Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-05-05
GOOD GAME WASTED.
oEPLoRA5LE RESULTS OF INCIDENCE
PORTRAYED BY DR.. TALMAeE.

Solomon's Satire and Denuneiation of the
sluggard-some Are Born Lazy, Some
Achieve LAziness and Some Have LazI-
ness Forced on Them.
BROOKLYN, April PA visitor to the
Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning would
have no difficulty in understanding the Sc
.cret of the attraction which fills the vast
building Sunday after Sunday with throngs
of eager listeners. Avoiding abstruse the
ological subjects, DIR. Talmage preached a
sermon on practical topic, giving shrewd
common sense lessons Of inestimable value
to his hearers, especially to the young peo-
pie, who make up large part of his con-
gregation. His text was Proverbs xii, %,
'The slothful man roasteth not that which
he took in hunting"
David and jeremiah and Ezekiel and
Micah and Solomon of the text showed
that some time they had been out on a
hunting expedition. Spears, lances,
swords and nets were employed in this
service. A deep pitfall would be digged
In the center of it there was some raised
ground with pole on which lamb, would
be fastened, and the wild beast not seeing
the pitfall, but only seeing the lamb would
plunge for its prey and dash down, itself
captured. Birds were caught in gins or
pierced with arrows. The hunters in olden
time had two missions-one to clear the
land of ferocious beasts, and the other to
obtain meat for themselves and their fam
lilies. The occupation and habit of hunters
are favorite Bible simile. David said he
was hunted by his enemy like partridge
upon the mountain. My text is a hunting
scene.
THE IMPRovIDENT HUNTER
A sportsman arrayed in garb appropri-
ate to the wild chase lets slip the blood
thirsty hounds from their kennels. and
mounting his feet horse, with halloo and
the yell of a greyhound pack they are of
and away, through brake and dell, over
marsh and moor, across chasms where
misstep wonld hurl horse and rider to
death, plunging into mire up to the
launches or into swift streams up to the
bit, till the game is tracked by dripping
foam and blood, and the antlers crack on
the rocks, and the hunter has just time to
be in at the death. Yet, after all the haste
and peril of the chase, my text represents
this sportsman as being too indolent to
dress the game and prepare it for food. He
lets it lie in the dooryard of his home and
become portion for vermin and beaks of
prey. Thus by one master stroke Solomon
gives picture of laziness, when he says
'The slothful man roasteth not that which
he took in hunting" The most of hunters
have the game they shot or entrapped
cooked the same evening or the next day.
but not so with this laggard of the text
Too lazy to rip off the hide. Too lazy to
kindle the fire and put the gridiron on the
Goals.
The first picture I ever bought was an
engraving of Thorwaldsen's Autumn ?
The clusters of grapes are ripe on the vine
of the homestead, and the returned hounds
painting from the chase, are lying on the
doorsill and the hunter is unshouldering
the game, while the housewife is about to
take portion of it and prepare it for the
evening meal Unlike the person of the
text, she was enough Industrious to roast
that which had been taken in hunting.
But the world has had many specimen
since Solomon'S time of those whose lassi-
tude and improvidence and absurdity were
depicted in my teGt. The most of those
who have made dead failure of life can
look back and see time when a great op-
portunity opened, but they did not know it..
They were not as wise as George Stephen
son, "the father of railways" who, when
at sixteen years of age he received an ap-
pointment to work at a pumping engine
for twelve shillings a week, cried out.
snow, l am made man for life." God
gives to most men at least one good oppor-
tunity. A great Grecian general was met
by group of beggars, and he said to them:
"If you want beasts to plow your land !
will lend you some. If you want land |
will give you some. If you want seed to
SOW your land, l will see that you get it.
But / will encourage none in idleness" F"
So God gives to most people an oppor-
tunity of extrication from depressed cir
cumstances AS if to create in us hatred
for Incidence, God has made those animals
which are sluggish to appear loathsome in
our eyes, while those which are feet and
active he has clothed with attractiveness
The tortoise, the sloth, the snail, the
crocodile repel us, while the deer and the
gazelle are as pleasing as they are feet,
and from the swift wings of innumerable
birds God has spared no purple or gold OF
jet or crimson or snowy whiteness. Besides
all this, the Bible is constantly assaulting
the vice of laziness. Solomon seems to or
der the idler out of his sight as being be-
yond all human instruction when he says,
go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider
her ways and be wise" And Paul seems
to drive him up from his dining table be-
fore he gets through with the first course
of food with the assertion, IF any will not
work, neither shall he eat."
CAUSES OF LAZINEss,
Now, what are the causes of laziness and
what are it's evil results? knew a man
who was never up to time. 1t seemed inn
possible for him to meet an engagement.
When he was to be married he missed the
train. His watch seemed to take on the
habits of its owner, and was always too
slow. He had constitutional lethargy
for which he did not seem responsible So
Incidence often arises from the natural
temperament. do not know but there is
a constitutional tendency to this vice in
every man. However active you may gen
orally be, have you not on some warm
spring day felt touch of this feeling on
you, although you may have shaken it off
as you would a reptile? But some are so
powerfully tempted to this by their bodily
constitution that all the work of their life
has been accomplished with this lethargy
hanging on their back or treading on their
heels.
You sometimes behold it in childhood.
The child moping and longing within
doors while his brothers and sisters are at
play, or if he join them he is behind in
every race and beaten in every game His
nerves, his muscles, his bones are smitten
with this palsy. He vegetables rather than
lives, creeps rather than walks, yawns
rather than breathes. The animal in his
i nature is stronger than the intellectual
He is generally great eater and active
only when he cannot digest what he has
eaten. 1t requires as much effort for him
to walk as for others to run. Languor and