The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1895-10-25
AN ATROCIOUS EVIL.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE ON RACE COURSE
DlSSlPATlONS.

An Apostrophe to u Noble Animsl-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
familiar one in the daily press-viz,
1.-The Designations of the Race Course.
His text was Job xxx, 10, 21, 80:
Hast thou given the horse strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thun-
der? He paweth in the valley, and re-
joiceth; he goeth ON to meet the armed
men. He saith among the trumpets, ha,
ha and he smelleth the battle afar off,
the thunder of the captains and the
shouting.
We have recently had long columns
of intelligence from the race course,
and multitudes flocked 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 heresy abroad that
the cultivation of horses tleetness is an
iniquity instead Of commendable viz
tue-at such a 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 SEQ an
unrighteous abridgment of innocent
amusement on the other. In this discus
sion I shall follow no sermonic prece-
dent, but will give independently what
/ consider the Christian and common
sense view of this potent, all absorbing
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. 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
knows how to reason on a 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 maj
esty, the painting of his nostril, the
paving of his hoof and his enthusiasm
for the battle. What Rosa Bonheur did
for the cattle and what Landseer did
for the dog Job with mightier pencil
does for the horse. Eighty eight times
does the Bible speak of him. He comes
into every kingly procession and into
every great occasion and into every tri
umph. 1t is very evident that Job and
David and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jere-
miah and John were fond of the 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 Hannah holds the bit
The church's advance in the Bible is
compared to a company of horses Of
Pharaoh chariot. jeremiah cries out,
"How canst thou contend with horses?"
Isaiah says, 1.-THE horses hoofs shall be
counted as flint. " 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 a white horse. In the
parade Of heaven the Bible makes us
hear the clicking Of hoofs on the golden
pavement as it says, "The armies which
We're in heaven followed him on white
horses. l should not wonder if the
horse, SO banged, and bruised, and beat
Ell and outraged on earth, should have
some other place where his wrongs shall
be righted do not assert it, but l say
| should not be surprised if after all st.
Johns descriptions Of the horses in
heaven turned out not altogether to be
fgurative, but somewhat literal.
Encomiums on the Horse.
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 natures in all ages have spoken
of him in encomiastic terms Virgil in
his Georges almost seems to plagiarize
from this description in the text, so
much are 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 Is hours without dis
mounting at Waterloo, and when old
Copenhagen died his master ordered q
military salute fred over his grave
John Howard showed that he did not
exhaust all his sympathies in plying
the human race, for when sick he writes
home, I" Has my old chaise horse become
sick or spoiled?" There is hardly any
passage Of French literature more pa
thetic than the lamentation over the
death Of the war charger Marchegay.
Walter Scott has so much admiration
for this divinely honored creature of
God that in est Romans Well" he Or
ders the girth slackened and the blanket
thrown over the smoking tanks Ed
mund Burke, walking in the park at
Beaconsfeld, musing over the past,
throws his arms around the wornout
horse of his dead son Richard, and
weeps upon the horses neck, the horse
seeming TO sympathize in the memories.
Rowland Hill, the great English preach
er, was caricatured because in his fam
lily prayers he duplicated for the recov-
cry of sick horse, but when the horse
got well, contrary to all the prophecies
Of the farriels, the prayer. did not seem
quite so much of an absurdity.
Cruelty to the Horse.
But what shall say Of the maltreat-
ment of this beautiful and wonderful
creature of God? IL Thomas Chalmer
i'll his day felt called upon to preach u
sermon against cruelty to animals, how
much more in this day is there a need
of reprohensive discoursel All honor TO
the memory of Professor Bergh, the chief
apostle for tho brute crcation, for the
borrowing
rtI-