Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-10-05

Standing in the presence of this fallen
| giant of my text and in this post-mor-
tenn examination of him, let MS learn how
much better off We are with inst the
usual hand, the usual foot. You have
thanked God for thousand things, but
| l warrant YOU never thanked Him for
those two implements of work and loco
motion, that no one but the Infinite and
Omnipetent God could have ever planned
| or made, the hand and the foot. Only
| that soldier or that mechanic who III a
battle or through machinery has lost
them knows anything about their value.
and only the Christian scientist can have
any appreciation of what divine master
pieces they are. Sir Charles Bell. the
English surgeon, on the battle field of
Waterloo, while engaged in ampntations
of the wounded was so impressed with
the wonderous construction of the hui
man hand that when the Earl Of Bridge
water gave $4O,O0O for essays on the
books were written, Sir Charles Bell
wrote his entire book on the wisdom and
goodness of God as displayed in the hui
man hand. The twenty-seven bones in
hand and wrist with the cartilages and
ligaments and phalanges of the fingers
all made just ready to knit. to sew. to
build up, to pull down, to weave. to
write. to pillow, to pound, to wheel. to
battle, to give friendly salutation.
The tips of its fingers are so
many telegraph Offices by reason
of thei: sensitiveness Of touch. The
bridges, the tunnels, the cities of the
The hands are not dumb, but often speak
as distinctly as the lips. With our hands
We invite, we repel, We invoke, we en-
treat, wiring them in grief or clap them
in Joy, or spread them abroad in bene-
diction. The malformation of the
giants hand in the text glorifes the
usual hand. Fashioned Of God more
exquisitely and wondrously than any hui
man mechanism that was ever contrived,
l charge You use it for God and the lift
ing of the world out of it's moral pre-
dicament. Employ it in the sublime
work of gospel Handwriting. You can
fingers just set right to touch your
neighbours hand on one side and your
thumb set so as to clench it on the other
side. BY all its bones, and joints, and
muscles, and cartilages, and ligaments,
the voice of nature joins with the voice
of God commanding you to shake hands.
The custom is as old as the Bible, any
how. Jehu said to Jehonabad; is thine
heart right as my heart is with thine
heart? If it be, give me thine hand
When hands join in Christian salutation>
a gospel electricity thrills across the
palm from heart to heart, and from the
shoulder of one to the shoulder OF the
other. Shake hands all around. With
the timid and for their encouragement.
shake hands. With the troubled and in
warm hearted sympathy, shake hands.
With the young man just entering bust
ness and discouraged at the small sales
ana the large expenses, shake hands.
With the child who is new from God and
started on amending journey, for which
he needs to gather great supply of
strength, and who can hardly reach up
to you now because you are SO much
taller, shake hands. Across cradles and
dying beds and graves, shake hands.
to defame and hurt you, but whom you
can afford to forgive, shake hands. At
the door of churches where people come
in, and at the door of churches where
people go out, shake hands. Let pulpit
shake hands with pew, and Sabbath day
shake hands with week day, and earth
shake hands with Heaven. Oh the
strange, the mighty. the underlined. the
mysterious, the eternal power of an
honest handshaking. The difference
between these times aud the millennial
tiulce ID tuht HOW SOME suake nHuuS, DuC
then all will shake hands, throne and
footstool, across seas nation it'll nation.
God and man, church militant and
church triumphant.
Yea! the malformation of this fallen
giants foot glorities the ordinary foot,
for which fear you have never once
thanked God. The twenty-six bones of
the foot are the admiration Of the anat-
omist. The arch of the foot, fashioned
with grace and poise that Trajan's
arch at Beneventum or Constantine's.
arch at Rome or Arch of Triumph at the
end of Champs Elysees could not equal.
t7ose arches stand where they were
planted, but this arch of the foot is an
adjustable arch, yielding arch, a flying
arch, and ready formovements innumer-
able. The human foot is so fashioned
as to stand upright as no other creature.
have to help in balancing the body free
for anything it chooses. The foot of
the camel fashioned for the sand. the
foot of the bird fashioned for the tree
branch, the foot of the hind fashioned
for the slippery rock. the foot of the
lion fashioned to rend its prey. the foot
of the horse fashioned for the solid
earth, but the foot of man made to
cross the desert, or climb the tree,
OF scale the cliff. or walk the earth. or
go anywhere he needs to go. With
that divine triumph of anatomy in your
possession, where do you walk? In what
path of righteousness or what path Of
sin have you set it down? Where have
you left the mark Of your footsteps?
Amid the petrifactions in the rocks have
been found the mark of the feet of
birds and beasts of thousands of wears
ago. And God can trace out all the
footsteps of your lifetime, those you
made fifty Years ago are as plain as those
made in the last soft weather. all them
petrified for the Judgment day. Oh, the
foot! How divincly honored not only
in its construction but in the fact that
God represents Himself in the Bible as
having feet: "The clouds on the dust
Of His feet" Darkness was under His
feet; The earth is my footstool." And
representing cyclones and auroclydons
and ~hirlwinds and hurricanes as winged
creatures. He describes Himself ms mt.
ting His foot on these monsters Of the
air and walking from pinion to pinion,