The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1899-10-18
Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1899

gone out as hunters to find game in the
mountains; text, Psalm xiii, i, las the
hart panteth after the water brooks.
David, who must some time have seen
deer hunt, points us here to a hunted
stag making for the water. The fascl-
mating animal, called in my text the harr,
is the same animal that in sacred ana
profane literat ure is called the stag, me
roebuck, the hind, the gazelle, the rein
deer In central Syria in Bible times
there were whole pasture fields or them,
as Solomon suggests when he says. L
charge you by the kinds of the held.
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 Il roebuck. Isaiah
compares the sprightliness of the re-
stored cripple of millennial times to the
long and quick jump of the stag. saying,
THE lame shall leap as the hart Solo
mon expressed his disgust at hunter
who, having shot a deer, is too lazy to
cook it. saying, THE slothful man roast
eth 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 previ
Gus silence of the forest the clangor
startles him, and he says to bi mself, Il
wonder what those dogs are after" Then
there is a cracking in the brushwoOd
and the loud breathing of some rushing
wonder of the woods, and the antlers of a
deer rend the leaves OF the thicket and
by an instinct which all hunters recog-
niZe it plunges into pond Or lake or
river to cool its thirst and at the same
time, by its capacity for swifter and
longer swimming, to get away from the
foaming barriers.
David says to himself: "Ahai That is
myself. Saul after me, Absalom after
me, enemies without number after me.
am chased, their bloody muzzles at my
heels, barking at my good name, barking
after my body, barking after my soul
Oh, the hounds, the hounds! But look
therer' says David. THAT hunted deer
has splashed into the water. 1t puts its
hot lips and nostrils into the cool wave
that washes the lathered TANKS, and it
swims away from the fiery CANNES, and
it is free at last. Oh, that l might find
in the deep, wide lake of Gods mercy
and consolation escape from my pursuers.
Oh, for the waters of life and rescue! As
the hart panteth after the water brooks,
SO panteth my soul after thee, 0 Godv'
True to Nature.
Some of you have just come from the
Adirondacks, and the breath Of the bal
sam and spruce and pine is still on you.
The Adirondacks are now populous with
hunters, and the deer are being slain by
the score. Once while there talking with
hunter | thought | would like to see
whether my text was accurate in its al
fusion, and as l heard the dogs baying
a little way off and supposed they were
on the track of a deer | said to the hunter
in rough corduroy, DO the deer always
make for the water when they are pur-
sued?' He said: '.Oh, yes, mister You
see, they are hot and thirsty animal,
and they know where the water is, and
when they hear danger in the distance
they lit their antlers and snuff the breeze
and start for Racquet or Loon or Sar-
amaze, 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 Won
der 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 usefulness, although
it is the most useful of all game, it's
flesh delicious, its skin turned into human
apparel, its sinews fashioned into bow
strings, its antlers putting handles on cut
lery and the shayings of it's horns used as
q restorative, 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 liquid
brightness as if gathered up from a hun
dred lakes at sunset! The horns a coro-
nal branching into every possible curve,
and. after it seems done, ascending into
other projections of exquisiteness, a tree
OF polished bone, uplifted in pride or
swung down for awful combat! 1t is
velocity embodied, timidity impersonated,
the enchantment of the woods, eye lus-
trous in life and pathetic in death, the
splendid animal a complete rhythm of
muscle and bone and color and attitude
and locomotion, whether couched in the
grass among the shadows or living bolt
shot through the forest or turning at bay
to attack the hounds or rearing for its
last fall under the buckshot of the trap
per.
1t is a splendid appearance, that the
painters pencil fails to sketch and only a
hunters dream on pillow Of hemlock at
the foot Of st. Regis is able to picture.
When twenty miles from any settlement,
it comes down at eventide to the lakes
edge to drink among the lilypads and,
with its sharp edged hoof, skaters the
crystal of Long lake, it is very pictur-
esque. But only when, after miles of
pursuit, with heaving sides and lolling
tongue and eyes swimming in death, the
stag leaps from the cliff into Upper Sar-
anac can you realize how much David
had suffered from his troubles and how
much he wanted God when he expressed
himself in the words, ''As the hart pant
eth after the water brooks, so panteth