The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-12-10
TALMAGES SERMON.
q Thanksgiving Season Sermon
by the Brooklyn Preacher.
Tho Goodness of God to Irrational Crca-
tIon-Au Living Things Provided
for by the Bounteous Hand
of the Almighty.

che following discourse in the Brook
lyn tabernacle, taking for his text: e
Beasts and all cattle: creeping things and fly-
ing fowl; both young men and maidens; old
men and children; let them praise the name of
the Lord.-Psalm cxiviii., 10, u and d
What scene IL was when last Thurs
day at the call of the president and gov
errors, this nation assembled to chant
the praises of God. But the day was
too short to celebrate the Divine good
ness of such a year. The sun did not
rise over Brooklyn until one minute be-
fore seven o'clock that morning, and it
set four o'clock and thirty-five minutes
that evening. What small space of
time in which to mediate upon twelve
months of benefactions. So / add to
that day this Sabbath morning service,
and with the fruits and harvests of the
earth still clarifying the pulpit and the
galleries, ask you to continue the re-
hcarsal of the Divine goodness.
BY a sublime egotism man has come
to appropriate this world to himself,
when the fact is that our race is in a
small minority. The instances of hui
man life, as compared with instances
of animal life, are not one to million.
We shall enlarge our ideas of Gods
goodness and come to better under
standing of the text if, before we come
TO look at the cup of our blessing, we
look at the goodness of God to the ir-
rational creation.
Although nature is out of joint, yet
even in it's disruption | am surprised to
Al. 4. e
the animal creation. On a summer
day, when the air and the grass are
most populous with life, you will not
hear a sound of distress unless, per-
chance, hcartless school boy has
robbed birds nest, or a hunter has
broken birds wing, or pasture has
been robbed of lamb and there goes
up n bleating from the focks. The
whole earth is filled with animal de-
light-joy fcathered and scaled, and
horned. and hoofed. The bee huns it,
the frog croalls it, the squirrel chatters
it, the quail whistles it, the lark carols
it, the whale spouts it. The snail, the
rhinoceros, the grizzly bear, the toad,
the wasp. the spider, the shelltish have
their homely delights-joy as great to
them as our JOY is to us. Goat climb
ing the rocks, anaconda crawling
through the jungle, buffalo plunging
across the prairie, crocodile baslling in
tropical sun, seal putting on the ice,
strich striding across the desert, are
% many bundles of joy; they do not
20 moping or melancholy; they are not
only half supplied God says they are
filed with good.
The worm squirning through the sod
upturned of plowshare and the ants
racing up and down the hillocl are
happy by day and happy by night.
Take up a drop of.water under the mi
croscope, and YOU find that within it
there are millions of creatures that
swim in halIelujah of gladness. The
sounds in nature that are rcpulsive to
our ears are often only utteranoes of
joy-the growl, the croak, the bark,
the howl The good God made these
creatures, thinks of them ever, and
will not let q plowshare turn up a
mole's nest or tisherman's hook trans
fix a worm until, by eternal decree, its
time has come. Gods hand feeds all
these broods and shepherds all these
f1ocks and tends all these herds. He
sweetens the clover top for the oxen S
taste; and pours out crystalline waters
in messed cups of rock, for the kind to
drink out of on his way down the
crags, and pours nectar into the cup of
the honeysuckle to refresh the hum
ming bird; and spreads banquet of a
hundred fields of buckwheat, and lets
the honey-bee put his mouth to any cup
of all the banquet, and tells the grass
hopper to go anywhere he likes, and
give the focl<s of Heaven the choice OF
all the grain-ields. The sea anemOne,
half animal, half flower, clinging to
the rock in mid-ocean, with it's ten
tacles spread to catch its food, has the
owner of the universe to provide for it.
We are rrpulsed at the hideousness of
the elephant, but God, for the comfort
and convenience of the monster, puts
forty thousand distinct muscles in its
prohoscis,
go down on the barren seashore and
say: mo animal can live in this place
of desolation;" but all through the
sands are myriads of little insects that
leap with happy life. go down by the
marsh and say: I'm this damp place,
and i'll these loathsoma pools of stag
nant water, there will be The quietncss
of DEATH" but, 10! see the Turtles on
the rotten log summing themselves, and
hear the boys quake with multitudin-
GUS life. When the unfledged robins
are hungry God shows the old robin
where she can get food to put into their
open mouths. Winter is not allowed to
come until the ants have granaried
their harvest, and the squi-rsls have
filled their cellars with nuts. God
shows tho hungry ichneumon where it
may find the crocodiles eggs, and in
arctic climes there are animals that
God so lavishly clothes that they can af-
ford to walk through snow storms in the
finest sable, and ermine, and chinchilla,
and no sooner is one set o. furs worn
out than God gives them : new one.
lie helps the spider in its architecture
of its gossamer bridge, ard takes care
of the color of the butter dy's wing,
and tinges the cochineal, and helps the
moth out of the chrysalis. The animal
creation also has it's army and navy.
The most insignificant has it's means of
defense-the wasp it's sting, the reptile
its tooth, the bear it's paw, the dog its
muzzle, the elephant its tusk, the fish
its scale, the bird its swift wing, the
reindeer Its antlers, the roe its feet
foot We are repealed at the thought of
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