The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1895-03-01
1T WAS A SNOWY DAY
YET BENAlA4 WENT DOWN AND SLEW
A LION IN A PIT

Deed-Men Who Have Triumphed Over
Triad Of Misfortunes--AT Thrilling Story.
The Everlasting Flora.
New YORK. Feb. "a. Continued win
Ter storms seem to have no effect in d.
minishipg the great audiences that
gather every Sunday in and around the
Academy of Music. Today the crowds
were as large as ever. and the spacious
Academy was packed from pit to dome
long before the services began. DR., Tai
mage took for his subject "A Snowy
Day." the text selected being l Chroni-
oles XII, 90, He went down and slew q
lion in pit in snowy day"
Have you ever heard Of him? His name
was Benaiah. He was q man Of stout
muscle and of great avoirdupois His
father was hero, and he inherited
prowess. He was athletic, and there was
iron in his blood, and the strongest bone
in his body was backbone. He is known
for other wonders besides that Of the
text. An Egyptian cubits In stature,
or about feet inches high, was NOV.
ing around in braggadocio and flourish
ing great spear, careless as to whom
he killed, and Benaiah Of my text, with
nothing but walking stick, came upon
him, snatched the spear from the Egyp-
tian, and with one thrust Of its sharp
edge put an end to the blatant bully,
which makes us think of the story in
our Greek lesson, too hard for us if the
smarter boy on the same bench had not
helped us out with it, in which Ho-
ratius the Macedonian and Dioxippus
the Athenian fought in the presence Of
Alexander, the Macedonian armed with
shield and sword and javelin and the
Athenian with nothing but club. The
Macedonian hurled the javelin, but the
Athenian successfully lodged it, and
the Macedonian lifted the spear, but the
Athenian with the 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, "Stopl Stop!'
Tracked In the Snow.
But Benaiah of the text is about to
do something that will eclipse even
that. There is trouble in all the neigh
borhood. Lambs are carried off in the
night, and children venturing only
little way from their fathers house are
found mangled and dead. The fact is the
land was infested with lions and few
people dared meet one of these grizzly
beasts, much less corner or attack it.
As good Providence would have it,
one morning a footstep of lion was
tracked in the snow. 1t had been out
on its devouring errand through the
but at last it is found by the
of the four paws on the white
surface of the ground which way the
wild beast came and which way it had
gone. Perilous undertaking, but Benai-
ah, the hero of the text, arms himself
with such weapons as those early days
afforded, gunpowder having been in
vented in far subsequent century by
the German monk Bertholdus Schwarz
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 followed the track
through the snow. 1t may have been
a javelin; it may have been only
knife. But what Benaiah lacks in
weapons 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
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 repast of human flesh and after
quaffing 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 moment it was when their eyes
clashedl But while modern Du Chail-
lu, Gordon Cumming or Sir Samuel
Baker or David Livingstone would
have just brought the gun to the shout
der, and held the eye against the barrel,
and blazed away into the depths, and
finished the beast, Benaiah, with only
the old time weapon, can do nothing
pntil he gets on 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 Benaiah 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
Three Troubles.
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 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 mel What cheer in this sub
ject for all those of you who are in con-
junction of hostile circumstances. Three
things We're against Benaiah of my text
in the moment of combat, the SNOW that
impeded his movement, the pit that en-
vironed him in ssnall space and the
lion, with open jaws ard upllfted paw.
And yet hear the shout of Benaiah's
victory Oh, men and women of three
troubles, you say, II could stand one,
and ] think | could stand two, but three
are at least one too many
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