The Red Cloud chief., 1892-11-04
THE N G OF GOD.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the
Plaques of Egypt.
The Hand OF the Lord Is TO Re Seen In All
Great Catastrophies to the Ultimate
End of Working n Great
Good.

De Witt Talmage discoursed on the sub
ject Of plaques, taking his text from
Exodus viii. 10: THE finger of God"
He said:
Pharoah was sulking in his marble
throne room ut Memphis. Plague after
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 nccro-
mancers OF the palace, however, were
compelled to recognize the divine move-
ment, and after one Of the most cxas-
perating plaques Of all the series they
cried out in the words Of my text:
This is the finger of God"-not the
first nor the last time when bad people
said a good thing.
We all recognize the hand Of God and
know 1t is a mighty hand. You have
seen a nan 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 min
utes, and you have admired his dexter.
ity. 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 let
ting n fall? wondrous power and
skill Of Gods hand! But about that I
Am not to DISCOURSE. My text leads me
to speak of less than a fifth of the d.
vine 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 Mount Sinai are
basalt and very hard stone. Do you
imagine 1t was a chisel that cut the ten
commandments in that basalt? No, in
Exodus we read hat the tables OF stone
were written with the finger of God"
Christ says that lie cas- out devils with
''the finger of God" The only instance
that Christ wrote a word, He wrote not
with pen on parchment, but with His
finger on the ground.
To most Of us gesticulation Is natural.
II n stranger accost you on the street
and ask you the way TO some place IL is
as natural as to breathe for you to level
your forefinger this way or that Not
one of a thousand Of you would stand
with your hands by your side and make
no motion with your finger. Whatever
you may say with your lips Is empha-
sized and reinforced and translated by
your finger. Now, God, in the dear old
book, says to us innumerable things by
the way Of direction. He plainly tells
us the way to go. But In every ext
gency Of our life, IL we will only look,
we will find a providential gesture and
q providcntial pointing, so that we may
confidentially say: This is the finger
of God"
For much that concerns us we have
no responsibility and we need not make
| appeal to the Lord for direction. We
oare not responsible for most of our sur
roundings We are not responsible for
the country of u birth, nor for
whether we are Americans or Norweg-
ians or Scotchmen or Irishmen or En-.
glishmen. We are not responsible for
the age in which we live. We are not
responsible for our temperament, be II
nervous or phlegmatic, bilious or san
guinc. We are not responsible for our
features, be they homely or beautiful.
We are not responsible for the height
or smallness of our stature. We are not
responsible for the fact that we are
mentally dull or brilliant. Do not
blame us for being in n cold
as an iceberg, or nervous as a cat amid
a pack of Fourth of July fire-crackers.
If you are determined to blame some
body, blame our great grandfathers OF
great grandmothers, who died before
the revolutionary war, and who may
have had habits depressing and ruinous'
Let us take ourselves as we are at this
moment and then ask (which way?'
Get all the direction you a from care
full and constant study of the Bible and
then look up and look out and lool
around and see ifyou can find the finge'
of God.
1t is a remarkable thing that some
times no one can see that finger bu
yourself. A year before Abraham Lin
coin signed the proclamation OF eman'
cipation the White house was throngef
with committees and associations, min
listers and laymen, advising the presi
dent to make that proclamation. Blu
he waited and waited, amid scott ant
anathema, because he did not himsel
see the finger of God. After awhile
and Just at the right time he saw tn
divine pointing and signed the procla
nation. The distinguished confeder
ates, Mason and Slidell, were taken of
an English vessel by the United State
government. Don't give them mp,
shouted all the northern states lie
us have war with England rather thai
surrender them" was the almost unan
imous cry of the north. But William
II. Seward saw the finger of God lead
ing in just the opposite direction, ant
the ~confederates were given up, and w
avoided a war with England, which a
that time would have been the demoli
ton of the United States government
In other words, the finger of God as l
directs you may be invisible to every
body else. Follow the divine pointing
as you see it, although the world ma,
call you a fool. There has never beel
q man or a woman who amounted T.
anything that has not sometimes bee
called o fool Nearly all the mistake
that you and I have made have com
from our following the pointin
of some other finger, instead G
A. ar.o, 80 GDI nnf novv euv