Connecticut western news., 1895-10-24
AN ATROtCIoUs EVIL.
REV. oR. TAlMAoE ON RACE COURSE
 DISSERTATIONS.

REV. OR. TAlMAGE ON RACE COURSE
 DISSERTATIONS. A Sermon Which Follows No Precedent.
 An Apostrophe to . Noble Animal-The
 Question of speed-An Insidious Evil.
 NEW YORK, Oct. 20.--In his sermon for today Rev. Dr. Talmage discusses topic which for months past has been a familiar one in the daily press-viz, The Dissipations of the Race Course" His text was Job xxxix, 19, 21. 25: Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thun- der? He paweth in the valley, and re- joiceth; lie goeth on to meet the armed men. He saith among the trumpets, ha, ha! and he smelleth the battle afar of, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting"
 We have recently had long columns of intelligence from the race course. and multitudes focked to the watering places, to witness equine competition, and there is lively discussion in all households about the right and wrong of such exhibitions of mettle and speed, and when there is a heresy abroad that the cultivation of horse $ fleetness is an iniquity instead of commendable vir- tue-at such time sermon is de- manded of every minister who would like to defend public morals on the one hand, and who is not willing to see an unrighteous abridgment of innocent xI L r., l.. sion I shall follow no sermonic prece- dent, but will give independently what I consider the Christian and common sense view of this potent, all absorbing and agitating question of the turf.
 There needs to be redistribution of coronets among the brute creation. For ages the lion has been called the king of beasts knock off its coronet and put the crown upon the horse, in every way nobler. whether in shape, or spirit, or .sagacity, or intelligence, or affection, or. usefulness. He is semihuman, and knoYs how to reason on small scale. The centaur of olden times, part horse and part man, seems to be suggestion of the fact that the horse is something more than a beast. Job in my text sets forth his strength, Ais beauty, his maj esty, the panting of his nostril, the paving of his hoof and his enthusiasm 4for, tho battle. What Rosa Bonheur did for the cattle and what Landseer did for the dog Job with lnightier pencil does for the horse Eighty eight times does the Bible speak of him. He comes into every kingiy. procession and into every great occasion and into every tri- umph. It is very evident that Job and David and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jere- ,niah and John were fond of tho horse. He comes into much of their imagery. A red horse-that meant war. A black horse-that meant famine. A pale horse that meant death. A white horse that meant victory. Good Mordecai mounts him while Haman holds the bit. The church's advance in the Bible is compared to company of horses of Pharaoh s chariot. Jeremiah cries out, How canst thou contend with horses?" Isaiah says, "The horses hoofs shall be counted as fint'' Miriam claps her cymbals and sings, "The horse and the rider hath he thrown into the sea. St. John, describing Christ as coming forth from conquest to conquest, represents him as seated on 6 white horse In the parade of heaven the Bible makes us hear the clicking of hoofs on the golden pavement as 1t says, "The armies which were in heaven followed him on white horses" I should not wonder. if the horse, 80 banged, and bruised. and beat sn and outraged on earth, should have some other place where his wrongs shall be righted. I do not assert it, but I say I should not be surprised if after all St. John &. descriptions of the horses in heaven turned out not altogether to be Hgurative. but somewhat literal:
 Ercomiu,ns on tho Horse,
 . As the Bible makes 8 favorite of the horse. the patriarch, and the prophet, and the evangelist, and the apostle stroking his sleek hide and batting his rounded neck, and tenderly lifting his sxqpisitely formed hoof, and listening with 2, thrill to the champ of his bit, so } m great natures in all ages have spoken 3f him in encomiastic terms. Virgil in his Georgics almost seems to plagiarize from this description in the text, so much arc the descriptions alike-the description of Virgil and the description of Job. The Duke of Wellington would not allow any one irreverently to touch his old warhorse Copenhagen, on whom he had ridden 15 hours without dis mounting at Waterloo, and when old Copenhagen died his master ordered military salute fired over his grave John Howard showed that he did not exhaust all his sympathies in pitying the human race, for when sick he writes home, Has my old. chaise horse become ! eick or spoiletl?' There is hardly any passage of French literature more pa thetio than the lamentation over the death of the war cAarger Marchegay. Walter Scott has so much admiration for this divinely honored creature of God that in '.St- Romans Well'' he or eders the girth slackened and the blanket ,thrown over the smoking Hanks. Ed mund Burke, walking in the park at Bsacongfeld, musing over the past, throws his arms around the wornout horse of his dead son Richard, and weeps upon the horse's neck, the horse .eeeming to osympathize in the memories. Rowland Hill. the great English preach 1T, was carioatured because in his fam l!y prayers he supplicated for the recov- cry of a sick horse, but when the horse rot well, contrary to all the prophecies of the farriers,. the prayer did not seem quite so much of an absurdity.
 Cruelty to tho Horse.
 But what shall say of the maltreat- < ment of this beautiful and wonderful '. creature of God?, If Thomas Chalmers in his day felt called upon to preach a sermon against cruelty to animals, how much more in this day is there need of reprehensive discourse All honor to the memory of Professor Bergh, the chief apostle for the brute creation, for the mercy he demanded and achieved for this king of beasts. A man who owned