The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-10-14

hdo trouble after them, sharp muzZled
troubles, all devouring troubles. Many
OF You have made the mistake of try
ing to fight them. Somebody meanly
attacked you, and you attacked them;
appreciated you, you deprecated
tnem, or they ~Overreached you in a
bargain, and you tried, in Wall street
parlance, to get a corner on them, or
you have had a bereavement, and in
stead of being submissive you are
fighting that bereavement. You charge
on the doctors who failed to effect a
cure, or you charge on the carlessness
of the railroad company through which
the accident occurred, or you are a
chronic invalid, and you fret and wor-
ry and scold and wonder why you can
be we'll 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
at bay. Instead Of running to the wa
tiers Of divine consolation and shaking
your thirst and cooling your body and
soul in the good cheer of the gospel
and swimming away into the mighty
deeps of Gods love you are fighting a
whole kennel Of barriers.
I saw in the Adirondacks a dog lying
across the road, and he seemed I'M
able to get up, and 1 sal to some hum
ters near by, What is the matter with
that dog?" And I saw he had a a~~~
swollen paw and a battered head, snuw-
ing where the antlers struck him. And
the probability is that some of you
might give a mighty clip to you pur-
suers, you might damage their bust
ness, you might worry them into i'll
health, you might hurt them as much
as they have hurt you, but after all,
it is not worth while. You only have
hurt a hound. Better be off for the
INNER S9ronap into which tho ronrn-
tains of Gods eternal strength look
down and moor their shadows. AS for
your physical disorders, the worst
strychnine yOu can take is fretfulness,
and the best medicine is religion.
l know people who were only a little
disordered, yet have fretted themselves
into complete valetudinarianism, while
others put their trust in God and come
up from the very shadow of death and
have lived comfortably twenty-five
years with only one lung. A man with
one lung, but God with him, is better
off than a goddess man with two lungs.
Some of you have been for a long time
Goodsailing around Cape e when
yOu ought to have been sailing around
Cape GOOD Hope. Do not turn back,
but go ahead. The deer will accom-
plish more with it's swift feet than
with it's horns.
N[AlEILC VI SoNlT otII.
I saw whole chains of lakes in the
Adirondacks, and from one height you
can see thirty, and there are said to
be over 500 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 a carry" And
the realm of Gods word is one long
chain of bright, refreshing lakes, each
promise a lake, a very short carry be
tween 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 de-
ScribeS. them, and they seem so near
together that in three different places
he speaks of them as a 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
circumstances, and you are fighting
society, and you are fighting a pursu-
ing world, n troubles, instead of
driving you into the cool AXE Of heav-
Chly SO1IiIOIl nave lldu you sup LII
turn around and lower your head, and
it is simply antler against tooth. I dc
not blame you. Probably under thu
same circumstances l would have done
worse. But you are all wrong. You
need to do as the reindee does in Feb
ruary and Marsh-it sheds it's horns
The rabbinical writer's allude to this
resignation of antlers by the stas
when they say of a man who venture:
his money in risky enterprises, "Ht
has hung it on the stays horns" an(
a proverb in the far east tells a mar
who has foolishly lost his fortune tt
go and find where the deer sheds he
horns. My brother, quit the antago
nism of your circumstances, quit mis-
anthrophy, quit complaint, quit pitch
ing into your pursuers, be as wise a
next spring will be all the deer of tn
Adirondacks. Shed your horns.
THE REDEEMER'S REWARD.
But very many Of you who ar
wronged of the world-and if in an.
assembly between here and the Colder
Gate, San Francisco, it were aske'
that all those hat had been some
times badly treated should rise bot
their hands and full response Shout
be made, there would be twice as man,
hands lifted as persons present. sa
many of you would declare, 1--WE hav
always done the best we could an
tried to be useful, and why we shout
become the victims of maligment @
, invalidism or mishap, is i~nscrutable.
Why, do you know the finer a dee
and the more elegant it's proportion:
7 and the more beautiful Its bearing, tn
more anxious the hunters n tn
5 hounds are to capture it? Had tn
5 roebuck a ragged fur and broker hoof
| and an obliterated eye and a limpin
gait the hunters would nave sait
"Pshaw, don't let US waste our ammu
!, milton on a sick deer" And the hound
n would nave given a few shifts of tn
= scent and hen darted off in another d
; rection for better game. But when the
see a deer with antlers lifted in might
n challenge to earth and sky, and tt
: sleek hue looks as if it had bee
smoothed by invisible hands, and TT
( fat sides inclose the richest pastul
e that could be nibbled from the band
8 of rills so clear they seem to hay
dropped out of heaven, and the STAN
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