The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-06-17

antlers. but in the swiftness of your
 flight
 When the hounds of temptation and persecution get upon your trail you are
 in almost exactly the same position as
 the belated Russian traveller who is
 caught in a snowstorm upon the wild, desolate moors. You have often read the
 stories of those tragedies. Now we can
 see the man bundled up in his furs in
 the sleigh quietly driving toward his
 home. The hour grows late; the stars
 begin to come out. Suddenly there comes
 echoing over those Russian moors a weird call. The man shudders. He turns his head
 sharply over his shoulder to listen. He
 wonders If there is a mistake Then
 comes that strange call again. He nut
 ters to himself evolves Wolvesi O, God.
 save mel The wolves!' He grips the lines
 and the whip and begins to beat his
 horses Into a mad run. Nearer and nearer comes the call Then shadowy forms are
 seen leaplng after him. The man turns and raises his rife and sends bullet between pair of gleaming eyes. For
 little while the pack halts to banquet off the quivering flesh of one of their own dead Then on and on comes the pack again, and again the rifle speaks. Then one horse is sacrificed, then an- other The race Is a run for life. If the
 
 of the house he himself must be offered up to the unappeasable hunger of the wolves. Is not that the way trials and | temptations come after you? Did they not | come as a pack of hunugry wolves? Did | they not come as wild dogs upon the | track of a deer? The Coyotes Call.
 1 You could have stood the poverty. You | could have stood the death of your child. | You could have stood the calumnies and | the interpretations of the world if | those misfortunes had assailed you sing | ly and alone, but your troubles tried to | overthrow you. They came upon you l as a pack of wild dogs on the track of
 deer Their voices sounded like the calls | of the coyotes. l remember well when 1 | first heard the coyotes call. It was | blood curdling to me, for 1 had never l heard the like of it before I was then l a novice at camping. We were away off | in the mountains on the outskirts of an | Indian reservation. I was alone in camp | at the tlme It is a strange sensation to | be alone out in the woods, to feel that | though you may put your hands to your | lips and utter the loudest of halloes, yet | the only answer which will come to you | is the echo of your own voice which the l cliffs throw back upon your ears. Well, I | was alcne in the woods. Suddenly the | whole river bed below me was filled with | the n ost awful sounds. There came float | ing up the widest weirdest. strangest of | choruses. At times the voices that l heard l in that chorus arose like the angushed | wailings of lost souls. At times they i sounded like the yelling of fiends or the gloatings of inqusitors in the dark ages | At times they seemed to be the mock | ing and the derisive laughter of a lot of depraved children. They seemed to be
 not one voice, but millions of voices. | found out after while that those voices came from a pack of miserable coyotes | on the track of jack rabbit running for | his life That is the way the bayngs of the, hounds must sound upon the startled ear of the fleeing stag That is | the way the voices of the hounds of 1 temptation and persecution sounded to | us when satan first let loose his hellish | pack upon our trail
 Swift as the Wind.
 But" you say, the deer should not be afraid of the baying of the dogs If he
 can only hear it in time. Why" you say, l "just go out to any of our geological gar
 dens and study the hoof of the deer Never
 was there hoof or a leg like it. Truly l the speed of the deer is as swift as the
 wind. The dogs speed is as nothing com
 pared to it'' That is true. my friend, in | one sense, but false in another sense
 deer Is like racing horse which has been
 trained to run a quarter of a mile. For | that distance he can travel as fast as
 an express train, but try to run him two
 or three miles and his wind will leave him, and he will be helpless. Now, the | deer is swifter than the hound in the | short run, but the hound has the greater
 staying powers In the long race he will
 outrun the deer. Unless the deer's tracks
 are destroyed the pursuing dogs will cer-
 tainly overtake their prey and pull down r. ;,,ta
 what does the deer do to obliterate those | tracks? He runs as the fugitive, slave
 used to run when startled by the hounds | paying upon his tracks-he runs until the 1 bulging eyes almost burst from their
 sockets. He runs until the hemorrhage almost gushes from his gaping mouth. He
 runs until he reaches the water brooks where Is his only hope of safety.
 When the deer comes to the brook or | the creek he leaps into the center of 1t
 and runs up or down stream: then. com | ing to the edge of the river, he runs along | little farther then he makes a great | leap off into the woods and is gone. The 1 dogs soon reach the edge of that river or | creek, but they yelp in vain. They hunt | this way and that but the scent has van | ished Oh, my friends, have you and I | tried to make the enemies of our souls helpless by seeking the divine water
 brook? We cannot long fight those temp | tations and prosecutions. You and |
 know that they are coming nearer and
 nearer to destroy us each day. Will we | flee to Gods water brooks? Will we wade
 down into Gods great river of mercy and
 be protected by His love?
 But as l see the strong, powerful deer
 heading toward the water brook, I also
 see the poor wounded hind limping there.
 No one but a hunter with a heart of stone could find enjoyment in this almost
 helpless animals slaughter Perhaps the bullet has cut deep hole In the side, | out of which the blood Is flowing. Her l tongue Is hanging from her mouth; her | strength Is almost gone But off in the | distance she sees the water. She limps
 on to the bank; she wades down; she dips
 her parched lips into the cool stream; l then she plunges in and swirns out. Aha! | She is saved; she is saved. Yes. she Is
 saved Just as the poor, wounded. bleeding human soul can be saved by Gods love
 if that soul will plunge just once in the
 water brooks of divine mercy and love-
 The Wounded Deer.
 What" you say, "can the poor wound l ed deer be saved by the water brooks as | we'll as the strong deer?' Yes, my friend. He can be saved if he can only get to
 the water brooks. And the same skepti- | cism which you have about the wounded
 deer escaping the dogs some people have | about the poor wounded human deer es- | caping the hounds of sin. We. as gospel | teachers, must proclaim the truth that | Gods water brooks are not only for those | who are socially respectable, but also