Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-03
A DEAD LION.
DR.. Talmage's Discourse in the
Brooklyn Academy Of Music.
"a Dead Lion" is His Subject, "a Liy-
ing Dog is Better Than Dead
Lion is His Text.
People Of Great Capacity Doing Nothing to
Improve Society, to Overthrow Evil or
For the salvation OF Souls.
srecfnlto the Gazette.


BROOKTYN n. y March 30.-There was
the usual difficulty in getting seats or even
standing room in the Academy Of Music
this morning when the service COM
menced, the ordinary Tabernacle con-
gregation being increased by throngs of
people eager to listen to the eloquent
preacher. The service opened with the
singing Of the long meter doxology by
the immense audience. DR.. Talmage's
subject was "a Dead Lion, and his text,
Ecclesiastes tx, 4, "a living dog is bet
ter thon a dead lion. " Following is
verbatim report of the sermon:
The Bible is the strangest, the love-
liest, the mlghtest, 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 herdsmau, Matthew
the custom house officer, Luke the doc
tor, Paul the scholar, John the exile;
and yet a complete harmony from the
middle verse of the Bible, which is the
eighth verse of the Il7th psalm, both
ways 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 lmpeTfection IN
all the 773 ,693 words which it is
composed of It not only reaches over
the past, but over the future; has in it
ferry boat, as in second Samuel; and a
II, ,R,y In TcIN md roll
road train, as in Nahum; and introduces
us to a fOundrymRn by the name of TuLal
Cain, and a ship builder by the name OF
Noah, and an architect by the name OF
Aholiab, 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 COM
prehensive book interests me so much as
its apothegms, those short, terse, SEN
tentIous, epigrammatic sayings, Of which
nv text Is oue-"A living dog is better
than dead lion. -
Here the lion stands for nobility, and
the dog for meanness. You must know
that the dog ~ sntioned in the text is not
one of our American or European or Scot
fish dogs that, in our mind, is a synO-
nyn for the beautiful, the graceful, the
affectionate, the sagacious, and the true.
you doubt it, ask the SHOWS of the Alps,
out of which he picked the exhausted
traveller. The shepherd dog Is a poem,
and if you doubt it, ask the highlands OF
Scotland. The Arctic dog is the rescue
of explorers, and if you doubt it, ask
DR.. Kane's expedition. The watch dog
is living protection, and if you doubt
it, ask
TEN THOUSAND HONEsTEADS
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 dog
in Jerusalem. Last De-
cember passed days and nights within a
stones throw of where Solomon wrote
this text, and from what saw of the ca
nInes of Jerusalem by day, and heard of
them by night, can understand the
slight appreciation my text puts upon the
dog of Palestine. 1t is lean and snarly
and disgusting, and afflicted with para
sites, and takes revenge 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,
lis thy servant a dog that he should do
this thing?' In selt-abnegation the SY
TO-PhUuician woman said, ''Even the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from
the Masters table. - Paul saws, in Phil
ippians, "Beware of dogs, and st.
John, speaking of heaven, says, with
out are dogs.
On the other hand the lion is healthy,
strong, and loud voiced, and at it's roar
the forests echo and the mountains trem-
bic. It IS marvellous for strength, and
when its hide is removed the muscular
compactness is something wonderful,
and the knife of the dissector bounds
back from the teudons. By the clearing
of Of the forests of Palestine and the
use of firearms, of which the lion is par
ticGlarly 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 march
ing through Macedonia. They were so
numerous that 1000 lions were slain in
forty years in the amphitheatre of Rome.
The Barbary lion, the Cape lion, the
Senegal lion, Assyrian lion, make up a
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 its habits of
night prowling and day slumberng, 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 themselves together and lay them
down in their dens. - And again he
cries ont, "My soul is among lions
Moses knew them and said, ''Judah is
couched like a lion. - Samson knew
them, for he took
HONEY FROM THE CARCASS OF SLAIN
LION.
Solomon knew them and says, "The
kings wrath is es the roar of lion, I"
aud again, "'The slothful man says,
There is lion in the way - Isaiah
knew them, and saws, in the millennium,
The hon shall eat straw like al OK. -.
Ezekiel knew them, and says, 1.-THE
third was as the face of & lion. Paul
knew them, and says: g / was delivered
out of the mouth of the lion. - Peter
knew them aud says, 1.-THE devil as
roaring lion walketh about. st. John
knew them, aud says of Christ, Behold
the Lion of the tribe of Judah!'
h1y, :