Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1899-11-24

THE HUNTS LESSONS.
DR.. Talmage breaches Upon the
Subject of the Chase.
The Gospel ms n Refreshment Graph
icnIIy Set Forth--Refugc I'm Gods
Word for Those Pursued
by Trials.


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
a deer hunt, points us here to 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 a 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 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: II wonder what those dogs
are after?" Then there is a 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
plunges into a 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 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 muzzles at
my heels, barking at my good name,
barking after my body, barking after
my soul. Oh, the hounds, the hounds!
But look there!" says David. THAT
hunted deer has splashed into the wa
ter. 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 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, o God!"
Some of you have just come from the
Adirondacks, and 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
I talking with hunter thought would
like to see whether my text was accu-
rate in its allusion, and as / heard the
dogs baying a little way off and sup
posed they were on the tracks of deer,
| said TO the hunter in rough cordu-
roy: "Do the deer always make for
the water when they are pursued?" 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
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 rife
loaded ready to blaze away"
Ny friends, that is one reason why
like the Bible so much. Its illusions arc
so true to nature. It's cartridges are rea
cartridges, its ostriches real ostriches
and its reindeer real reindeer. do moi
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 it is the most useful Of
all game, its flesh delicious, its Skin
turned into human wearing apparel, its
sinews fashioned into bow strings, il:
antlers putting handles on cutlery ant
the shavings of its horns used as re
storative, its name taken from the har
and called hartshorn. BY putting aside
its usefulness this enchanting crea
ture seems made out of gracefulnes,
and elasticity. What an eye, with {
liquid brightness as if gathered up from
a hundred lakes at sunset! The horni
a coronal branching into every possibl,
curve, and, after it seems done, ascend
ing into other projections of exquisite
ness, tree of polished bone, upliftet
in pride or swung down for awful com
bat! 1t is velocity embodied, timidit,
impersonated, the enchantment of tn
woods, eye lustrous in life and pathetic
in death, the splendid animal a complet
rhythm of muscle and bone and colo
and attitude and locomotion, whethe
couched in the grass among the shad
ows Of living bolt shot through tn
forest or turning at bay to attack tn
hounds or rearing for its last fall unde
the buckshot of the trapper.
1t is splendid appearance, that tn
painters pencil fails to sketch and onl
hunters dream on pillow of hemlocl
at the foot of st. Regis is able to picture
When 20 miles from any settlement, j
comes down at eventide to the lake
edge to drink among the hlyp0ds, an