Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1890-04-03

in the Brooklyn Academy of Music, on
Sunday morning, March 30, was A Dead
Lion, and his text, Eccles. IL, 4. "A
living dog is better than q dead lion.
Following is verbatim report of the
sermon:
The Bible is the strangest, the love-
liest, the mightiest, the weirdest, the
best of books. Written by Moses the
lawyer, Joshua the soldier, Samuel the
judge, Ezra the builder, Job the poet,
David the shepherd, Daniel the prime
minister, Amos the herdsman, Matthew
the custom house officer, Luke the doc
tor, Paul the scholar, John the exile;
and yet complete harmony from the
middle verse of the Bible, which is the
eighth verse of the one hundred and
seventeenth Psalm, both why's to the
upper and lower lids, and from the
shortest passage, which is the thirty
fifth verse of the eleventh chapter Of
john, to the longest verse, which is the
ninth verse of the eighth chapter Of
Esther, and yet not an imperfection in
all the 773, 1893 words which it is COM
posed of. 1t not only reaches over the
past, but over the future; has Elm it a
ferryboat, as in the second Samuel; and
telegraph wire, as in Job; and rail-
road train as in Nahum; and introduces
us to foundryman by the name of
Tubal Cain, and = ship builder by the
name of Noah, and an architect by the
name of Aholiab, and tells us how many
stables Solomon hadto take care of his
horses, and how much he paid for those
horses. But few things in this versa
tile and comprehensive book interest
mes much as. ITS apothegms, those
short, terse, sententious, epigrammatic
sayings, of which my text is one-"A
living dog is better than a dead lion."
Here the lion stands for nobility and
the dog for meanness. You must know
the dog mentioned in the text is not one
of our American or European or Scottish
dogs that, in our mind, is synonym for
the beautiful, the graceful, the affec-
tionate, the sagacious and the true. The
ut. Bernard dog is q hero, and if You
doubt it, ask the SHOWS of the Alps, out
of which he picked the exhausted trav-
eler. The shepherd dog is a poem, and
ifyou doubt it, ask the Highlands of
Scotland. The Arctic dog is the rescue
of explorers, and If You doubt it ask
DR.. Kanes expedition. The watch dog
is'a living protection, and if you doubt
it ask ten Thousand hemesteads over
Solomon, the author of my text, lived in
Jerusalem, and the dog he speaks OF in
the text was % dog in Jerusalem.
Last December Il passed days and
nights within stones throw of where
saw of the CANNES of Jerusalem by
day, and heard of them by night. 1 can
understand the slight appreciation my
faxf r,uto rra., fha don, ap De II
is lean and snarly and disgusting, and
afflicted with parasites, and takes re-
venge on the human race by filing 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 in contemptuous
comparison. Hazael said: rs thy sery-
ant dog, that he' should do this
thingp" In self -abnegation the Syro-
Ph@nician woman said: Even the
dogs eat Of the crumbs which fall from
the Masters table. Paul says, in Phil
ippians: "Beware,of Dogs and st. John,
speaking of Heaven, says: Without are
dogs"
On the other hand, 1.-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 IT'S hide is removed the mus
cular compactness sissomething wonder
full, and the knife of the dissector
bounds back from the tendons. By the
clearing Off of the forests Of Palestine
and the use of firearms, of which the
lion 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
Xerxes while marching through Mace
donia. They were SO numerous that one
thousand lions were slain in forty years
in,the amphitheater of Rome The Bar
barry lion, the Cape lion, the Senegal
lion, the Assyrian lion, make up most
absorbing and exciting chapter in
natural history. As most of the Bible
was written in regions lion haunted, this
creature appears in almost all parts of
the Bible as smile.
David understood it's habits of night
prowling and day slumbering, as is seen
from his description: "Theyoung lions
roar after their prey and seek their meat
from God. The sun ariseth, they gather
themselves together, and lay them down
in their dens. And again he cries out,
My soul is among lions" Moses knew
them and said, Judah is coached like
lion" Samson knew them, for he took
honey from the carcass of % slain lion.
Solomon knew them and says, @The
Kings wrath iB as the roar of q lion,
and again, aThe slothful man saws,
There is lion in the way" Isaiah
knew them, and says, in the millennium,
he lion shall eat straw like an OK"
Ezekiel knew them, and says, @The third
was as the face of lion" Paul knew
them, and says, / was delivered out of
the mouth of the lion" = Peter knew
them, and says, The devil as roaring
lion walketh about. st. John knew
them, and says Of Christ, Behold the
Lion OF the tribe of Judah!"
Now. what does my text mean when it |
puts Q living dog and dead lion side |
BY side, and says the former is better
than the latter? It means that small I
faculties actively used are Of more value |
than great faculties unemployed. How
often you see 1t! Some man with limited |
capacity vastly useful. He takes that |
which God has given him and saws: |
My mental endowment is not large and |
the world would not rate me high for
my intelligence, and my vocabulary is |
limited, and my education was defective, |
but here goes what have for God and |
salvation, and the making Of the world |
good and happy. He puts insa word |
here and word there, encourages q |
faint hearted man, gives Scripture
passage in consolation to some bereft |
woman, picks up child fallen In the |
street and helps him brush of the dust |
and puts five cent piece in his hand,
selling him not TO cry, so that the boy is !
singing before he gets around the cor