The Russellville Democrat., 1890-04-10
"A DEAD LI0N.r
The World Full of Brilliant Talents
 Going to Waste.
Dr. TaImsge Discourses on the Uses of Oar Faculties, small or Great, for the Benefit Of tho World and
 the Glory of God.

cred by Rev T. Dewitt Talmage in the Brooklin Academy of Music, his text being:
 4 living dog Is better than dead iIon.-- Eccies. ixs, [.
 The Bible is the strangosk the love- Hest, the mightiest the weirdest, the best of books Written by Moses the lawyer, Joshua the soldier Samuel tho judge, Ezra tho builder, Job the poet, David tho 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 txe eighth verse Of the one hundredth and seventeenth Psalm, both ways to the upper and lower lids, and from the shortest passage, which is tho 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 seven hundred and seventy-three thouSand. six hundred and ninety-three words which it is composed of 1t not only reaches over the past, but over the future; has in it a ferry-boat, as in sec ond Samuel; and a telegraph wire, as in Job; and a railroad train, as in Nahum. and introduces us to a 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 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 comprehen- sive Book interest me so much as it's apothegms, those short, terse, senten- tious, epigrammatic sayings, of which my text is one-s'A living dog is better than dead lion
 Here the lion stands for nobility, and the dog for meanness. Yon must 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 affectionate, the sagacious and the true. The St. Bernard dog is a hero, and if you doubt it, ask the snows Of the Alps, out of which he picked the ex- hausted traveller The shepherd dog is poem, and if you doubt it, ask the Highlands of Scotland. The artic dog Is the rescue of explorers, and if you doubt it. ask Dr. kane's expedition. The watchdog is living protection, and if you doubt it, ask ten thousand 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 dog in Jerusalem. Last December passed days and nights within a stones throw of where Solomon wrote this text, and from what l saw of the canines of Jerusalem by day, and beard of them by night, I can understand the slight appreciation my text puts upon the dog of Palestine. It is lean and snarly and disgusting, and afflicted with parasites, and takes revenge on the hu- man 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 in eontemptuons comparison. Ha- gael said: ''ls thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" In self-abne- gation the Syro-Phmnician woman said Even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the masters table" Paul says, in Philippians: Beware of dogs" and St. John, speaking of Heav- en, says: Without are dogs"
 On the other hand the lion is healthy, strong and loud-mouthed, and at it's roar the forests echo and the mountains tremble. 1t is marvellous for strength, and when it's hide is removed the muscular compactness is something wonderful and the knife of the dissector bounds back from the tendons. By the clearing of of the forests of Pales- tine 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 Macedonia. They were so numerous that one thousand lions were slain in forty years in the amphitheater of Rome. The Barbary lion, the Cape lion, the Senegal lion, the Assyrian lion make up most absorbing and ex- citing chapter in natural history. As most of the Bible was written in regions
 
 almost all parts of the Bible as a simile. David understood it's habits of night prowling and day-slumbering, as is seen from his descriptions: '''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 out: My soul is among lions" Moses knew them, and said: Judah is couehed like lion" Samson knew them, for he took honey from the carcass of a slain lion. Solomon knew them, and says: ''The Kings wrath is as the roar of lion" and again: ''The sloth- ful man says, There is a lion in the way" Isaiah knew them, and says, in the millennium, ''The lion shall eat straw like an OK" Ezekiel knew them, and says: "rhe third was as the face of a lion" Paul knew them. and says: 'I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.n Peter knew them, and says; The devil as a roaring lion walketh about" St. John knew him, and says of Christ. ''Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah!"
 NOW, what dOeS my text mean when it puts living dog and a dead lion side by side, and says the former is better than the latter? It means that small faculties actively used are of more value than great faculties unemployed. How often you see it. Some man with limited capacity vastly useful, He takes that which God has given him and says: My mental endowment is not large and the world would not rate me high for my intelligence, and my vocabulary is limited, and my educa- ton was defective. but here goes what I have for God and salvation, and the making of the world good and happy" He puts in word here and word there, encourages faint-hearted man, gives Scripture passage in consola- tion to some bereft woman, picks up a child fallen in the street and helps him brush of the dust and puts a five-cent piece in his hand, telling him not to cry, so that the boy is singing before he