Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-04-11
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "a Dead Lion"

The Bible is the strangest, the loveliest, the
r,iratiest the weirdest, the best of books.
Wr;ttAn by Moses the lawyer, Joshua the
soldier. Samuel the judge, Ezra the builder,
Tob the poet David the shepherd, Daniel the
r,rir74 minister Amos the herdsman, Mat
~, tIn custom house officer, Luke the doc
+C- pauI the scholar, John the exile; and
~ O. comnlpta harmony from the middle
JJ-nrse If the Bible which IS the eighth verse
If the one hundred and seventeenth Psalm,
10th WAYS u the upper and lower Ilds, ana
fror, -hr shortest passage, which IS the mir
-, ff+h verse Of the eleventh chapter Of
Tob,, r. the longest verse which Is the ninth
1-oI.ss. Of the eighth chapter of Esther, and
vet not an impertectiOn in all the I13, 693
words which it is composed OF. IL not only
reaches over the past, but over the future;
has in tia ferrvbOat, as IN second Samuel;
and a telegraphic wire as in Job; and rail-
road train as in Nahum; and introduces US
to a fOundrvman by the name OF Iabul Cain.
and a shiDbuilde~ by the name OF Noah, and
an architect by the name of AhOlab, and
relIsuS how many stables Solomon had TO take
care Of his horses and how much he paid for
those horses. But few things in this versatile
and comprehensive book interest me SO much
as its apOthegms, those short, terse, senten-
tiOus. epigrammatlc sayings, Of which my
text Is one; "A living dog Is better than
dead lion
Here the lion stands for nobility, and the
dog for meqnness. NOumust know that the
dog mentioned in the text Is not one of our
American or European or Scottish dogs that,
in our mind, is a synonym for the beautiful,
the graceful the atRectiOnate, the sagaclOus
and the true The st. Bernard dog is a hero,
and if YOU doubt it, ask the SHOWS OF the
Alps out of which he picked the exhausted
traveller The shepherd dog is a poem, and
# Won dou5tit. ask the Highlands of Scot
land. The Arctic dog is the rescue of ex-
ploreTS and if you doubt it, ask DIR. Kanes
" r%,,[, ,l,Ngr tyvIrN
lection and if you doubt it, ask ten thou
sand honesteads over whose safety he
watched last night. But Solomon, the author
If my text lived in Jerusalem, and the dog
he speaks OF in the text was dog IN Jerusa-
lem.
Last December l passed days and nights
within a stones throw of where Solomon
wrote this text, and from what saw OF the
CANNES of Jerusalem by day, and heard OF
them by night, [ can understand the slight
appreciation my text puts upon the dog or
Palestine 1t is lean and Snarly and disgust
ing and afflicted with parasites, and takes re-
venge on the human race by filling the nights
with clamOr. All up and down the Bible, the
most Of which was written in Palestine or
Syria, or contiguous lands, the dog is used III
COntemptuOus comparison. HaZael SAID: is
thy servant dog, that he should 90 this
thng?2 In self abnegatiOn the SyrO-PhCnnl-
clan woman said: Even the dogs eat of the
crumbs which fall from the Masters table.
Iaul says, in Philippians: beware Of dogs,
and St John, speaking OF heaven, says:
''WithOut are dogs"
On the other hand the lion is healthy,
strong, and loud voiced, and at its roar the
forests echo and the mountains tremble. 1t
is marvellous for strength and when its hide
is removed the muscular cOmpactness Is
something wonderful, and the knife OF the
dissectCr bounds back from the t"ndOnS. BY
the clearing off of the forests OF Palestine
and the use of firearms, of which the hon IS
particularly afraid, they have disappeared
from PLACES where once they ranged, but
they were very bold in Olden times. They
attacked an army of AerxeS while marching
through Macedonia. Ihey were SO numerous
that one thousand lions were slain i'll forty
years in the amphiteatre Of Rome. The
Barbarv lion, the Cape lion, the Senegal hon,
the Assyrian lion, make up a most absorbing
nlexciting chapter in natural history. As
most of the Bible written i'll regions
lion haunted, this creature appears i'll almost
all parts of the Bible as a smile
David understood its habits of night
prowling and day slumbering, as is seen
from MS description: The young lions roar
after their prey and seek their meat from
God. The sun ariseth, they gather them
selves together, and lay them down III their
Iens." And again he cries out, My soul is
among lions" Moses knew them and SAID,
Judah is couched like a lion" Sampson
knew them. for he took honey from the car
caSS of a slain lion. Solomon knew them and
says, The Kings wrath is as the roar OF
hon" and again, The slothfu! man says,
There is a lion in the way" Isaiah knew
them, and says in the millennium, "IhA
lion shall eat straw like an OK" Ezekiel
knew them, and says, The third was as the
face of a lion" Paul knew them, and says,
Il was delivered out of the mouth of the
lion Peter knew them, and says, the
devil as a roaring lion walketh about" st.
john knew them, and says of Christ, be
hold the Lion of the tribe Of Judah"
Now, what does my text mean when it
puts a living dog and dead lion side by SIDE,
AMI SAYS the former is better than the latter?
are of more value than great faculties I'M
employed. How often you see 1t! Some
man with limited capacity vastly useful
He takes that which God has given him and
saws; NY mental endowment is not large
and the world would not rate me high for
my Intelligence, and my vOca bulary i
United, and my education was detective,
but here goes what l have for God and
salvation, and the making of the world
good and happy" He puts IN
word here and a word there, encourages
a FAINT hearted man, gives Scripture
passage III consolation to some Derett
woman. picks up child fallen in the street
and bel p him brush off the dust and puts a
five cent piece in his hand, telling him not TO
cry, 50 that the boy is singing before he gets
round the corner; waiting on everybody
that has q letter to carry or message to
deliver; comes into rail train, or stage
coach, or depot, or shop, with smiling face
that sets everybody to thinking: IF that
man can, with what appears small equip
ment in life, be happy, why cannot I, pos
sesSlnG far more than he has be equally
happy:' One day of that kind of doing
things may not amount to much, but forty
years Of that--no one but God Himself can
appreciate its immensely
There are tens OF thousands of such people.
Their circle of acquaintance is small. The
man is known nNa,. at the store BE is clerk