The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-10-21
TALMAGE TAKES UP THE TURF.
..DIssIPATION OF THE RACE
COURSE" HIS TOPIC.


and Puts Ii on the HOrse-A Con-
domination of Cruelty Toward the
Brute CreatiOn-Horse Racing for
Purses Defended with the Betting
Feature ELIMINATED.
New York. oct 20-In his sermon for
to-day. Rev. Dr. Talmage discusses o
topic which for months past has been
familiar one in the daily press, viz. THE
DESTINATIONS OF the Race Course" dis
text was Job 80. 49, p, %: Hast thou
given the horse strength2 Hast thou
clothed his neck with thunder? He pawe'h
in the valley. and rejoiceth; he goeth On
10 meet the armed men. de saith among
the trumpets, ha, hal and ne smeheth
the battle afar OF. the thunder Of the
captains. and the shouting"
we have recently had long columns Of
intelligence from the race course, ami
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
a horses heetness is an iniquity instead
of a commendable virtue-at such a time
a sermon is demanded of every minister
on the one hand, and who is not willing
TO see an unrighteous abridgment Of in
nocent amusement on the other. In this
discussion 1 shall follow no sermonic pre-
cedent, but will give Independently what
I consider the Christian and common
sense view of this potent and all absorb
ing and agitating question OF the turf.
There needs to be a redistribution of
coronets among the brute creation. For
ages the lion has been called the king
of beasts l knock off his coronet and
nut the crown upon the horse, IN every
way nobler whether in shape or spirit
or sagacity, or intelligence, or affection,
or usefulness. He is semi-human, ana
knows how to reason on small scale.
The centaur of olden times, part horse
and part man, seems to be a suggestion
of the fact that the horse is something
more than a beast job in my text, sets
forth his strength, his beauty, his ma
jesty, the painting of his nostril, the paw
ing of his hoof, and his enthusiasm for
the battle. What Rosa BoDheur did for
the cattle and what Landseer did Tor
the dog, Job, with mightier pencil does
for the horse. lightweight times does
the Bible speak of him. He comes into
every kingly procession, and into every
great occasion, and into every triumph
IL is very evident that Job and David,
and Isaiah and Ezekiel, ana Jeremiah
and John We're fond of the horse. lie
comes into much of their imagery. A req
horse-that meant war. A black horse
that meant famine. A pale nOrse-thdt
meant death. A white horse-that meant
victory. Good Mordecai mounts MN
while Hannah holds the bit. The churchs
advance in the Bible is compared 70 a
company of horses Of Pharoah's chariot.
Jeremiah cries out I1oM can aus, 81 sTIa
horses hoofs shall be counted as flint"
Miriam claps ,her cymhals ana sings:
1.-THE horse and the rider hath he thrown
into the sea" st. John describing Christ
as coming forth from conquest to con-
quest represents him as seated on white
horse. In the parade of heaven the Bible
makes us hear the clicking of hoofs on
the golden pavement as 1t says: Ihe
armies which were in heaven followed
him on white horses" l should not Won
der If the horse, so banged, and bruised,
and beaten and outraged on earth should
have some other place where MS wrongs
shall be righted. l do not assert H. but
/ say / should not be surprised If, after
all, st. Johns description of the horses
in heaven turned out not altogether to
be figurative, but somewhat literal.
AS the Bible makes favorite OF the
horse, the patriarch and the prophet, and
the evangelist, and the apostle stroking
his sleek hide and patting his rounded
neck and tenderly lifting his exquisitely
formed hoOf and listening with a thrill
TO the champ of his bit, so all great ma
encomiastic terms. Virgil in his Georges
almost seems to plagiarize from this de-
scription in the text so much are the de-
scriptions alike-the description of Virgil
and the description of Job. The Duke of
Wellington would not allow anyone ir-
reVerently to touch his old war-horse
Copenhagen, on whom he had ridden tf-
teen hours without dismounting at Water
loo, and when old Copenhagen died, his
master ordered a military salute fired
over his grave. John Howard showed
that he did not exhaust all his sympa-
thies in plying the human race, for when
sick he writes home: Has my old chaiSe
horse become sick or spoiled2 There is
hardly any passage of French literature
more pathetic than the lamentation over
the death of the War-charger, Marche-
gay Walter Scott has so much admira-
ton for this diVinely honored creature
of God that in st. Romans Wen he
orders the girth slackened and the blank
ct thrown over the smoking TANKS. Ed
mund Burke, walking in the park at
Beaconsfield. musing over the past,
throws his arm around the WORKOUT horse
OF his dead son. Richard, and weeps upon
the horses necn, the horse seeming to
sympathize in the memories. Rowland
Hin, the great English preacher, was
caricatured because in his family prayers
he duplicated for the recovery of a
sick horse, but when the horse got well,
contrary to all the prophecies of the far
Tiers, the prayer did not seem quite so
much of an absurdity.
But what shall say OF the maltreatment
OF this beautiful and wonderful creature
of God? If Thomas Chalmers in his
DAY IeiL calleu upon 10 preach a sermon
against cruelty to animals how much
more in this day is there a need of rep
rehensive discourse. All honor to the
memory of Prof. Bergh, the chief apostle
for the brute creation, for the mercy
he demanded and achieved for this king
of beast. A man who owned four thou
sand horses, and some say forty thou
sand, wrote in the Bible: "A righteous
man regardeth the life of his beast" Sir
Henry Lawrence's care of the horse was
beautifully Christian. He says; 4 ex-
pect we snail lose Conrad, though l have
taken so much care of him that he may
come in cool. / always walk him the
last four or five miles, and as l walk
myself the first hour, it is only in the
middle of the journey we get over the
ground" The Ettrick Shepherd in his
rnatchless Ambrosial Nights speaks of
the maltreatment of the horse as a prac-
teal blasphemy. L do not believe in the
TRANSPORTATION of souls, but l cannot
very severely denounce the idea, for when
see men who cut and bruise and whack
and welt and strike and maui and out
rage and insult the horse, that beautf-
full servant of the human race, who ca =
ries our burdens and pulls our ploughs,
and turns our threshers and our mills,
and runs for our doctOrs-when l see
men thus beating and abusing and oYiv-