The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-05-06
THE LAZY NOT WANTED.
DR.. Talmage Pays His Respects to
the Sluggard and Idler.
Activity Compared With sluggishness-Ths
sprightly Gazelle Delights the Eye
While the SIoth Is Loathsome-
Lessons Drawn.

In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage discoursed on the ten
dency of many people to slothfulness
and Incidence. His text was from
Proverbs xii. %: THE slothful man
roasteth not that which he took in
hunting" DIR. Talmage said:
David and jeremiah and Ezekiel and
Micah and Solomon of the text showed
that sometime they had been out on a
hunting expedition. Spears, lances,
swords and nets were employed in their
service, A deep pitfall would be digged.
In the center of it there was some raised
ground with a 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 mis-
sions, one TO clear the land of ferocious
beasts and the other to obtain meat for
themselves and families. The occupa-
ton and habit of hunters are a favorite
Bible simile David said he was hunted
by his enemies like partridge upon the
mountain. Ny text is hunting scene
The first picture | 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. arr ~
ing on the door sill and the hunter is
unshouldering his game, while the
housewife is about to- take a Dlr-ion of
it and prepare it for the evening meal
Unlike the person II the text. She was
enough Industrious - 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 improvidence and absurdity were
depicted in my text The most of those
who have made a dead failure of life
can look back and see time when
great opportunity opened but they did
not know it. They We're not as wise as
George Stephenson, ''the father of rail-
ways" who. when at 16 years of age he
received an appointment to work at
pumping engine for twelve shillings
week, cried out: Now I am a made
man for life" God gives to most men
at least one good opportunity. A great
Grecian general was met by group of
beggars, and he said to them: IF You
want beasts TO plow your land. l will lend
you some. If you want land, l will
give you some. If you want seed to
sow your land, l will see that you get
it But | will encourage none in idle
ness" So God gives to most people an
opportunity of extrication from de-
pressed circumstances. As if to create
in US a hatred for Incidence, God has
made those animals which are sluggish
to appear loathsome in our eyes, while
those which are fleet and active he has
clothed with attractiveness. The tor
toise. 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
or jet or crimson or snowy whiteness.
Besides all this the Bible is constantly
assaulting the vice of lazinesS. Solo
mon seems to order the idler out of his
sight as being beyond all human in
structiOn when he saws: Go to the ant.
thou sluggard: 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 laziness
and what are its evil results? 1 knew
a man who was never up to time. 1t
seemed impossible 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 indo-
lence often arises from the natural tenn
permanent | do not know but that
there is a 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 il off as you
would a reptile? But some are sopower
fully 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 some
times behold it in childhood. The child
moping and lounging within doors 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 nature
is stronger than the intellectual. He |
is generally 4 great eater and active |
only when he cannot digest that which |
he has eaten. It requires as
much effort for him to walk as for |
others to run Languor and drowsiness |
are his natural inheritance. He is built |
for slow sailing vessel. a heavy hulk |
and an insufficient cutwater. Place an |
active man in such bodily structure |
and the latter would be shaken TO pieces |
in one day. Every law of physiology |
demands that he be supine- Such one
is not responsible for this powerful ten
dency OF his nature. His great duty is
resistance. When I see 4 man fighting |
an unfortunate temperament, all my /
sympathies are aroused and think of |
Victor Hugo's account of scene on
war ship, where, in the midst of 4 storm
at sea. great cannon got loose, and it
was crashing this way and that and |
would have destroyed the ship; and the
chief gunner, at the almost certain de |
struction OF his own life, rushed at it
with a hand spike to thrust between the
spolzes OF the wheel of the rolling can
non. and by fortunate leverage ar
rested the gun till it could be dashed
fast But that struggle did not seem so