St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-11-18


cure. Or you charge on the careless
ness Of the railroad company through
which the railroad accident occurred.
Or you are a chronic invalid, and you
fret and worry and scold and wonder
why you cannot be well like other peo-
pie, and you angrily charge on the neu-
ralsia or the laryEgitis or the ague or
the sick headache. The fact is you are
a deer at bay. Instead of running to the
waters of Divine consolation and slak
ing 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.
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 a battered head, show
ing where the antlers struck him. And
the probability is that some of you
might give mighty clip to your pur-
suers. You might damage their bust
ness. you might worry them into i'll
health, you might hurt them as mucl,
rs they hurt YOU; but. after all, it is not
worth while. You only have hurt a
hound. Better he off for the Upper
Saranac, into which the mountains of
Gods eternal strength look down and
their cbnAorgc Ac fn~ yhv-S-
ical disorders, the worst strychnine you
can take is fretfulness, and the best
medicine is religion. know people
who were only a little disordered, yet
have fretted themselves into complete
valetudinarianism, while others put
their trust in God and came up from the
very shadow of death and have lived
comfortably 25 years with only one
lung. A man with one lung, but God
with him. is better off than n goddess
man with two lungs. Some of you have
been for a long time sailing around
Cape Fear when YOU ought to have been
sailing around Cape Coed Hope. Do
not turn back, but 60 ahead. The deer
will accomplish more with its swift feet
than with its horns.
There are whole chains Of lakes in the
and from one height you
can see 80 lakes, aud 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
called q carry" And the realm of
Gods word is one long chain of bright,
lakes. each promise a lake,
a very short carry between them, and,
though for ages the pursued have been
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 diff
ferent places he speaks of them as
continuous river, saying: There is
river the streams whereof shall make
glad the city of God; "Thou shalt make
them drink Of the rivers of Thy pleas
ures;" "Thom greatly enrichest it with
the river of God, which is full of wa
ter"
But many of you have turned your
back on that supply and confront your
trouble, and you are soured with your
and you are fighting
society, and you are fighting a pursu-
ing world, and troubles. instead of
driving you into the cool lake of heav-
emily comfort. have made you stop and
turn round and lower your head, and
it is simply antler against tooth. 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 Feb
ruary and Dfarch-it sheds its horns.
The Rabbinical writers allude to this
of antlers by the stag when
they say of man who ventures his
money in risky enterprises he has hung
the far cast tells man who has foolish
ly lost his fortune to go and find where
the deer shed his horns. My brother,
quit the antagonism of your circum-
stances, quit misanthropy. quit com.
plant, quit pitching into your pursuers.
But very many of you who are
wronged of the world-and if in any as
sembly between the Atlantic and Pa
cific oceans it were asked that all who
had been badly treated should raise
both their hands. and full response
should be made. there would be twice
as many hands lifted as persons present
4 say many of you would declare:
1--WE have always done the best we
could and tried to be useful, and why
we become the victims of malignment
Or invalidism or mishap is inscrutable."
Why, do you know that the finer deer
and the more elegant its proportions
and the more beautiful its bearing the
more anxious the hunters and the
hounds are to capture il? Had the roe
buck n ragged fur and broken hoofs
and an obliterated eye and limping
gait the hunters would have said:
'Pshaw. Don't let us waste our am
nunition on a sick deer" And the
hounds would have given a few shifts
II the track and then darted off in an
,ther direction for better game. But
when they see a deer with antlers lifted
n mighty challenge to earth and sky,
Ind the sleek hide looks as if it had been
by invisible hands, and the
at sides inclose the richest pasture
hat could be n;bbled from the bank |
If rills so clear they seem to have
lropped out of Heaven. and the stamp |
Il its foot defies the jack shooting Ian
ern and the rife. the horn and the |
lound, that deer they will have if they |
must needs break their necks in the
apids. So if there were no noble stuff |
n your make up, If you were bifur-
,ated nothing. if you were forlorn fail
ire, you would be allowed to 60 undis- |
urbed, but the fact that the whole pack |
5 in full cry after you is proof positive
hat you are splendid game and worth
apturing.
Therefore sarcasm draws on you its
finest bead;" therefore the world goes
running for you with its best winches-
~ hreechlnadar HIGHEST commitment /