Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-05-06
REV. DIR. TALMACE
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: evils of Idleness."

DAVID ana Jeremiah duu EZekSI anu ~HACoAA
and Solomon of the text showed that some
time they had been out on a hunting ex-
petition. Spears. lances, swords and nets
were employed il this service. A deep pit
fall would be digged. In the center or 1t
there was some raised ground with pole on
which lamb would be fastened, and the
wild beast not seeing the pltfall, but only
seeing the lamb would plunge for its prey
and dash down, itself captured. Birds were
caught in gins or pierced with arrows. Inc
hunters in olden time had two mlsslons-one
to clear the land Of ferocious beasts and the
other to obtain meat for themselves and
their families The occupation and habit or
hunters are a favorite Bible simile. David
said he was hunted by his enemy like par
fridge upon the mountain. My text Is
hunting scene
A sportsman arrayed in a garb appropri-
ate to the wild chase lets slip the blood-
thirsty hounds from their kennels, aud
mounting his feet horse, with a halloo and
the yell of the greyhound pack they are
off and away, through brake and dell, over
marsh and moor, across chasms where
uIisstep would hurl horse and rider to death,
plunging into mre up to the launches or in
to swift streams up to the bit, till the game
is tracked by dripping foam and blood, and
the antlers crack on the rocks, ana 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 1t 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 grid
iron on the Goals.
The first picture ever bought was an en-
craving of Thorwaldsen's Autumn" The
clusters of grapes are ripe on the vine of the
homestead and the returned hounds, pant
ing from the chase are lying on the doorsill
and the hunter is unshouldering the game,
while the housewife is about to take a
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 a specimen since Solomon's
time of those whose lassitude and improvl'
dence and absurdity were depicted III my
text. The most of those who have
made dead failure of life can look back
and see a time when great opportunity
opened, but they did not know it.
They were not as wise as George Stephen
son, 1.-The father of railways" who, when at
sixteen years of age he received an appoint
twelve shillings week, cried out: "Now, I
am made man for life" God gives to most
men at least one good opportunity. A great
Grecian general was met by group of beg
CARS, 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.
[ will see that you get it. But [ will encour-
age none in idleness." So God gives to most
people an opportunity of extrication from
depressed circumstances. AS IL 70 create
in us hatred for Incidence, God has
made those animals which are slug
gish 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 croco-
die 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 or jet or GRIM
son or snowy whiteness. Besides all this the
Bible is constantly assaultlng the vice Of
laZlnesS. Solomon seems to order the 1dler
out of his sight as beyond all human instruc-
ton when he says, go to the ant, thou slug
gard; consider her ways and be wise" And
Paul seems to drive him up from his dining
table before he gets through with the first
course of food with the assertion IF any
will not work, neither shall he eat"
Now, what are the causes of lazness and
what are it's evil results? I knew man who
was never up to time. It seemed impossible
for him to meet an engagement. w hen he
was to be married he missed the train. His
owner, and was always too slow. He had a
constitutional lethargy for which he did not
seem responsible. So Incidence often arises
from the natural temperament | do not
know but there is constitutional tendency
to this vice in every man. However active
you may generally be, have you not on some
warm spring day felt a touch Of this feeling
on you, although you may have shaken 1t on
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 treadlng 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 oreathes. The animal in his nature is
stronger than the intellectual. He is gen.
orally great eater and active only when
he cannot digest what he has eaten. 1t re-
Quires as much effort for him to walk as for
others to run. Languor and drowsiness are
his natural inheritance. He Is built for a
slow sailing vessel heavy hulk and an in
sufficient cutwater. Place an active man
in such bodily structure and the latter
would be shacken to pieces in one day.
Every law Of physiology demands that he
be supine. Such one is not responsible for
this powerful tendency of his nature. His
great duty is resistance.
When l see a man fighting an unfortunate
temperamenta all my sym athies are aroused,
and l think of Victor Hugo's account of
scene on warship, where, in the midst Of a
storm at sea, great cannon got loose. and
it was crashing this way and that and would
have destroyed the ship; and the chief gun
ner at the almost certain destruction of his
OyTTY1l Ifn rsI1S bod at with 10 N