to fight them. Some
body meanly attacked you, and you at
tackled them; they deprecated you, you
deprecated them; or they ovcrreached
y5d in a bargain, and you tried, IN Wall
street parlance, to get corner on them;
or you have had q bereavement, and IN
stead of being submissive, you are fighting
that bereavement; you charge on the
doctors who failed to effect cure; or
you charge on the care1essness of the
railroad company through which the ac-
eident occurred; or you are a chronic
invalid, and you fret and worry and
scold and wonder why you can
not be well like other people,
and you angrhy charge on the neuralgia
or the laryngitis or the agne or the sick
headache. The fact is you are a deer at
bay. Instead of running to the waters
of divine consolation, and shaking your
thirst and cooling your body and soul in
the good cheer of the Gospel, and SWIM
ming away into the mighty deeps of Gods
love, you are fighting whole kennel of
barriers. A few days ago I saw in the
Adirondaeks a dog lying across the road,
and he seemed unable to get up, and I
said 10 some hunters near by: "Whas is
the matter with that dog2" They an
swered: "A deer hiirt him., And I saw
he had great swollen paw and a bat
tered head, showing where the antlers
struck him. And the probability is that
some Of you might give a mighty clip to
your pursuers, you might damage their
business, you might worry them into i'll
health, you might hurt them as much
as they have hurt you, but, after all. it
is no$ worth while. You only have hurt
a hound. Better be off for the Upper
Saranac, into which the mountains of
Gods eternal strength look Down and
moor their shadows. AS for your physi-
cal disorders, the worst sfrychnine you
can take is fretfulness. and the best med
icine is religion. 1 know people who
were only a little disOrdered, yet have
fretted themselves into complete valetu-
dinarianism, while others put their trust
in God and came up from the very
shadow of death, and have lived COM
fortably twenty-five years with only one
lung A man with one lung, but God
with him, is better off than goddess
man with two lungs. Some Of you have
been for long time sailing around Cape
Fear when you ought to have been sail
ing around Cape Good Hope. Do not
turn back, but go ahead. The deer will
accomplish more with its swift feet than
with its horns.
I saw whole chains Of lakes in the
Adirondacks, and from one height you
can see thirty, and there are said to be
over eight hundred in the great wilder
ness. So near are they to each other
that your mountain guide picks up and
carries the boat from lake to lake, the
small distance between them for that
reason called "carry." And the realm
of Gods word is one long chain of
bright, refreshing lakes; each promise
a lake, very short carry be-
tween them, and though for ages
the pursued have been drinking out of
them, they are full up to the top of the
green banks, and the same David de-
scribes them, and they seem so near to-
gether that in three different places he
speaks of them as continuous river,
saying: There is q river the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of God !"
"Thou shalt make them drink of the
rivers of thy pleasures "Thou greatly
enrichest it with the river Of God which
Is full of water"
But many of you have turned your
back on that supply, and confront your
trouble, and you are soured with your
y
ciety, and you are fighting pursuing
world, and troubles instead of driving
you into the cool lake of heavenly COM
fort, have made you stop and turn round
and lower your head, and it is simply
antler against tooth. do not blame you.
Probably under the same circumstances
I would have done worse. But you are
all wrong. You need to do as the rein
deer does ID February and March-it
sheds its horns. The Rabbinical writers
allude to this resignation Of antlers by
the stag when they say Of man who
ventures his money in risky enterprises,
he has hung it on the stag horns; and a
proverb in the far east tells man who
has foolishly lost his fortune to go and
find where the deer shed her horns. My
brother, quit the antagonism of your
circumstances, quit misanthropy, quit
complaint, quit pitching into your pur-
spers, be as wise as, next spring, will be
all the reindeer of the Adirondacks, Shed
your horns.
But very many OF you are wronged Of the
world-and if in any assembly between
| Sandy Hook, New York, and Golden
, Gate, San Francisco, it were asked that
all those that had been sometimes badly
treated should raise both their hands,
and full response should be made. there
: would be twice as many hands lifted as
persons present. say many Of you
would declare: "We have always
3 done the best we could and tried to be
useful, and why we should become the
victims of malignment, Or invalidism, OF
: mishap, is inscrutable." Why do you
S not know that the finer a deer, and the
t more elegant its proportions, and the
0 more beautiful its bearing, the more
t anxious the hunters and the hounds are
. to capture it. Had that roebuck s
c ragged fur and broken hoofs and
= an obliterated eye and limping gait
< the hunters would have said: ''Pshaw
: don't let us waste our ammunition on 6
= sick deer" And the hounds would have
Q given few shifts of the track and ther
y darted eff in another direction for better
!, game. But when they see deer witt