Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1895 — A LION SLAYER. [ARTICLE]

A LION SLAYER.

Benaiah’s Great Courage on a Snowy Day. ~ I Lessons Drawn From the Eneon nte r—- \ Three Typical Troubles—Dr. Tati luagt’g Sermon. 5 _ ; r * Rev. Dr. Talmage preached At the New York Academy s os Music last Sunday. Subject: “A Snowy Day.” Text—l Chronicles xi, 22. “Ho went down and slew a lion in a pit in a snowy day.” . Have you ever heard of him.?- II is name was Benaiah. He was a man of stout muscle and of great avoirdupois. His father was a hero, and he inherited prowess. He was athletic, and there was iron in his blood, and the strongest bone in his body was back bone.—He is known for other wonders besides that of the text. An Egyptian five cubits in Stature, or about seven feet nine inches high, was moving around in braggadocio and flourishing a great spear, careless as to whom he killed, and Benaiah of my text, with nothing but a walking stick, came upon him, snatched the spear from the Egyptian, and With one thrust of its sharp edge put an end to the blatant bully. But Benaiah of the text is about to do something that will eclipse even that. There is trouble in all the neighborhood. Lambs are carried off in the night, and children, venturing only a little way from their father’s house are found mangled and dead. The fact is, the land was infested with lions, and few people dared meet one of these grizzly beasts, much less corner or attack it. Benaiah is all alert and comes cautiously on toward the hiding place of this- terror of the fields. Coining to the verge of the pit, be looks down at the lion, and the lion looks up at him. What a moment it was when their eyes clashed! Now you see how emphatic and tragic and tremendous are the words of the text, “He went down and slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day.” Why put that in the Bible? Why put it twicb in the Bible —once in the book of Samuel and here in the book of Chronicles? Oh, the practical lessons are so many for you and for me! What a cheer on this subject for all those of you who are in conjunction of hostile circumstances. Three things were against Benaiah of my text in the moment oNcombat, the snow that impeded his movemovement, the pit that environed him in a small space and the lion, with ‘open jaws and uplifted paw. And yet I hear the shout of Benaiah’s victory. O men and women pf three troubles! You say, “I could stand one, and I think I could stand two, but three are at least one too many.” _ There is .a man. .in business, perplexity and who has sickness in his family and old age is coming on. Three troubles—a lion, a pit and a snowy day. There is a good woman with failing health and a dissipated husband and a wayward boy —three troubles! There is a young man, salary cut down, bad cough, frowning future—three troubles! There is a maiden with difficult school lessons she cannot get, a face that is not as attractive as some of her school mates, a prospect that through hard times she must (juit school before she graduates —three troubles!

So to all dowm town business men and to all up town business men I say if you have goods on hand vou cannot sell and debtors who will not or cannot pay, and you are also suffering from uncertainty as to what the imbecile American Congress will do about the tariff, you have three troubles and enough to bring you within range of the consolation of my text, where you find the triumph of Benaiah over a lion, a pit and a snowy day. If you have only .one trouble I cannot spend any time with you today. You must have at least three and then remember how many have triumphed over such a trial of misfortunes. Paul had three troubles —Sanhedrin denouncing him — that was one great trouble; physical infirmity, which he called “a thorn in the flesh,” and although we khow not what the thorn was we do know from the figure he used that it must have been something that stuck him —that was the second trouble; approaching martyrdom;that was three troubles. Yet hear what he says: “If I had only ope misfortune. I could stand that, but three are two too many!” No, I misinterpret. He says: “Sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, yet possessing all things.” “Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” -

Notice in my text a victory over bad weather. It was a snowy day, when. one s vitality is at low ebb,and the spirits are naturally depressed, and one does not feel like undertaking a great enterprise, when Benaiah rubs his hands together to warm them by extra friction, or JhrasheS his arms around him to revive circulation of the blood, and then goes at the lion which was all the more fierce and ravenous because of the sharp weather, Inspiration here admits atmospheric hindrance. The.snpwy day at Valley Forge wqJI nigh put an end to, the struggle for American' independence. The snowy day abolished Napoleon's army on the way from Moscow. . Notice-everything down in the pit that snowy day depended upon Benaiah’4 weapon... There was as much strength in one muscle of that lion as iq q.ll the muscles"©! both arms of Benaiah. It is the strongesU-of beasts and has been known to carry

-. >i. - v ■ • • • i off an ox. Its tongue is so «-rougfi that it acts as a rasp tearing off the flesh it licks—The two great can in eg at each side of the mouth make es--pape- impossiblefforlany th ing it has heel on the neck of this “king of beasts. Was it a dagger? Was i; a javelin? Was it a knife? I can not tell, but everything depended dh. it. But for that Benaiah’s body under one crunch of the monster would have been limp and tumbled in the snow, and when you and I go into the fight with temptation, if we have not the right kind of weapon, instead of our slaying the lion the lion will slay us. The sword of the Spirit! Nothing in earth or hell can stand before that. Victory with that or no victory at all. By that I mean prayer to God, confidence in his rescuing power, saving grace, almighty deliverance. Ido not care what ybtrcatttt. I call it “sword of the Spirit.” - ' . But most am I impressed by what I have quoted from the Apostle Peter when he calls the devil a lion. That means strength. That, means bloodthirstiness. That means cruelty. That means destruction. Some of you have felt the strength of his paw and, and the sharpness of jhis tooth," and the horror of his rage. Yes, he is a savage devil. He roared at evening good when Lord Claverhoiise assailed the Covenanters and dt Bartholomew against the Huguenots, one August night when the bell tolled for the butchery to begin, and the ghastly joke in the street was, “Blood letting is good in August," and 50,01)0 assassin knives were plunged into the victims, and this monster has had under his pay many of the grandest souls of all time, apd fattened with the spoils of centuries he comes for you. A word to all who are in a snowy day. Oh, fathers and mothers- who have lost children, that is the weather that cuts through body and soul. But drive back the lion of bereavement with the thought which David Dae, of Edinburgh, got from the Scotch grave digger, who was always planting white clover and the sweetest flowers on the children’s graves in the cemetery, and when -asked why he did so replied: “Surely, sir, I canna make ower fine the bed coverin’ o’ a tittle innocent sleeper that’s waitin’ there till it’s God’s time to waken it and cover it with the white robe and -waft it away to glory. When sic grandeur is waitin’ it yonder it's fit it should be decked oot here. 1 think the Saviour that counts its dust sae precious will like to see the white clover sheet spread ower .it. -Do ye no think so, Cheer up all disconsolates. The best work for God and humanity has been done on the snowy day. At gloomy “Marine Terrace,” island of Jersey, the exile Victor Hugo wrought the mightiest achievement of his pen. Ezekiel, banished and bereft and an in-

valid at Cornhiil,on the banks of the Chebar, had his momentous vision of tbp cherubim and the wheels within wheels. By the dim light of a dungeon window at Bedford John Bun;yan sketches the “Delectable Mountains.” Milton writes the greatest ’ poem of all time without eyes, Michael Angelo carved a statue out of snow and all Florence gazed 4n raptures at its exquisiteness, and many of God’s servantshaveoutof the cold cut their immortality. Persecutions were the dark background that made more impressive the courage and consecration of Savonaroal who, when threatened with denial,bf burial said, “Throw me into the Arno if you choose; the resurrection day will find me, and that is enough.” Well, we have had many snowy days within the past month, and added to the chill of the weather was the chilling dismay at thenbuarrival of the ocean steamer Gascogne. Overdue for eight days, many had given her up as lost and the most hopeful were very anxious. The cyclones whose play is shipwrecks, .had been reported being in wildest romp all up and down the Atlantic. The ocean a few days before had swallowed the. Elbe, and with unappeased appetite seemed saying, “Give us rnoreof the best shipping.” The Normandie came in on the same track the Gascogne was to travel, and it had not seen her. The Teutonic, saved by the airpost superhuman efforts of captain and crew, came in and heard no gun of distress from the missing steamer. There were pale faces and wringing hands on both continents, and tears rolled down cold cheeks on those snowy days. We all feared that the worst had happened and talked of the City Boston as never heard of after sailing,and the steamship President, on which the brilliant Cookman sailed, never reported and never to be heard of again until the time when the sea gives up its dead. But at last under most powerful glass at Fire Island, u ship was Seen limping this way over the waters. Then we all began to hope that It might be the missing French liner. Three hours of tedious and agonizing waiting and two continents in suspense! When will the eyeglasses at Fire Island make revelation of this awful mystery of the sea? There it is! fla. ha! The Gascogne! Quick! Wire the news to the city! Swing the flags out on the towers! Ring the bells! Sound the whistles of the shipping all the way up from Sandy Hook to New York battery! “She’s safe, she’s safe!” are the words caught up and passed on from street to street. “It is the Gascogne!” is the cry sounding through all our delighted homes and thrilling all the telegraphic wires of the continent and all tbo cables under the sea, and the huzza on the wharf as the gang planks were swung nut, for the dis-

embarkation was a small part of thi huzza that . lifted both hemisphere) into ex illation. The flakes of snow fell oh the “-extra” as we opened ii on the street to get the latest particulars. Well, it will be better than that when some of you are seen enterin2 the harbor of heaven. You have had a rough vovage—no mistake about that. Again and again the machinery of health and courage broke down, and the wages of' temptation have swept clear over the hurricane deck, so that you were often compelled tu say, “All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me,” and you were down in the trough of that sea and down-in the trough of-the other sea, and many despaired of your safe arrival. But thegreat pilot, not onq who must come oil from some other craft, but the one who walked storm-swept Galilee and now walks the wintry Atlantic, conies on board- and heads you for the haven, when no sooner have you passed the narrows of death than you find all the banks lined with immortals celebrating your arrival, and while some break {off palm branches from the banks and wave them those standing on one side will chant, “There shall be no more sea,” and those standing on the other side will chant, “Theseare they which came out of great tribulation and had their robes washed and made white In the blood of the Lamb.” Off ol the stormy sea into the smooth harbor. Out of leonine struggle ii the pit to guidance by the Lamb, who shall lead you to living fountains of water. Out of the snowy day of early severities into the gardens of everlasting flora and into orchards of eternal fruitage, the fall of their white blossoms the only snow in heaven. A novelty among the French artificial flowers this season is the potato blossomy:which, though sounding odd, is very pretty. and will probably rival in the popular fancy the place of the stock gilly of last year. Caprice and fancy seem to' have run riot among some of the new spring suitings in all-wool and silk and wool weaves. These are fine imitations of rough surface goods, not unlike the bld style bison cloth. While the fabric looks extremely coarse the texture pf which it is made is uncommonly soft and fine. If you want to make a neat jotrof mending your glove fingers turn them inside out, and, putting the edges carefully together, overcast them with cotton thread, fine but firm. Silk thread cuts the kid. If the.....glove—shows-an—inclination to break in the palm or about the-fin-gers. and you have no old gloves to mend them with, take a bit of ribbon the color of the glove and put it over the break on the under side, and darn the, glove down to it. Some women mend their gloves by putting a piece of adhesive plaster under the hole.- It mends, but -it also stiffens the kid. The electric light which is to he erected on Fire Island, on the New York coast, will give an illumination of about 150,000,000 candle-power. It is expected to be visible 120 miles out to sea. It seems likely that one of the most important benefits to civilization of Stanley’s African expedition will be the introduction of African mahogany to western commerce. There is even now a flourishing trade in this wood, which is spiff more cheaply in the United States than it formerly was in Liverpool.