The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1890-04-05
NOBLE AND MEAN.
Dr.. Tamlage Considers a Liy,
ing Dog Better Than a
Dead Lion.
And Then Directs Attention to
Some Of the Mean Men
of the World.


Some Of the Mean Men
of the World.
BROOKLYN, N Y, Special-Dr. Talmage's
subject was "a Dead Lion" and his text,
Eccles.. tx: A: "a living dog ia better. than a
dead lion" Following is a report OF the ser
o 3%
The Bible is the strangest, the loveliest, the
mightiest, the weirdest, the best Of books.
Written by Moses the lawyer, Joshua the
soldier, Samuel the judge, Ezra the build.
er, Job tho poet, David the shepherd,
Daniel the prime minister, Amos the herds.
man, Matthew the custom-house officer,
Luke the doctor, Paul the scholar, John
the exile; and yet q complete har-
mony from the middle verse OF the
Bible. which is the 9Th verse of the
117th Psalm, both ways to the upper and
lower lids, md from the shortest passage,
which is the 35th verse of the 18th chapter
of John, to the longest verse, which is the
9th verse of the Sth chapter of Esther. and
yet not an imperfection in all the 773,693
words which it is composed of. 1t not only
reaches over the past, but over tho iu'
ture; has in it a ferryboat, as in il. Samuel;
and a telegraphic wire, as in Job; and a rail
road train, as in Nahum; and introduces us
to a ioundryman by the name OF TubalC Cain,
and a shipbuilder by the name Of Noah, and
an architect by the Aholiab, and tells ushow
many stables Solomon had to 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
it's apothegms, those short, terse, senten-
tious, epigrammatic sayings, of which my
text is one-A Giving dog is better than a
dead lion." Here the lion stands for nobil-
ity, and the dog for You must
know that the dog mentioned in the text is
not one of her American or European or
Scottish dogs, that, in our mind, is a sy-
nomyn for the beautiful, the graceful, the
a~ffectionate, the sagacious, and the true. The
st. Bernard dog is a hero, and if you doubt
it, ask the SHOWS OF the Alps, out of which he
picked the exhausted traveller. The Shop
herd dog is poem, and If you doubt it, ask
the Highlands of Scotland. The Artic dog is
the rescue of explorers, and il you doubt it,
ask DR.. Kane's expedition. The watchdog
is a living protection. and if you doubt it,
ask 10, 200 homesteads over whose safety he
watched last night. But Solomon, the au-
thor OF my text, lived in Jerusalem, and the
dog he speaks of in the text was a dog in
Jerusalem, Last December ] passed days
and nights within a srone's-throw of where
Solomon wrote this text, and from what l
saw of the CANNES of Jerusalem by ay, and
heard of them by night, Lean understand the
slight appreciation my text putupon the dog
of Palestine. 1t is lean and sna1ly and dis
gushing, and afflicted with parasites, and
tobias ravop oo IN tho hmm mn ropo NV fllinr
the nights with clamor. All up and down the
Bible, the most ofwhich was written in Pale
stine or Syria, or contiguous lands, the dog
is used in contemptuous comparison. Hazel
said: els thy servant q dog that he should
do this thing?" In self abnegation the Syro-
Phenician 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 Heaven,
says: "Without afe dogs"
:. On the other hand the lion is healthy,
strong and loud voiced, and at its roar the
forests echo and the mountains trem BILE.
It is marvellous for strength, and when it's
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 fire arms, of which the lion is par
ticularly afraid. they have disappeared from
places where once they ranged, but they were
bold in olden times. They attacked an army
Of Xerzes while marching through Macedonia.
They we're SO numerous that 1000 lions were
slain MAO yearsin the amphitheater ofRome.
The Barbary lion. the Cape lion, the Senegal
lion, the Assyrian lion, make up q most ex-
citing chapter in natural history. AS most
of the Bible was written in regions lion haunt
ed, this creature appears in almos oil parts
of the Bible as a simile. David understood
it's habits of ni~ght-prowling and day
c1r m harinr oS ia soon from hia dnccripfiOn.
1.-THE young lions o 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
crouched like q lion" Samson knew them,
for he tool honey from the carcass of a slain
lion. Solomon knew them and says, THE
King's.wrath is as the roar of of a lion'' and
again, THE slothful man says, There is q 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, ''The
third was as the face OF a lion" Paul knew
mouth of the lion." Peter knew them and
says, "The devil as a roaring lion walketh
about" ST. John knew them, and says OF
Christ, "Behold the Lion of the tribe of Ju.
dahl"
Now, what does my text mean when itputs
q 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 unemployed. How often you SEQ it?
Some man with limited capacity vastly USE
full. He takes that which God has given him
and says: "My mental endowment is not large
and the world would not rate me high formy
intelligence, and my vocabulary is limited,
and my education was efective, buthere goes
what / have for God and salvation, and
the making of the world good and happy"
He puts in q word here and q word there,
encouraging q faint-hearted gives
q scripture passage in consolation to some
bereft woman , picks up q child fallen in
the. street and helps him brush off the dust
and puts q five-cent piece in his hand, tell
ing him not to cry, SO that the boy is
singing before he gets around the corner;
waiting on everybody that has o letter to
carry or q message to deliver; comes into q.
rail train, or nstage.coach O depOt, or shop,
with q smiling face that sets everybody to
thinking, IF that man can, with what APP
pears small equipment in life, be happy, why
cannot I, possessing far more than he has,
be equally happy" One day of this.kind of
doing things may not noun to much, but
forty years of that-no one but God Himself
can appreciate it's immensity.
There are tens of thousands of such peo-
pie. Their circle OF acquaintance is small.
clerk or weigher OF drayman, and he is
known among those who sit near him clear
back in tho church under the galleries,
and at the aerry gates where he comes
in KNOCKING the snow from his shoes, and
threshing his arms around his body to re-
vive circulation, on some January morning.
But if be should die tomorrow there would
He will never have his name in the newspa-
pers. but once. and that will be the announce.