The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-03-08
"a SNOWY DAY"
Rev. DR.. Talmago Draws Lessons
From the Story OF Benaiah.
The vaIIIRnt Christian, Armed with the
Sword OF the spirit. More than
Match for the Worst Agent
OF the Evil One.

based on the text:
lie went down and slew q lion in a pit IA
snowy day. Chronicles. XII, -
Have you ever heard of him? His
name was Benaiah. He was a man of
stout muscle and of great avoirdupois-
His father was a hero. and he inherited
prowess- lie was athletic and there
was iron in his blood, and the strong
est bone in his body was backbone.
lie is known for other wonders beside
that Of the text. An Egyptian five GU
bits in stature, or about seven feet
nine inches high, was moving around
in braggadocio and hourishing a great
spear, careless as to whom he killed,
and Benaiah of my text, with nothing
but n waliSing-stick, came upon him,
snatched the spear from him, and with
one thrust of its sharp edge put an
eud 70 the blatant bully, which makes
us think of the story in our Greek
lesson too hard for us il the smart
er boy on the same bench had
not helped us out with it, in
which Horatius, TIN, Macedonian, and
| Dioxippus, the Athenian, fought in the
presence of Alexander; the Macedon-
| ian armed with shield and sword and
1 iavelin, and the Athenian with moth
/ ing but a club. The Macedonian
I hurled the javclin, but the Athenian
successfully lodged it, and the Mace
/ DOMAIN lifted the spear, but the
! Athenian with club broke it, and the
| Macedonian drew the sword, but the
/ Athenian tripped him up before he
/ could strike with it, and then the
| Athenian with his club would have
/ beaten the life out of the Macedonian,
/ fallen among his useless weapons, if
| Alexander had not commanded: "Stop!
StopT' But Benaiah of the text is
about to do something that will
eclipse even that. There is trouble in
all the nciGhborhood. Lambs are car
ried off in the night, and children
vcnturing only little way from their
/ fathers house are found maDgled and
dead. The fact is, the land was in
tested with lions, and few people
dared meet one of these grizzly
beasts, much less corner or attack it.
AS n good providence would have it,
one morning a footstep of IA lion was
tracked in the snow. 1t had been out
on its devouring errand through the
darkness, but at last it is found by the
impression of the four paws on the
white ground, which way the wild
beast came, and which way it had
gone. Perilous undertaking; but Be
naiah, the hero of the text, arms him
| self with such weapons as those early
| days afforded, gunpowde having been
invented in n far subsequent century
by the German monk, Bertholdus
Schwartz. Therefore, without gun or
any kind of firearms, Benaiah of the
text no doubt depended on the sharp
steel edge for his own defense and the
slaughter of the lion as he fol-
lowed the track through the snow.
1t may have been javelin, it may
have been only knife; but what Be
naiah lacks in weapon he will make
up in strength of arm and skill of
stroke. But where is the lion? We
must not get off his track in the snow.
The land has many cisterns, or pits,
for catching rain, the rainfall being
very scarce at certain seasons, and
hence these cisterns or reservoirs are
digged here and there and yOnder
Lions have an instinct which seems to
tell them when they are pursued, and
this dread monster of which / speak
retreats into one of these cisterns
which happened TO be free of water,
and is there painting from the long
run, and licking its jaws after a repast
of human flesh, and after quafing the
red vintage of human blood.
Benaiah is all alert, and comes eau
tiously on toward the hiding-place of
this terror of the fields. Coming to
the verge of the pit, he looks down at
the lion, and the lion looks up at him.
What a moment it was when their
eyes clashedI But while a modern Du
Chaillu, Gordon Cumming or Sir Sam
uel Baker, or David Livingstone,
would have just brought the gun to
the shoulder, and hold the eye against
the barrel, and blazed away into the
depths, and finished the beast, Ben
aiah, with only the old-time weapon,
can do nothing until he gets on a level
with the beast, and so he jumps into
the pit, and the lion. with shining
teeth of rage, and claws lifted to tear
to shreds the last vestige of human
life, springs for the man, while Ben
aiah springs for the beast. But the
quick stroke of the steel edge flashed
again, and again, and again, until the
snow was no longer white, and the
right foot of triumphant Benaiah is
half covered with the tawny name of
the slain horror of Palestine.
Now you see how emphatic, and
tragic, and tremendous are the words
of my text: He went down and slew
lion in a pit in a snowy day" Why
put that in the Bible? Why put it
twice in the Bible, once in the book Of
Samuel, and here in the book of
Chronicles? Oh, the practical lessons
are so many for you and for me. What
q cheer in this subject for all those of
you who are beset by hostile circum-
stances. Three things were against
Benaiah of my text in the moment of
combat, the snow that impeded his
movement, the pit that environed him
in small space, and the lion, with
open jaws and uplifted paws. And
yet / hear the shout of Benaiah's
victory. Oh, men and women of three
troubles. You say: Il could stand one,
and think / can stand two; but three
is at least one too many"
There is man in business perplex-
ity, and who has sickness in his fam
fly, and old age coming on. Three
troubles-a lion, pit and snowy days.
There is a good woman with failing
health, and dissipated husband, and
n hayward bOy-three troublesl There
is young man, salary cut down. bad
cough, frowning future-three trou-
blesl There is a maiden with a diff
IA