The Forrest City times., 1890-04-05
THE MOST PERFECT BOOK.
'Dr. Talmage's Beautiful and Eloquent
 Tribute to the Bibls.
"A Living Dog is Better Than a Dead Lion"-small Faculties Actively Used are of More Use Than Great Faculties Unem-


 of More Use Than Great Faculties Unem-
 ploysd
 Last Sunday morning Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage preached at the Academy of Music, taking for his text Eccles. q;4-- "A Live Dog is better than Dead Lion.n The eminent divine said;
 The Bible Is the strangest, the lovelisst the mightyest, the weirdest tho best of books. Written by Moses the lawyer, Joshua the soldier, Samuel the judge. Ezra the builder Job the poet David the Shep- herd, Daniel the prime minister, Amos the herdsman, Mathew the custom house officer, Luke the doctor, Paul the scholar, John the eaile; and yet complete harmo. ny from the middle verso or the Bible, which is the eight verse of the one hun dred and seventeenth Psalm, both ways to the upper and lower lids, and the shortest passage which is the thirty-ifth verse of the eleventh chapter of John, to tho longest verse, which is the ninth verse of the eighth chapter of Esther, and yet not an imperfcction in all the ss3, ,G13 words which it isicomposed of. 1t not only re aches over the past, but over the future, has in it a ferry boat as in second Samuel; and tele. graphic 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 us how many stables Solomon had to take care of his horses and how he paid for those horses, But few things in this versatile and compre hensive book interests me so much as it's apothegms, thoso short, terse, sententious, epigram matic sayings, of which my text IS one-"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 mentioned in the text is not one Of our American or European or Sc ottishd dogs that in our mind, is synonym for the beautiful, the graceful, the affoctionate, 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 exhausted traveller. Inc shepherd dog is poem, and if you doubt it. ask the Highlands of Scotland. Tho Arctic dog is the rescue of explorers and if you doubt It. ask Dr. kane's expedition. The watch dog is a living protection, and if you doubt 1t ask ten thousand homes leads over whose safety he watched last night But Solomon, the author of my text, lived in Jerusalem, and the dog he speaks of i'll the text was q dog in Jerusalem. Last December passed days and nights within stones throw of where Solomon wrote his text, and from what l saw of the canines of Jerusalem by day, and heard of them py night can un- derstand 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 human race by filling the nights with clamor All up and down tho Bible, tho most of which was written In Palestine or Syria, or contiguous lands, the dog is used in contemptuous compar ison Hazael said, 'Is thy servant dog that he should do this thingln In self-ab- negation the Syro Phocnlcian woma said "Even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from tho Masters table" Paul says, in Philippians. "Beware of dogs;n and s. John, speaking of heaven, says, "Without arc dogs. ?
 On the other hand tho lion is healthy, strong and loud voiced and at it's roar tho forests echo and the mountains tremble. It is marvellous for strength, and when it's hide Is removed the muscular compaetness is something wonderful, aud the knife of the dissector bounds back from tho tendons. By the clearing off Of the forests of pales- tine and tho use of fire arms, of which the lion is particularly afraid they have disap. peared from places whore once they ranged, but they were very bold in olacn times They attacked m army of Xerxes while marching through Macedonia. They were so numerous that oae thousand lions were slain in forty years in the amphithcatre os Rome The Barbary lion, the Cape lion, the Senegal lion, the Assyrian lion, make up most absorbing and exeit- ing chapter in natural history. As most of the Bible was written in resions lion haunted, this creature appears in almos nj parts Of the Bible as similc David understood it's habits of night prosling and day slumbering. as Is seen from his description: 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 ho cries out My soul is among lons.n Moses knew them and said, "Judah is couched like lion samson knew them, for he took honey from the carcass of slain lion, Solomon knew them and says, ''The king's wrath Is as tho roar of a lion.n and again, "The slothful man savs. There is lion iu the wayn Isaiah knew them, and says. in the millennium, ''The lion shall cat straw like an OK Ezekiel knew them, and says, 'srhe third was as the face of a lioni' Paul knew them. and says: "l was delivered out of tho mouth of the linn.N Peter knew them and says. "The devllas n roaring lion wallseta aboutp St John knew them, and says of Christ, Behold the Lion Of the tribe of Judahlm
 Now, what does my text mean when 1t puts living dog and dead lion side by side, and says the former is better than the latteri It means that small faculties actively used are of mere value than great faculties uncmployed How often you sec 1t! Some man with limited capacity vastly useful. He takes that which God has given him and says My mental endowment Is not largo and tue world would not rate mo high for my intelligence. and my vocabulary Is limited, and my educa- tlon was defective. bat 'here goes what | have for God and salvation, and the mak. ing of the world good and hsppy.n He puts sn word hera and q word taere, en. courares faint hearted man. gives a Scripture passage in consclation to some bereft woman, picks up n child fallen in the street and helps him brush of the dust and puts Il iive-cent piece ia his hand, telling him not to cry, so that the boy Is singing before he gets around tae corner; waiting on everybody that has q letter to carry or message to deliver; comas into a rail -irasn, or stage coach, or depot, or shop. with smiling face that sets every. body to thinking, "if that man can, with what appears sulah equipment in life be happy, why cannot l. possessing far more than he has, be equally happys'i Ono day Of that Kind of doing thlags may not amount to much, but forty years of that-- no enc but God Himself can appreciate it's immensity.
 There arc tens of thousands of such people. Their circle of acqu4iutsnce Is small The man iS known over at ths store. He is clerk or waigAer or drayman. and he is known among those who sit near him clear back in the church under the galleries, and at the ferry gates where ho comes in knocking the snow from his shoes and threshing his arms around his body 10 revive circulation on some January morn. ing. But if he should dia to morrow thero would not be hundred people who would know about it. lie will never have his name in the newspapers but once, aud that Will os tho announcement ol his death. if some one will pay for the insertion, so much line for the two lines. Bat he will como uD Qlnli1tistv mn ti.a nthn1