The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-09-11
THE DEER HUNT"
DR.. TaImage'S First Sermon
After His Vacation.
Text: Gas the Hart Panteth After the
Water Brooks, So Panteth My Soul
After Thee, God"

eINPNNA"ADSN
The great organ, improved and enlarged,
rolled out with new power the long metre dox-
ology al the opening of the service in the
Brooklyn tabernacle today. The great audi
torium was thronged and overlooking. The
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage has returned from
his summer vacation, during which he 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 morning he expounded passages illustra-
tive of Solomons acquaintance with natural
history.
His text was: Psalms, ziii., 1: 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 rein
deer In Central Syria in Bible times there
were whole pasture fields of them, as Solomon
suggests when he says; II charge you by the
binds 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 class
ed among clean animals, for the
dews, the showers, the lakes
washed them as clean as the sky.
When Jacob, the patriarch, longed for vension,
Esau shot and brought home aroebuck. Isaiah
compares the sprightliness of the restored Grip
pie of millenial times to the long and quick
jump of the stag, saying: THE lame shall
leap as the hart.' Solomon expressed his dis
II I
lazy to cook it, saying: "The slothful man
roasteth not that which he took III 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 Be-
cause of the previous silence of the forest the
clangor staFtles him, and he says to himself:
81 wonder what those dogs are after" Then
there is a cracking in 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 foam
ing barriers. David says to himself, "Aha,
that is myself 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 houndsi
the hounds! But look there" says David,
'that reindeer has splashed into the water. 1t
puts its hot lips and nostrils into the cool
wave that washes the lathered Hanks, 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 consola-
ton escape from my pursuers! Oh, for the
waters of life and rescue! AS the heart pant
eth after the water brooks, SO panteth my soul
after Thee, 0, God"
have Just como from the Adirondacl1s, and
the breath of the halsam and spruce pine is
still on me. The Adirondacks are now popu-
louS with hunters, and the deer are being slain
by the score. Talking few days ago with
hunter, thought would like to see whether
my text was accurate in its allusion, and as [
heard the dogs baying little way off and sup
posed they were on the track of reindeer, /
said to the hunter in rough corduroy: "Do the
deer always make for the water when they are
pnrsued2" 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 Saranac; 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 l like the Bible so
muCh-its illusions are so true
to nature Its partridges are real partridges,
its ostriches real ostriches, and its reindeer
real reindeer. 1 do not wonder that this ant
Tered glory of the text makes the hunters eve
sparkle and his cheeks glow and his respira-
ton quicken, To say nothing of It's useful
ness, 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 q restor-
ative, taken from the name of the hart and
called hartshorn. But putting aside this use
fulness, this enchanting creature seems made
ont Of Iot
eye, with a liquid brightness as if gathered up
from a hundred lakes of sunset The
horns, a coronal branching into every
possible curve, and after it seems done,
advancing into other projections of
cxquisiteness a tree of polished bone, uplifted
in PRIDE or swung down for awful combat. 1t
is velocity embodied. Timidity impersonated.
Tho enchantment of the woods Eye lustrous
En- life and pathetic in death The splendid
animal complete rhythm of muscle, and
bone. and color, and attitude, and locomotion
whether couched in the grass among the
shadows, or a living bolt shot through the
forest, or turning at lay to attack the hounds,
or rearing for its last fall under the buckshot
Of the trapper. 1t is a splendid appearance
that the painters pencil fails to sketch and
only hunters dream on pillow of hemloclx
at the foot of St. Reggie 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
tai of Long lake, it is very pic
turesque. But only when, after miles
of pursuit, with heaying sides and lolling
tongue and eyes swimming in death the stag
leaps from the cliff into Upper Saranac, 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: CAS- 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 viciSstude, 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 l 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. Somebody meanly attacked
You, and you attacked them they deprecated
you, you Deprecated them; or they over
reached you in bargain, and you tried, in
Wall street parlance, to get corner on them /;
or you have had a bereavement and instead
of you being submissive, you are fighting that
bereavement; you charge on the doctors who
failed to effect cure; or you charge on the
careiessness of the railroad company through
which the accident occurred orr you are a
chronic invalid, and you fret and worry and