Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1888-09-10
TALMAGE TO HfS FLOCK.
THE REVEREND DOCTOR breaches
AT THE TABERNACLE.


IA the Hart Panseth After the Water
brooks. So Pantsth MY Soul After Thee.
CODA Sermon Suggested by . Visit
to the Adirondsnks.
BROOKLYN, Sept o.-The great organ, i'm
proved and enlarged, rolled out with new
power the long meter doxology at the open
ing of the service IN the Brooklyn Taber-
nacle today. The great auditorium was
thronged and overfowing. The Rev. I. De
Witt Talmage, D. D., has returned from his
summer vacation, during which he has
spoken in many parts of the country, and
shaken hands, he says, with about hun
dred thousand people. He closed his tour
by a visit to the wilderness in upper New
York state, and spending some time among
the hunters. This morning he expounded
passages illustrative of Solomon's acQuaint-
ance with natural history.
His text was, Psalm xiii, 1: "As the hart
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after thee, o Gvd-" The great
preacher said:
David, who must sometime have seen
deer hunt poirts us here to hunted stag
making for the water. The fascinating AMI
NAL called in my text the hart, Is the same
animal that In sacred aud profane literature
is called the stag, the roebuck, the hind, the
Cazelie. the reindeer. In central Syria, in
Bible times, there were whole pasture fields
Of them, as Solomon suggests when he says:
81 charge you by the kinds Of tho 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 patriarch. longed for venison,
Esau shot and brought home roebuck.
Isaiah compares the sprightliness OF the re-
stored cripple of millennial times to the long
and quick jump of the stag, saying: Tho
lame shall leap as the hart" Solomon ex-
pressed his disgust at hunter who, having
shot a 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 home from which he had
been driven, and sitting near the door OF
lonely cave where he had lodged, and on the
banks of a pond or river, hears pack OF
hounds in swift pursuit. Because of the pre-
vious silence of the forest the clangor startles
him, and he says to himself: 81 wonder what
those dogs are afterF Then there is a crack
ling in the brushwood. and the loud breath
ing 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
hike 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, Absa-
lom after me, enemies without number after
me; 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 hounds! But look there"
says David, "that re.pdeer has splashed into
the water It puts its hot lips and nostrils
into the cool wave that washes the lathered
TANKS, and it swims away from the fiery ca
mines, and it is free at last. Oh, that
might find in the deep, wide lake Of Gods
mercy and consolation escape from my pur-
suersI Oh, for the waters of life and rescued
As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
SO panteth my soul after thee, o God.n
| have Just come from the Adirondacks,
and the breath of the balsan and spruce and
pine is still on me. The Adirondacks are
now popuious with hunters and the deer are
being slain by the score. Talking few days
ago with hunter, i thought would like to see
whether my text was accurate in its allusion,
and as heard the dogs baying little way
off and supposed they were on the track Of a
reindeer, | said to the hunter in rough cordu-
roy: "Do the deer always make for the water
when they are pursuedf' He said: "Oh,
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 Saranac;
and we get into our cedar shell boat or stand
by the runaway with rife loaded ready
to blaze away" My friends, that is
one reason why like the Bible so
much-its allusions are so true to nature.
Its partridges are real partridges, its
ostriches real ostriches, and its reindeer real
reindeer do not wonder that this antlered
glory of the text makes the hunters eye
sparkle and his cheeks glow and his respira-
tion quicken. To say nothing Of its useful
ness, although it is the most useful of all
game; its flesh delicious, its skin turned into
human apparel, its sine~s fashioned into
W" s"ns 's a pus'is nanuies VI
eutiei. an. .ne suasss u Is norhs, useu
as restora,'s' .a.eu rom n .ne name ol tne
mart a,iu caiieu nai ssuoin Dus pu.'ins asioe
Us 1seiuin 'nls .u., el.uansns .isa'ul N seems
,nraue 1r, ous u "a sue 1.Nsss anu eiaslici'y:
!" nat an eye, WIN q nqu,u orisnlneSs as II
ea.nereu r,, up noin uunuieu nAes VI sun
SET! Inc no,hS' q coioha, oIancnihs mo
every possiole curse auo ai'er " seems
uone, advancing .,s .n'o o.her proJec.ioms o,
eAquisi'enesS, uee u po,.sneu oone' upn,No
IN y, pfiue, VI s"uns uomh ,Ui awlui conloa''
~ Is 'e,Uci'y enoo Lnauey iinfe soh-
aDeG ine enc"an.inen. aa =. 'ue ~oo Tye
'ust'ous ~ ine anu p0,ue'iI M ueas 1ue
spend t nud tono a ana nnIor ana .,.;,nd. u mus nus