Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1899-10-19

your body and soul in the good cheer OF
the gospel and swimming away into the
mighty deeps Of Gods love, you are fight
ing whole kennel of barriers.
Some time ago saw in the Adiron-
dacks dog lying across the road, and he
seemed unable to get up, and | said to
some hunters, "What is the matter with
that dog?" They answered, "A deer
hurt him." and | saw he had swollen
paw and n battered head, showing whore
( antlcrs struck him. And the proba-
ity is that some of you might give
mighty clip to your pursuers. You might
damage 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
a hound. Better be off for the Upper
Sarnnac, into which the mountains Of
Gods eternal strength look down and
moor their shadows. AS for your phys
ica disorders, the worst strychnine you
can take is fretfulness, and the best med
icine is religion. | know people who were
only little disordcrcd, yet have fretted
themselves into complete valetudinarian-
ism, while others put their trust in God
and came up from the very shadow of
death and have lived comfortably 20
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 long time sailing
around Cape Fear when you ought to
have been sailing around Cape Good
Hope. Do not turn back, but go ahead.
The deer will accomplish more with its
swift feet than with its horns.
Lakes of Gods word.
There are whole chains of lakes in the
Adirondacks. and from one height you
can see 80 lakes, and there are said to be
over 500 in the great wilderness. So
near are they TO each other that your
mountain guide picks up and carries the
boat from lake to lake, the small dis
lance between them for that reason call
ed carry" And the realm of Gods
word is one long chain of bright, refresh
ing lakes, each promise lake, 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
speaks of them as a continuous river,
saying, There is a river the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of
Cod" 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 circum-
stances, and you are fighting society, and
you are fighting a pursuing world, and
troubles, instead of driving you into the
IoI boo " boy 10
you stop and turn round and lower your
head, and it is simply antler against
tooth. l do not blame you. Probably
under the same circumstances | 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 Rabbnical writers alude to this
resignation of antlers by the stag when
they say of a man who ventures his mon
ey in risky enterprises he has hung it on
the stays horns, and proverb in the far
east tells man who has foolishly lost
his fortune, to go and find where the deer
shed his horns. My brother, quit the an
tagonsm OF your circumstances, quit
misanthropy, quit complaint, quit pitch
ing into your pursuers. Be as wise as
next spring will be the deer Of the Adj
rondacks. Shed your horns.
But very many Of you who are wronged
of the world--and if in any assembly be-
tween the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
it were asked that all who had been bad
ly treated should raise both their hands,
and full response should be made, there
would be twice as many hands lifted as
persons present i say many Of you
would declare, Eve have always done
the best we could and tried to be useful,
and why we become the victims of ma
lignment or invalidism or mishsp. is in
scrutable." Why, do you not know that
the finer a deer and the more elegant its
proportions and the more beautiful its
bearing the more anxious the hunters
and the hounds are to capture it? Had
that roebuck a ragged fur and broken
hoofs and an oblterated eye and limp
ing gait the hunters would have said:
"Pshaw! Don't let us waste our ammu-
milton on sick deer" And the hounds
would have given a few shifts Of the
track and then darted off in another d.
roctiOn for better game. But when they
see deer with antlers lifted in mighty
challenge to earth and sky, and the sleek
hide looks as if it had been smoothed by
invisible hands, and the fat sides inclose
the richest pasture that could be nibbled
/ from the bank of rills so clear they seem
to have dropped out of heaven, and the
stomp of its foot defies the jack shooting
lantern and the rifle, the horn and the
hound. that deer they will have if they
must needs break their necks in the rap
ids. So if there were no noble stuff in
your make up, if you were a bifurcated
nothing, il you were forlorn failure,
you would be allowed to go undisturbed.
but the fact that the whole pack is In
full cry after you is proof positive that
you are splendid game and worth cap.
turing.
The Bead of Sarcasm.
Therefore sarcasm draws on you its
finest bead" therefore the world goes
cunning for you with its best Winchester
breechloader. Highest compliment is it
to your talent or your virtue or your use
fulness. You will be assaled in proper
ton to your great achievements. The
best and the mightiest Being the world
ever saw had set after him all the
hounds, terrestrial and diabolic, and they
tapped his blood after the Calvarean
massacre. The world paid nothing to its
Redeemer but bramble, four spikes and
n cross. Many who have done their best
TO make the world better have had such
a rough time OF it that all their pleasure
is in anticipation of the next world. and
they would if they could, express theil
own feelings in the words of the Baron
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