The Opelousas courier., 1890-05-31
REV. DR.. TALMAGE
THE BROOKLYN D1vINE's SIM
DAY SERMON.
subjeoes aA.Dead Lion"

TEXT: "a lltotns dog Is better than @
aead hon"~~Eccles. TX, 4.
The Bible is the strangest. the loveliest. the
mlghtest, the weirdest, the best of books.
Wrltten by Moses the lawyer, Joshua tho
soldier, samuel the judge, Ezra the builder.
Ioo the poet David the shepherd, Daniel the
prime minister, Amos the herdsman, Mat
NEW the custom house officer, Luke the doc
oor, raul the scholar, John the exile; and
YET a complete harmony from the middle
verse of the Bible, which is the eighth verse
or the one hundred and seventeenth Psalm.
both ways to the upper and lower lids, and
from the shortest passage, which is the thir-
yy-hfth verse of the eleventh chapter OF
Johns to the longest verse, which is the ninth
verse of the eighth chapter Of Esther, and
yet not an imperfection in ali the 773, sos
words which it is composed Of. It not only
reaches over the past, but over the future;
mas In tia ~ferryboat, as In second Samuel;
a Geographic wire, as in job and q rail-
road train, as in Nahum; and introduces us
to a foundryman by the name Of Tabul Cain.
and a s~hipbuilder by the name Of Noah, and
tells us 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-
hous, ep~igrammatic sayings, of which my
text is one; ga living dog is better than a
dead lion.'
Here the lion stands for nobility. and the
dog for Youmust know that the
dog mentioned in the text is not one of our
American or European or Scottish dogs that,
In OUR mind, lisa synonym for the beautiful,
the graceful, the affectionate, the sagacious
and the true. The st. Bernard dog isa hero,
and il you doubt it, ask the euows of the
Alps, out Of which he picked the exhausted
traveller. The shepherd dog is o poem, and
IL you doubts it, ask the Highlands of Scot
land. The Arctic dog is the rescue of ex-
plorers. and if you doubt il, ask DR.. Kane's
expedition. The watch dog is a living pro-
sand homesteads over whose safety he
watched last night. But Solomon, the author
of my text, lived in Jerusalem, and the dog
he speaks Of in the text was a dog in Jerusa-
lem.
Last December l passed days and nights
within a stones throw of where solomon
wrote this text and from what l saw of the
CANNES of Jerusalem by day, and heard Of
them by night, I can understand the slight
appreciation my text puts upon the dog OF
Palestine. 1t is lean and snarly and disgust
Ing, 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. Hasael said: SIS
Thy servant q dog, that he should do this
ShingF" In self abnegation the Syro-PhPnl-
| clan woman said: Even the dogs eat of the
"umbs which fall from the Masters table"
Paul says, in Philippians: Beware of dogs"
ind 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. IL
ID marvelous for strength, and when its hide
Is removed the muscular compactness is
tomething wonderful, and the knife OF the
5issector bounds back from the tendons. By
the clearing off Of the forests of Palestine
md the use of firearms, of which the lion is
particularly afraid, they ave disappeared
from places where once they ranged, but
hey were very bold in olden times. They
attacked an army of Xer1es while marching
through Macedonia. They were so numerous
nat one thousand lions were slain in forty,
years in the amphiteatre Of Rome. h
barbary lion, the Cape lion, the Senegal lion,
| The Assyrian lion, make up q most absorbing
and exciting chapter in natural history. AS
most of the Bible was written in regions
hon haunted, this creature appears in almost
all parts Of the Bible as q smile.
prowling and day slumbering, as is seen
from his description: 1.-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 in their
dens." And again he cries out, IL soul Is
among lions.n 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
saws, 1.-THE Kings wrath is as the roar OF a
;iop.' and again, 1.-THE slothful maj says
There is a lion in the way Isaiah knew
them, and says, in the millennium The
lion shall eat straw Like an EzeKlel
face of a lion" Paul knew them, and says,
" WA delivered out Of the mouth Of the
ion,n 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 JudahF'
Now, what does my text mean Wnen l6
puts aiiving dog and a dead lion side by side,
AMI saws the former is better than the latter
It means that small faculties actively used
ARE Of more value than great faculties I'M
employed. How often you see It'll Some
man with limited capacity vastly usefui;
He takes that which God has given MN ana
says: srMy mental endowment is not large
I'D the world would not rate me nign lGr
nv intelligence, and my vocabulary Is
United. and my education was defective;
hut here goes what I lave for God and
yalvation. and the making OF the world
Yood and happy He puts in a
word here and q word there, encourages
q faint hearted man, gives a scripture
passage in consolation to some bereft
woman. picks IN q child fallen In the street
and heir him brush of the dust and puts a
Ave cent piece in his hand, telling him not to
CIV. so that the boy is singing before he gets
round the corner; waiting on everybody
that has a letter to carry or a message 10
deliver; comes into a rail train or stage
coach, or depot, or shop, with o smiling race
NAT sets everybody to thinking: IF that
man can, with what appears small equip
naent in life, be happy, why cannot !, PCS
hanpyP' One day Of that kind of doing
Things may not amount 20 much Out LOFTY
wears OF that--no one but God HlmseiI can
appreciate its immensely.
There are e of thousands OF such people
Their circle of acquaintance is small. Ins
man Is known over at the store, he Is cierl
or weigher or drayman, and he IS kaoWf
among those who sit near him clear back u
tie church under the galleries. and At fn'
ferry rates where he comes in knocking tne
snow rom his shoes. and threshing his arm
round his body to revive circulation, 81
san1e January morning. But II ne saouie
de tomorrow there would not De q hnnaFe S
people who would know anouo T.. 20 ~ =
never have his name in the newspapers pl
enca. and that will be the announcement @
1is death. if some one will pay for the IN
srrfion. 90 much q line for the TWO lines
ANT he will come up gloriously on tine ONE
S35e. and the God who has watched MN "a
trough will give him Q higher seal 2 .
better mansion and q grander eternity tf,a,
many q man who had On earth, pelofe ~
Darna. the word honorable, and after MS Am
LID. andF. r.. 8. Christ said IN LUCE, u
sixth chapter, that In heaven some VINO na
ithard here would laugh there. -
And / think q laugh OF delight ana con
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