The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-11-03
THE FINGER or GOD.
DIR. TALMAGE TELLS ALL ABOUT
1T.
NO One Carr See the Dlgltal Member
OF the Almighty but the One
Who Follows Its Directions.
Nations Would Do Well to
Follow Its Directions.

BROOKLYN, Special. -Talmage's SER
mon today was on the text Exodus
viii: 10, "The Finger OF God"
Pharaoh WAS sulking in his marble
throneroom at Memphis. Plague aft
,er plague had come, and sometimes
the Egyptian monarch was disposed
to do better, but at the lifting OF each
plague he was as bad as before. The
necromancers of the palace, however,
were compelled to recognize the divine
movement, and after one of the most
exasperating plaques OF the series, they
cried out the words OF my text: '"This
is the finger of God, mot the first
time nor the last time when bad PEG.
pie said a good thing. An old Phila-
delphia friend visiting me the other
day, asked me if had ever noticed
this passage of Scripture from which 1
today speak. I told him no, and I
said right away, '4That is a good text
for sermon" .-.
We all recognize the hand of God
and know it is a mighty hand. You
have seen a man keep two or three
rubber balls flying in the air, catching
and pitching them so that none of
them fell to the floor, and do this for
several minutes, and you have ad-
mired his dexterity. But have you
thought how the hand OF God keeps
millions and millions of round worlds
vastly larger than our world flying
for centuries without letting one fall?
Wondrous power and skill of Gods
hand! But about that l am not to
discourse. My text leads me to speak
Of less than a fifth OF the divine hand.
''This is the finger Of God" Only in
two other places does the Bible refer
to this division OF
THE OMNIPOTENT HAND.
The rocks on Mt. Sinai are basalt and
very hard stone. Do you imagine it
was q chisel that cut the ten COM
mandments in that basalt? No,
III Exodus we read that the tables Of
stone were written with the finger of
God"
To most OF US gesticulation is
natural. If a stranger accost you on
the street and ask you the way to
some place, it is as natural as to
breathe for you to level your fore
finger this way or that, Not one out
OF g. thousand ofyou would stand with
your hands by your side and make
no motion with your finger. What
ever you may say with your lips is
emphasized and reinforced and trans
lated by your finger. Now, God, in
the dear old Book, says to US innum-
cradle things by the way of direction.
He plainly tells us the way to go.
But in every exigency of our life, if
we will only look, we will find
providential gesture and a providen-
pointing so that we may confidently
say. "This is the finger of God"
Let us take ourselves as we are this
moment, and then ask, (which way?"
Get all the direction you can from
careful and constant study of the
Bible, and then look up, and look out
4nd look around, and see if you can
find the finger OF God.
It is a remarkable thing that some
times no one else can see that finger
but yourself. A year before Abraham
Lincoln: signed the Proclamation OF
Emancipation, the White House was
thronged with committees and asso-
tions, ministers and laymen, advising
the president to make the Proclama-
ton. But he waited and waited, amid
scott and anathema, because he did
not himself see the finger ofGod. Aft.
er awhile and at just the right time he
saw the divine pointing and signed the
proclamation. The distinguished Con-
federates, Mason and Slidell, were
taken off an English vessel by the
United States government. "Don't
give them up" shouted all the North
4 ern states. "Let us have war with
England rather than surrender them"
WAS the almost unanimous cry of the
North. But William II. Seward saw
the finger of God leading in just the
opposite direction, and the Confeder
ates were given up, and we
AVOIDED WAR WITH ENGLAND, @.s -
which at that time would have been
the demoliti Oh of the United States
government. In other words, the fin
ger OF God as it directs you, may be
invisible to everybody else. Follow
divine pointing, as you see it, although
the world may call you fool. There
has never been q man or woman who
amounted to anything that has not
sometimes been called fool. Nearly
all the mistakes that you and I have
made have come from our following
tho pointing of some other finger, in
stead Of the finger of God. 5.r.,>i F.
There are men of vast wealth who
are rs rich for heaven as they are for
this world, but they are exceptions.
If a man grows in grace, it is generally
before he gets 100000 or after he
loses it. If q man have plenty OF rail-
road securities and has applied to his
banker for more; if the lots he bought
have gone up SO per cent in value; if
he had hard work to get the door of
his fireproof safe shut because of a
new roll of securities he put in there
just before locking up at night; if he be
specializing in a falling market or a
rising market and things take for him
q right turn, he does not grow ingrace
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