Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1895 — TALMAGE'S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE'S SERMON.

HE DISCUSSES THE SUBJECT OF TURF GAMBLING. The Christian and Common-Sense View of Trials of Ppeteil by the Ilorse —'Sin Kevins with Beitin-—The Way to Drive a Horse. Eace Lonrsc hvils. In his sermon for last Sunday, Rev. Dr. Talmago discussed a topic which for months past has been a familiar one in the daily press—viz., “The* Dissipations of the Race OoHrso.”"” Ilis text was Job xxxix., IS), 21, 25: “Hast thou given the horse strength V Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder V- He piiwetk in 4 * the Valley and rcjoiceth; he goctK on to meet the armed men. He saith among the trumpets, ha. ha! and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.” W e hay. recently had long columns of intelligence from the race course and multitudes Hocked to the watering places to witness equine "competition, and there is lively discussion in all households about the right and wrong of such exhibitions of mettle and speed, and when there is a heresy abroad that the cultivation of a horse’s fleetness is an iniquity instead of a commendable virtue—at such a time a sermon is demanded of every minister who would like to defend public morals on the one hand and who is not willing to see an unrighteous abridgment of innocent amusement on the other. In this discussion I shall follow no sermonic precedent, but will give independently what I consider the Christian and common sense view of this potent, ail absorbing and agitating question of the turf.

A Noble Beast. There needs to be a redistribution of coronets among-the brute creation.- Forages the lion has been called the king of beasts. 1 knock off its coronet and put —tho.-jsro.wn. upon the lmrsp, j n oyerv wav' nobler, whether in shape or spirit or sagacity" or intelligence or affection or usefulness. lie is semihumau, and knows how to reason on a small scale. The centaur of olden times, part horse and parr man, seems to be a suggestion of the fact that the horse is something more than a beast. Job in iffy text sets forth his strength, his beauty, his majesty, the panting of his nostril, the nawing of his noof and his enthusiasm for the battle. .What. Rosa Bonheur did for the cattle and what Landseer did for the dog, Job with mightier pencil docs for the horse. Eighty-eight times does the Bible speak of him. He comes into every kingly proves-' siou and into every great occasion and into every triumph. ,lt is very evident that Job and David and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and John were fond of the horse, He much of their imagery. A red horse—that meant war. A black horse—that meant famine. A pale horse—that meant death. A white horse —that meant victory. Good Mordecai mounts him while Hamnn holdsjthe bit, The church’s advance in the Bible is compared to a company of horses of Pharaoh’s chariot. Jeremiah cries out, “How eanst thou contend withjiorses?” Isaiah says, “The horse’s hoofs shall he counted ns flint.” Miriam daps her cymbals ancj sings, “The horse and the rider hath he thrown into the sea.” St. John, describing Christ as coming forth from conquest to conquest, represents him as seated on a white horse. In the parade of heaven the Bible makes us hear the clicking of hoofs on the golden pavement as it says, “The armies which were in heaven followed him on white horses.” 1. should not wonder if the horse, so banged and bruised and beaten and outraged on earth, should have some other place where his wrongs shall be righted, I‘ do not assert it, but I say I should not he surprised if, after all, St. John’s descriptions of the horses in heaven turned out not altogether to be figurative, hut somewhat literal. ‘ # ,

Honored of Go<l, As the Bible makes n favorite of the horse, the patriarch, and the prophet, and the evangelist, and the apostle stroking his sleek hide and patting his rounded neck and tenderly lifting his exquisitely formed hoof and listening with a thrill to the champ of his bit, so all great natures in all ages have spoken of him in encomiastic terms. Virgil in his Georgies nlmost seems to plagiarize from this description in the text, so much are the descriptions nlike—the description of-,.Virgil and the description of Job. The Duke of Wellington would not allow any one irreverently to touch his ©ld war horse Copenhagen, on whom he had ridden fifteen hours without dismounting at Waterloo, and when old Copenhagen died, his master ordered a military salute fired over his grave. John Howard showed that he did not exhaust all his sympathies in pitying the human race, for when sick lie writes home, “Has my old chaise horse become sick or spoiled?” There is hardly any passage of French literature more pathetic than the lamentation over the death of the war charger, Marpliegay. Walter Scott has so much admiration for this divinely honored creature of God that in “St. Itonan’s Well” he orders the girth slackened and the blanket thrown over the smoking park at Bcnconsfield, musing over the past, throws his arms around the wornout horse of his dead son Richard, nnd Sweeps upon the horse’s neck, the horse seeming to sympathize in the memories. Rowland Hill, the great English preacher, was caricatured because in his family prayers he supplicated for the recertify of a sick horse, but when the horse got well, contrary to all the prophecies of the farriers, the prayer did not seem quite so much of an absurdity. The Abuse of the Horse, But what shall I say of the inaltreatmeut of this beautiful and wonderful creature of God? If Thomas Chalmers in his ■ day felt called upon to preach-a sermon against cruelty to animals, how much more in this day is there a need of reprehenaive discourse. All honor to the memory of Prof. Bfcrgh, the chief apostle for the brute creation, for the mercy be demanded and achieved for this king of beasts. A man who owned 4,000 horses, and some say 40,000, wrote in the Bible. “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast” Sir Henry Lawrence's care of the horse was beautifully Christian, tie says: “I expect we shall lose Conrad, though I have taken so much care of him that he may come in cool. I always walk him the last fonr or five miles, and as I walk myself the first hour, it is only in the middle of the journey we get over the ground.” The Ettrick Shepherd in his matchless “Ambrosiul Nights" speaks of the maltreatment of the horse its n practical blasphemy. Ido not believe in the transmigration of sonls, but I very severely denounce the idea, for wbeh I see men who cut and bruise and whack and welt •.■.- ' . 7.

and strike and maul and outrage and intuit the horse, that beautiful servant of the human race, who carries our burden# and pulls our plows and turns our thresh- ; ers and oar mills and runs for our doctors —when I see men thus beating and abusing and outraging that creature, it seems ta me that it wotfld heiDniy fair that the doet-rine of transmigration of souls should prove true, and that for their punishment they should pass over into some poor miserable brute and be beaten and wliack ed and cruelly treated and frozen and heated ami overdriven—into ail everlasting stage horse.au ctexnal travcler on a towpath, or tied to an eternal"post, in an eternal winter, smitten with eternal epizootics. Oh, is it not a shame that the brute creation, which had tlie first possession of our world, should be so maltreated by the race that came in last —the fowl and the fish created on the fifth day, the horse and the cattle created on the morning of the sixth day, and the human race not created until the evening of the sixth day? it Ought to be that if any man overdrives a horse, or feeds him when he is. hot, or reck, lessly drives a nail into the quick of his hoof, oi‘ rowels hinuto see.him prance, oi* so shoes him that his fetlocks drop blood, or puts a collar on ri raw neck, or unnecessarily clutches his tongue with a twisted bit, or cuts off his hair until lie has no de-' sense against the cold,-Or unmercifully abbreviates the natural defense against in sectile annoyance—that such a man as that himself ought to be made to pull and let bis horse ride! ———•— —~r~ —^

A Question of Speed. But not only does our humanity and our Christian principle and the dictates of God demand that we kindly treat the brute creation and especially the horse, but I go farther and say-tliat whatever can bu dene for the development of his fleetness and his strength and his majesty ought to be done. We need to study his anatomy and his adaptations. I am glad that large books have been written to show how he can be best managed and liow his ailments can be cured and what his usefulness is and what his capacities are. It would in* a shame if in this age of the world, when the florist- has turned -thethin flower ..of the wood into a gorgeous rose and the pomologist has changed the acrid - and gnarled fruit of the ancients intotlie very poetry of pear and peach and plum and grape and apple and the snarling Cur Of the orient has become the great mastiff, and the miserable creature of the olden times barnyard has become the Devon shrre, and the Alderney, and the Short-’ horn, thetthe horse,- grander than them all, should get no advantage from our seienee or our civilization or our Christianity. Groomed to the last point of soft brilliance, his flowing mane a billow of beauty, his arched neck in utmost rhythm of curve, let him be harnessed in graceful trappings and then driven to the farthest goal of excellence and then fed at luxuri ant oat bins and blanketed.in comfortable stall. The long tried and faithful servant of the human race deserves all kindness, all care, all reward, all succulent forage and soft litter and paradisaical pasture field. Those farms In Kentucky and in different parts of the North, where the horse is trained to perfection in fleetness and in beauty and in majesty, are well set apart. There is no more virtue in driving slow than in driving fust, any more than a freight train going ten miles the.hour is better than an express train going fifty. There is a delusion abroad in the worhl that a thing must be necessarily fgood and Christian if it is slow and dull aiyl ploddingi There are very few ‘good people wno seem to imagine it is humbly pious to drive a spavined, .galled. slandered, spring halted. Wind staggered jade. There is not so much Wf/nc in a Rosißuntn/is in a Bucephalus. We want swifter horses and swifter men and swifter enterprises, and tlie chureh of God needs to get off its jog tr.ot. Quick tempests, quick lightnings, quick streams; why not quick horses? In the time of war the cavalVy service does the most execution, and as the battles of the world are probably not all past, our Christian patriotism demands that we be interested in equinal velocity. We might as well Lave poorer guns in our arsenals and clumsier ships in our navy yards than other nations, as to have under our cavalry saddles and before our parks of artillery slower horses. From the battle of Granicus, where the Persian horses drove the Macedonian infantry into the river, clear down to the horses on which Philip Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson rode into the fray, this arm of the military service has been recognized. Ilamilcar, Hannibal, Gustavus Adolphus, Marshal Ney, were cavalrymen. In this arm of the service Charles Martel at the bffttlc of Poitiers bent back the Arab invasion. Tha cavalry, with the loss of only 700 men, overthrew the Roman army with the loss of 70,000. In the same way the Spanish chivalry drove back the Moorish hordes. The best way to keep peace in this country and in all countries is to be prepared for war, and there is no success in such a contest unless there be plenty of light footed chargers. Our Christian patriotism and our instruction from the Word of God demand that first of all we kindly treat the horse, and then after that, that we develop his fleetness, and his grandeur, and his majesty, and his strength. An Atrocipus Evil. But what shall I say of the effort hewing made in this day on a largo scale to divinely honored being, an instrument of atrocious evil? I make no indiscriminate assault against the turf. I believe in the turf if it can be conducted* on right principles and with no betting. There is no more harm in offering a prize for the swiftest racer than there is harm nt an agricultural fair in offering a prize to the framer who has the best wheat, or to the fruit grower who has the largest pear, or to the machinist who presents the best corn thrasher, or in a school offering a prize of a copy of Shakspeare to the best reader, or in a household giving a lump of sugar to the behaved youngster. Prizes by all means, rewards by alt means. That is the way God develops the race. Rewards for ail kinds of well doing. Heaven itself is called a prize. “The prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” So what is right in one direction is right iu another direction. And without the prizes the horse’s fleetuess and beauty and strength will never be fully developed. If it cost SI,OOO or $5,000 or SIO,OOO, and the result bo achieved, it is cheap. But the sin begins ! where the bettiug begins, for that is gambling, or tho effort to get that for which you give no equivalent, and gambling, whether on a large scale or a small scale, ought to be denounced of men as it will be accursed of God. If you hnve won 50 cents or $5,000 as a wager, yon had better get rid of it. Get rid of it right away. Give it to some one who lost in a bet, or give it to some great reformatory institution, or if you do not like that, go down to the river and pitch it off the docka. You cannot afford to keep it. It will burn a hole iu your purse, it will burn a hole la

jbnr estate, and yon will lose all that, p* o haps 10,000 times more—perhaps yon will lose all, Gambling blasts a man or it ! blasts his chfldreff. Generally both and all. What a spectacle when at Saratoga, or at Long Branch, or at Brighton Beach, or at Sheepshead Bay. the horses start, and in a fiash $50,000 or SIOO,OOO change hands! Multitudes ruined by losing the bet, others worseriii ned by gaining the bet, for if a man lose in a bet at a horse race he may be discouraged and quit, but if ho win the bet he is very apt to go straight on to hell! - An intimate friend, a journalist, who in the line of his profession investigated this evil, tells me that there are three different kinds of betting at horse races, and Theyare about cqually TyprOiifr, by •‘auction pools,” by “French mutuals,” by what is called “bookmaking”—all gambling, all bad, all rotten with iniquity. There is one word that needs to be writ--ie-a ou.fUe brow, of every poolseller as lie -site;deducting hia]3. ofr jfr-per cent, and slyly “ringing up” more tickets than were sold on the winning horse—a word to be written also on the brow of every bookkeeper who at extra inducement scratches a horse off of tho race and on the brow 1 of every jockey who slackens pace that,, oeeordng to agreement, another may win, and written over every judges’ stand and written on every board of the surrounding fences. That word is “swindle!” Yet thousands bet. Lawyers bet. Judges of courts bet. Members of the Legislature befe Members of--Congress bet, Professons of religion bet. Teachers and superintendents of Sunday schools, I am told, bet. Ladies bet. not directly, but through agents. Yesterday, and every (lay they bet, they gain, they lose, and this summer, while the parasols swing and the hands' clap and the huzzas deafen, there will De a multitude of people cajoled anil deceived and cheated, who will at the races go nt-c-k and neck, neck and neck to perdition. Cultivate the horse, by all means, drive him as fast as you-desire, provided you do -not—injure him or endanger yourself or others, but be careful and do not harness the horse to the chariot of sin. Do not .throw vour jewels of morality lindor the flying hoof. Do not under tire-pretext of improving the herrse destroy the man. Do not have your name put down iu the everincreasing catalogue of ’those who are ruined for both worlds by the dissipation of the American rac-e course, i Tliey say that an honest race course is a “straight” track, and that a dishonest race course is a “crooked” trackw-thatis the parlance abrcad-=but-JL- tell you that every race track surrounded by betting men and betting women and betting customs, is a straight track—l mean straight down! Christ asked in one of his gospels, “Is not a man better than a sheep?” I say.yes, and he is better titan al! the steeds that "frith lathered flanks ever shot aroqitd the ring at a race course. That is a very poor job by which a man in order to get a horse To come ouf a full leiigth~ffliead of Sotrffr other racer so lames his own morals that ho comes out a whole length behind In .the race set before him.

Eqnine HenestyT Do you not realize the fact that there is a mighty effort off all sides to-day to get money without earning it? That is the curse of all the cities; it is the curse of America—the effort to get iffoney without earning it—and as other forms of stealing are not respectable, they go into these gambling practices. I preach this sermon on square old fashioned honesty. I have said nothing against the horse, I have said nothing against the turf, I have said ev - erything against their prostitution. Young men, you go into straightforward indnstries and you will have better livelihood, , nod .you will have larger permanent success than you can ever get by a wager, butyou get in with some of the whisky, rum blotched crew- that I see going down on the boulevards; thongh I-never bet, I will risk this wager, $5,000,000 to nothing, you will be debauched and damned. Cultivate the horse, own him if you can afford to own him, test all the speed ho has, if he have any speed in him, but bo careful which way you drive. You cannot always tell wliat direction a njan is driving in by the way his horses head. In my boyhood, we rode three miles every Sabbath morning to the country church. We were draw n by two fine horses. My father drove. He knew- them; and they knew him. They were friends. Sometnnes they loved to go rapidly, and he did not interfere with their happiness. He lmd all of us in the wagon with him. He drove 1o the country church. The fact is, that for eighty-two he drove in the same direction. The roan spaff that I speak of was long ago unhitched, and the driver put up his whip in the wagon house never again to take it down, but in those good old times I learned something that I never forgot, that a man may admire a horse and love a horse and be proud of a horse and not always be walling to take the dust of the preceding vehicle, and yet be a Christian, an earnest Christian, a humble Christian, a consecrated Christian, useful until the last, so that at his death the church of God cries out as Elisha exclaimed when Elijah went up with gal-/ loping horses of fire, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!”