The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-04-17
A Dead LION"
REV. DIR. TALMAGE'S SUNDAY
SERMON.
Preached Mt the Academy of Music
Brooklyn, n. Y.

TEXT: "a Irving dog is better than
dead lion."-Eccles. TX, 4.
The Bible is the strangest, the lovelieSt, the.
miphtiest, the werdeSt, tho best OF DOCKS.
Written by Moses the lawyer, Joshua the,
soldier, Samuel the judge, Ezra the oulider,
Job the poet, David the shepherd, Daniel the!
nrime minister, Amos the herdsman, Mat
thew the custom house officer, Luke the DOC
tor. Paul the scholar, John the exile; ana
vet a complete harmony from the mldoie
verse of the Bible, which is the eighth verse
of the one hundred and seventeenth fsalm;
both ways to the upper and lower hds, ana
from the shortest passage when IS the .nilt g
ty-ffth verse of the eleventh chapter Oh
John. to the longest verse, which IS the nlntn :
verse of the eighth chapter of Esther, and
vet not an imperfection in all the Tl3,o95
words which it is compost Of. 1t not only
reaches over the past but over the 1uture';
has in it, ferryboat, as IN second Samuei'
and telegraphic wire, as IN Jop; ana lall-
road train, as in Nahum; and introduces us
to foundryman by the name OF IaDui Caln;
and q shipbuilder by the name Of Noah, and
an architect by the name OF Anonao, anu
tells us how many stables Solomon had to take
care of his horses and how much he pald tor
those horses But few things in this versatile
and comprehensive book interest me SO nuch
as its apothegms, those short, terse, senten.
tious, cpigrammatic sayings: OF Wnith than my y,
text is one: n living oog Is oeV0ei 'i'f'ii
dead lion" A.
Here the lion stands for nobility and the
dog for meanness Eoumust know that the
dog mentioned in the text IS not one OF our
American or European or Scottish dogs tnat,
in our mind, isa synonym for the peautilui,
the graceful, the affectionate, the sagaclous
and the true The st. Bernard dog Is a nero,
aua i YOU doubt it, ask the SHOWS OF the
Alns ont of which he picked the exhausted
trtvelAr. The shepherd dog is poem, ana,
If YOU doubt it, ask the Highlands OF Scot
land. The Arctic dog is the rescue OF eI-
plorers and if you doubt it, ask DR.. kanes
expedition. The watch dog is living pro-
lection, and if you doubt it, ask ten thou
sand homesteads over whose Satety ne
watched last night. But Solomon, the autnor
of nv text lived in Jerusalem, and the dog
he speaks Of in the text was dog III Jerusa-
Last December l passed days and nights
within a stones throw of where Solomon
wrote this text, and from what saw or the
CANNES of Jerusalem by day, and heard OF
them by night can understand tne @ sIasnss
appreciation my text puts upon the aog OF
Palestine. 1t is lean and snarly and disgust
ing. and afflicted with parasites, ami takes re-
venee 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 uSea IN
conteEptuous comparison. Hazaei Sald: is
thy servant a dog, that ne snould 91 IniS
thiursn In self abnegation the Syro- -PhPni-
clan woman said: Even the dogs eat OF the
crumbs which fall from the Masters table"
Paul saws, 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 tremole. IL
ismarvelous for strength, and when Its hlde
is removed the muscular compactneSs Is
something wonderful, 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 hon IS
particularly afraid, they have disappeared
from places where once they ranged, ou5
they were very bold in olden times. Iney
attacked an army Of Xerxes while marching
through Macedonia. They were SO numerous
that one thousand lions were slain III forty
wears in the amphiteatre OF Rome Inc
Barbary 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 its habits OF night
prowling and day slumbering, as Is seen
from his description: "The young lions roar
go 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, MY soul IS
nmonr lions" Moses knew them and said,
Judah is couched like lion." Sampson
knew them, for he took honey from the car.
cass of slain lion. Solomon knew them and
saws. ''The Kings wrath is as the roar OF
lion and again, "The slothful man says,
There is lion in the way" Isaiah knew
them, and says, in the millennium, ihe
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.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 Judah"
Now, what doss my text mean when it
puts living dog and a dead lion side by side.
and SAYS the former is better than the latter?
1t means that small faculties actively used
are of more value than great faculties un-
employed. How often you see it! 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 ls
United, and my education was defective,
bat here goes what l have for God and
salvation, and the making of the world |
good and happy" He puts in a
word here and a word there encourages
faint hearted man, gives Scripture |
passage in consolation to some berett |
woman, picks up child fallen in the street |
and help him brush OFF the dust and puts |
five cent piece in his hand, telling him not to |
cry, SO that the boy is singing before he gets |
round the corner; waiting on everybody |
that has letter to carry or a message to
deliver; comes into a rail train, or stage |
coach, or depot, or shop, with a smiling face |
that sets everybody to thinking: "lf thaE |
man can, with what appears small equip |
ment in life, be happy, why cannot 1, pos
sesSing far more than he has, be equally |
happyg' 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 ls small. The |
man is known over at the Etore: He is clerk
or weigher or drayman, and he is known
among these who sit near him clear back in !
the church under the galleries, and at the |
ferry gates where he comes in knocking the
snow from his shoes, and threshing his arms
around his body TO revive circulation, c1 |
some January morning. But if he should
t,ie tomorrow there would not be hundred
people who would know about it, He will
never have his name in the newspapers bat
once, and that will be the announcement OF
lis death, if some one will pay for the in
sertion. 50 much line for the two lines.
But he will come up gloriouSly on the other
side, and the God who has watched him all
through will give him higher seat and a
better mansion and grander eternity than
many man who had on earth, before his
name, the word honorable, and after his name
LII D. and F. R. S. Christ said in Luke, the
sixth chapter, that in heaven some who had
ithard here would laugh there.
And think laugh of delight and con-