The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-10-20
THE HUNTS LESSONS.
DR.. Talmage breaches Upon the
Subject of the Chase.
The Gospel as n Refreshment Graph
icRIly Set Eortb-Refugc In Goes
word for Those Pursued
by trials.
Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1897

| here set forth by DIR. Ialmage under Il
| figure which will be found particularly
graphic by those who have gone out as
hunters to find game in the mountains.
Text, Psalm 42:1, "As the hart panteth
after the water brooks"
David, who must some time have seen
deer hunt, points us here to e hunted
stag making for the water. The fas-
cinating animal, called in my text the
hart, is the same animal that in sacred
and profane literature Is called the stag,
the roebuck, the hind the gazelle, the
reindeer In central Syria in Bible
times there were whole pasture fields
of them, as Solomon suggests when he
says; 81 charge you by the kinds of
the field" Their antlers jutted from the
long grass as they lay down. No hunter
who has been long in John Browns
tract" will wonder that in the Bible
they were classed among clean animals,
for the dews, the showers, the lakes,
washed them as clean as the sky. When
Isaac, the patriarch, longed for venison,
Esau shot and brought home n roebuck.
Isaiah compares the sprightliness of
the restored cripple of millennial times
to the long and quick jump of the stag,
saying: "rhe lame shall leap as the
hart" Solomon expressed his disgust
at hunter who, having shot deer is
too lazy to cook it, saying: "The sloth-
full man roasteth not that which he took
in hunting"
But one day David, while far from the
home from which he had been driven,
and sitting near the mouth of a lonely
cave where he had lodged and on the
banks of pond or river, hears pack of
hounds in swift pursuit Because of the
previous silence of the forest the
clangor startles him, and he says to
himself 81 wonder what those dogs
are after?' Then there is n cracking
in the brushwood and the loud breath
ing of some rushing wonder of the
woods, and the antlers of deer rend
the leaves of the thicket, and by an in
stinct which all hunters recognize it
Lluuges into II pond or lake or river to
cool its thirst, aud at tie same time,
by its capacity for swiiter and longer
swimming, to get away from the foam
ing barriers.
David says to himself: "Aha That is
myself! Saul after me, Absalom after
me. enemies without number after me.
am chased. their bloody muzlies at
ny heels, barking nj my good name,
barking after my body, barking after
my soul Oh, the hounds, the hounds!
But look there!" says David. "lhat
hunted deer has spiashed into the wa
ter. IT puts its hot lips ANA nostrils into
the cool wave that washes the latAered
TANKS, and it swims away from the
fiery CANNES, and it is cree at last Oh,
that might lind in the deep, wide lake
of Gods mercy and consolation escape
from my pursuers! Oh TO. the waters
Of life and rescue. As the hart pauteth
after the water brooks, SO panteth my
soul after Thee, o Cod"
Some of you have just come from the
Adironducks, ard the breath of the
balsam and spruce and pine is still on
you. The Adirondacks are now popu-
lous with hunters, and the deer are be-
ing slain by the score. Once while there
talking with a hunter thought would
like TO see whether my text was accu-
rate in its aliusiou, and as | heard the
dogs bayiug a little way Off and sap
posed the" were on the tracks of a deer,
| said 10 the hunter in rough cordu-
roy: DO the deer always make for
the water when they are pursued" lie
said: :Oh. yes, mister. You see, they
are a hot and thirsty animal, and they
know where the water is, and when
they hear danger in the distance they
lift their antlers and snuff the breeze
and start for Racquet or Loon or Sar-
, anac, and we get into our cedar shell
boat or stand by the runway with rifle
loaded ready to blaze away"
My friends, that is one reason why
like the Bible so much. It's illusions are
SO true to nature. Its cartridges are real
cartridges, its ostriches real ostriches
and its reindeer real reindeer. do not
wonder that this antlered glory of the
text makes the hunters eye sparkle and
his cheek glow and his respiration
quicken, to say nothing of its useful
ness, although 1t is the most useful OF
all game, its flesh delicious, its skin
turned into human wearing apparel, its
sinews fashioned into bow strings, its
antlers putting handles on cutlery and
the shayings Of its horns used as a re-
storative, its name taken from the hart
and called hartshorn. by putting aside
its usefulness this enchanting crea.
ture seems made out of gracefulness
and elasticity. What an eye, with q
liquid brightness as If gathered up from
n hundred lakes at sunset! The horns
a coronal branching into every possible
curve, and, after it seems done, ascend
ing into other projections of exquisite
ness, tree of polished bone upifted
in pride or swung down for awful com
bat! 1t is velocity embodied, timidity
impersonated, the cnehantmert of the
woods, eye lustrous in life and pathetic
in death, the splendid animal a complete
rhythm of muscle and bone and color
and attitude and locomoton, whether
couched in the grass among the shad.