Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1895-06-05

| mighty God could have planned or executed.
| But how suggestive when 1t reached down to
as from under the wings of the cherubiml
"The likeness of the hands OF q man was un'
| Serthe wings"
This idea IS combined in Christ. When He
rose from Mount Olivet, He took wing. All
| up and down His life you see the uplifting
divinity. 1t flashed in His eyes. Its cadences
were heard in His voice. But He was also
very human. 1t was the hand under the
| wing that touched the woes of the world
! Ind took hold OF the sympathies Of the CEN
turies. Watch His hand before it was spiked.
There was dead girl in governors house.
Snd Christ comes into the room and takes
her pale, cold hand In His warm grasp, and
| she opens her eyes on the weeping house
| hold and sayss "Father what are you crying
about2 Mother, what are you crying about?'
The book says, "He took her by the hand,
and the maid arose." A follower. ansered
| u an insult offered Christ, drew the sword
from sheath end struck at man with the
lharp edge, aiming, think, at his fore
head. But tic weapon Glancad aside and
took of the right ear at Its roots. Christ
with His hand reconstructed that wonderful
! organ Of sound, that whispering gallery OF
the soul, that collector of vibrations, that
arched way to the auditory nerve, that turi-
bel without which all the musical instruments
nf earth would be of no avail. The book says,
NHe touched his ear and healed him." Meet.
Ing full grown man who had never seen n
Df his own father or mother, Christ Veistens
the dust from His own tongue and frs the
dust into an eye salve, and with HIS own
hands applies the strange medicarnent, and
suddenly all the colors of earth and sky rush
In upon the newly created optic nerve and,
the instantaneous noon drove out the lons
hight.
When He sees the crfef Of May and Mar
tha He sits down and cries with them. Some
say it is the shortest verse in the Bible, but
10 me 1t seems, because of its far reaching
sympathcs, about the largest-"Jesui
wept!" So very human. He could not stand
, the sight OF dropsy or epilepsy or paralysis
or hunger or dementia. but He stretches out
His sympathetic hand toward it. So very,
very human. Omnipotent and majestic and
glorious, this angel of the new covenant,
with wings capable of encircling a universe,
and yet hands Of gentleness, hand1 of help
fulness, 1.-THE hands of man under the
wings" There is a kind Of religion In our
day that my text rebukes. There are men
and women spending their time in delecta-
ton over their saved state going about from
prayer meeting to prayer meeting, and from
church to church, telling how happy they
are. But show them a subscription paper,
or ask them to go and visit the sick, or tell
them to reclaim wanderer, or speak out
for some unpopular Christian enterprise,
and they have bronchitis or stitch in the side
or sudden attack Of grip. Their religion Fl
all wing and no hand. They can Fl!
heavenward, but they cannot reach ou
arthward.
While Thomas Chalmers occupied the
,hair of moral philosophy in st, Andrews
University he had at the same time Sabbath
school class Of poor boys down in the slumi
Of Edinburgh. While Lord Fitzgerald wu
travelling in Canada he saw poor Indiar
squaw carrying crushing load, and be tooh
the burden on his own shoulders. That was
Christlike. That was ga hand under the
wing" The highest type of religion says
little about itself, but is busy for God and il
helping to the heavenly shore the crew and
passengers OF this shipwrecked planet. Such
people are busy now up the dark lanes OF.
this city, and all through the mountain
glens, and down in the Quarrie5 where the
sunlight has never visited, and amid
the rigging, helping to take in another
reef before the Caribbean whirlwind.
A friend was telling me of an exquisite
thing about Seattle, then OF Washing.
The people of Seattle had raised a generou.
| sum of money for the Johnstown sufferers
from the food. A few days after Seattle
was destroyed by fire. 1 saw it while the
whole city was living in tents. In public
meeting some one proposed that the money
| raised for Johnstown be used for the relief
OF their own city, and the cry was MOL Mol
No! Send the money to Johnstown, and by
acclamation the money was so sent. Moth.
ing more beautiful or sublime than that,
Under the wing of fire that smote Seattle
the sympathetic hand, the helping hand, the
mighty hand OF Christian relief for people
thousands of miles away.
Why, there are 100000 men and women
| whose one business is TO help others. Help
Ing hands, inspiring hands, lifting hands,
| emancipatinS hands, saving hands. Sure
enough, those people had wings OF faith and
wings of prayer and wings of consolation,
but 1.-THE likeness of the hands OF a man was
under the wings" There was much sense
In that which the robust boatman said when
three were in a boat off the coast in sud.
den storm that threatened to sink the boat,
and one suggested that they all kneel down
in the boat to pray, and the robust man took
hold OF the oar aud began to pull, saying,
LET you, the strong. stout fellow, lay hold
the other oar, and let the weak one who can
not pull give himself up to prayer"
PRAY by all means, but at the same time pull
with all your might for the worlds rescue.
An arctic traveller hunting beaver while the
Ice was breaking up, and supposing that
there was no human being within 100 miles,
heard the Ice crackle, and lol a lost man, In.
sane with hunger and cold, was wading In
the ice water. The explorer took the man
Into his canoe and made for land, and the
eople gathered on the shore. All the island
ers had been looking for the lost man, and
finding him, according to prearrangerlent
all the bells rang and all the guns fired. Oh,
you can make a gladder time among the
towers and hilltops of heaven If you car
'etch home a wanderer.
In our time it is the habit to denounce the
,itieS and to speak Of them as the perdition
Of all wickedness. Is it not time for soms
one to tell the other side of the story and ~
say that the city is the heaven of practical
helpfulness? Look at the.embowered and
fountained parks, where the invalids may
come and be refreshed; the Bowery mission,
through which annually over 1O0, 900 come
to get bread for this lite and bread for the
life to come. all the pillows of that institu.
| ton under the blessing of Him who had moi
| where 10 iaS His head: the free schools
where the most impoverished are educated,
| the hospitals for broken bones; the homes
| for the restoration of intellects astray;
| the Orphan House, father and mother to all
| who come under its benediction; the mid.
| hight missions, which pour midnoon upon
The darkened; the Prison Reform Associa-
| don; the houses OF mercy; the inhrmaries,
the sheltering arms; the aid societies; the
| Industrial schools; the Sailors Snug Harbor,
! the founding asylums; the free dispensaries;
where greatest scientific skill feels the pulse
Of wan pauper; the ambulance, the startling
stroke OF its bell clearing the way to the
place OF casualty, and good souls like the
/ mother who came TO the Howard Mission,
| with its crowd of friendless boys picked W
| from the streets, and saying, elf You have a
crippled boy, give him to me; my dear boy
died with the spinal complaint" and such a
nursed him till he was we'll. 1t would take
q sermon three weeks long to do justice to
the mighty things which our cities are doing
for the unfortunate and the lost. Do moi
say that Christianity in our cities Is all show
| and talk and genufieXion and sacred noise.
You have been SO long looking at the hand
Of cruelty, and the hand of theft, and the
hand of fraud, and the hand Of outrage,
| that you have not sufficiently appreciated
the hand Of help stretched forth from the
| doors and windows of churches and from
| merciful ins: tutions, the Christlike hand,
the cherubic hand, ''the hand under the
wing"
There IS also in my subject the suggestion
N rewarded work for God and righteousness.
When the wing went the hand went. When
he wing assembled the hand assembled; and
or every useful and Christian hand there
will be elevation celestial and eternal. Ex-
| bect no human gratitude, for 1t will not
| lome That was a wise thing Fenelon wrote