St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-11-05

secution, or the spotted hounds of
vicissitudc, or the pale hounds Of
death, or who are in any wise pnr-
sued, run to the wide, deep, glorious
lake of divine solace and rescue. The
most of the men and women whom !
happened to know at different times,
if not now, have had trouble after
them. sharp-muzzled trouble after
of you have made the mistake OF try
ing to fight them Somebody meaniy
You, and you attacked them;
or they deprecated you, you de-
preciated them; or they overreached
you in bargain. and you tried. in
Wall street parlance, to get n corner
on them; or you have had a bereayc-
ment, and, instead of being submits
sive, you charge on the doctors who
failed to effect a cure; or you charge
on the carelessness of the railroad
company through which the accident
occurred; or you are a chronic in
valid, and you fret, and worry, and
scold, and wonder why you can not
be- well like other people. and you
angrily blame the neuralgia, or the
laryngitis, or the ague, or the sick
headache. The fact is, you are a deer
ut bay. Instead of running to the
waters of divine consolation, and slak-
ing your thirst and cooling your body
and soul in the good cheer of the Cos
pei. and swimming away into the
mighty deeps of Gods love, you are
fighting whole kennel of barriers.
/ saw in the Adirondacks a dog ly-
ing across the road, and he seemed
unable to get up, and I said to some
hunters near by: "What is the mat
ter with that dog?" They answered.
"A deer hurt him." And l saw he had
. great swollen paw and battered
head, showing where the antlers
struck him. And the probability is
that some of you might give mighty
clip to your pursuers. you might dam
age their business, you might worry
them into i'll health, you might hurt
them as much as they hurt you, but,
after all, it is not worth while. You
only have hurt hound. Better be off
for the Upper Saranac, into which the
mountains of Gods eternal strength
look down and moor their shadows.
AS for your physical disorders, the
worst strychnine you can take is fret
fulness, and the best medicine is re-
ligion. I know people who were only a
little disordered, yet have fretted
themselves ito complete valetudina-
rianism. while others put their trust
in God and come up from the very
shadows of death, and have lived COM
fortably twenty-five years with only
one lung. A man with one lung, bnt
God with him, is better of than =
Goddess man with two lungs. Some of
you have been for a long time sailing
around Cape Fear when You ought 10
have been sailing around Cape Good
Hope. Do not turn back, but go ahead.
The deer will accomplish more with
it's swift feet than with its horns.
/ saw whole chains of lakes in the
Adirondacks, and from one height you
can see thirty, and there are said 10
be over eight hundred in the great
wilderness of New York. So near are
they to each other that your mountain
guide picks up and carries the boat
from lake to lake, the small distance
between them for that reason called
carry" And the realm of Gods
word is one long chain of bright, re-
freshing lakes; each promise lake, Z
very short carry between them, and,
though for ages the pursued have
been drinking out of them, they are
full up to the top of the green banks,
and the same David describes them.
and they seem SO near together that
in three different places he speakes of
them as continuous river, saying:
There is a river, the streams whereof
shall make glad the city of God;'
'.Thou shalt make them drink Of the
rivers of thy pleasures" "Thou
greatly enrichest it with the river of
God. which is full of water"
But many Of you have turned your
back on that supply, and confront
your trouble, and you are soured with
your own circumstances, and you are
fighting society, and you are fighting
a pursuing world, and troubles, in
stead of driving you into the cool LANE
of heavenly comfort, have made you
stop and turn around and lower your
head. and it is simply antler against
tooth. / do not blame you. Proba-
bly, under the same circumstances l
would have done worse. But you are
all wrong. You need to do as the
reindeer does in February and March
it sheds its horns. The Rabbinical
writer's allude to this resignation Of
antlers by the stag when they say of a
man who ventures his money in risky
enterprises, he has hung il on the
stag's horns; and proverb in the far
east tells man who has foolishly lost
his fortune to go and find where the
deer sheds her horns My brother,
quit the antagonism of your circum-
stances, quit misanthropy, quit com
plant, quit pitching into your pur-
suers, be as wise AZ, next spring, will
be all the deer Of the Adirondacks
Shed your horns.
But very many of you who ARE
wronged in the world-and il in any
assembly between here and Golden
Gate, San Francisco, it were asked
that all those that had been some
times badly treated should raise both
their hands, and full response shoull
be made, there would be twice n
many hands lifted As persons present
II say many of you would declare;
I'VE have always done the best ".
could and tried to be useful, and WHY
we should become the victims Of ma
lignment, or invalidism, or mishap, i,
inscrutable." Why, do you know tn,
finer the deer and the more elegant it.
proportions, and the more beautiful
its bearing. the more anxious tn.
hunters and the hounds are to cap
ture it. Had the roe buck . ragget
fur and broken hoofs and an obliter
ated eye and limping gait, the hunt
ers would have said: "Pshaw! dom
let us waste our ammunition orr q sicl
deer" And the hounds would hav'
given q few sniffs of the scent, ant
then darted of in another direction
for better game. But when they SCI
n deer with antlers lifted in might,
challenge to earth and sky, and thu