Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1895-05-25

Ing. The mothers hand or the fathers
hand must write To the wayward boy rs
soon rs you can hear how to address him.
Christian souls must contribute to the
evangelism Of that faroff land for which
they have been praying. Stop singing,
Fly abroad. thou mighty gospel, unless
You are willing to give something "f your
own means TO make Il fly.
Have you been praying for tho salvation
Of u young mans soul? That Is right, but
also extend the hand of invitation to come
to n religious meeting. 1t always cxcltes
our sympathy To see man with his hand
In sling We ask him What is the mat
ter! Hope II is not fclon, OF, Have
your fingers been crushcd:' But nine out
of ten of all Christians are going their life
long with their hand In u sling. They
have been hurt by indifference or wrong
ideas Of what Is best, or IL Is injured OF
conventionalitics, and they never put forth
that hand To lift or help or rescue any one
They pray, and their prayer has wings, but
there Is no hand under tho wings From
the very structure of the hand we might
make up our mind rs To some Of the things
IL was made for-to hold fast, to lift, to
push, to pull, to help and to rescue, and
endowed with two hands we might take
The broad hint that for others as well as
for ourselves we were To hold fast, TO lift,
20 push, To pull, To help. to rescue. Won
drous hand. You know something Of the
Bridgcwatcr Treatiscs." f" When Rev
Francis Henry Bridgcwatcr, in his will,
left $40, O00 for essays on 1.-THE Power,
Wisdom and Goodness of God as Mani
tested In the Crcation, and Davies Gil
bert. the president Of the Royal society,
chose eight persons to write eight books,
Sir Charles Bell the scientist, chose rs
the subject of his great book, Tho Hand,
Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as
Evincing Design" oh, the hand! Its
machinery beginning Mt tho shoulder, and
working through shafts OF bone, upper
arm and forearm down to the eight bones
Of the wrist, and the five bones of the
palm. and the II bones of tho fingers and
thumb. and composed of n labyrinth Of
muscle and nerve and artery and flesh,
which no one but Almighty God could
have planned or executed. But how sug-
gcstivc when il reached down to us from
under the wings OF the chcrubim! 1.-THE
likeness OF the hands of man was under
tho wings
Another Application.
This idea is combined in Christ. When
hc rose from Mount Olivet, he took wing.
All up and down his life you see the up
lifting divinity. II glowed In his forehead.
IL flashed in his eye. Its cadcnccs were
heard in his voice But he was also very
human. IL was the hand under the wing
that touched the woes Of the world and
took hold of the sympathics Of the centu-
ries. Watch his hand before 1t was spiked.
There was n dead girl in governors
house, and Christ comes into the room and
takes her pale, cold hands in his warm
grasp, and she opens her eyes on the weep
ing household and says: Father, what
arc you crying abouts Mother, what are
you crying about" The book says, "He
took her by the hand, and the maid rose"
4 follower. angcrcd mt an insult offered
Christ, drew the sword from sheath and
struck at n man with the sharp edge aim
ing, | think. at his forehead. But the
weapon glanced aside and took off the
right ear ut its roots. Christ with his hand
reconstructed that wonderful organ Of
sound, that whispering gallery of the soul,
that collector of vibrations, that archcd
way To the auditory nerve, that tunnel
without which all the musical Instruments
of earth would he of no avail. The book
says, He touched his ear and healed him.
Meeting n full grown man who had never
~
the face of his own father or mother. Christ
moistcns the dust from his own tongue
and siirs the dust into an eye salvc, and
with his own hands applies the strange
mctlicamcnt. and suddenly all the colors
of earth and sky rush in upon the newly
created optic nerve and tho instantaneous
noon drove out the long night.
When he sees the grief Of Mary and Mar
hn sir xytf fhaVt
Some say IL is the shortest verse In the Bi-
BILE, hut to me il seems because of its far
reaching sympathics about the largest
'Jcsus wcpir' So very humane. He
could not stand the sight of dropsy or cpl
lcpsy or paralysis or hunger or dcmentia,
but he stretches ont his sympathetic hand
toward it. 80 very, very human. Omnip-
otcnt and majestic and glorious, this an
gel of the new covenant, with wings capa-
blc Of cncircling n universe. and yet hands
of gcntlcncSs, hands Of hclpfulncss, The
hands of q man under the wings" There
Is u Kind of religion in our day that my
text rcbukes. There are men and women
spending their time in delcctation 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 u subscription paper, or ask
them Ia go and visit the sick, or tell them
to reclaim u wantlcrcr, or speak out for
some unpopular Christian enterprise, and
they have bronchitis, or stitch in tho side
or sudden attack of grip. Their religion
Is all wing and no hand. They can fly
hcavcnward. hut they cannot reach out
ear. Inward.
A Hand Under the Wing.
While Thomas Chalmers occupied the
chair of moral philosophy in St. Andrews
university he had at the same time n Sab
bath school class OF poor boys down in
the slums Of Edinburgh. While Lord
Fitzgerald was travelling in Canada he
saw poor Indian squaw carrying n crush
ing load. and he took the burden on his
own shoulders. That was Christlikc That
was "a hand under the wing" The high
est type uf religion says little about itself
hut is busy for God and in helping to the
heavenly shore the crew and passengers of
this shipwrcckcd planet. Such people are
busy now up the dark lanes of this city,
and all through the mountain glcns and
down in the quarrics where the sunlight
has never visited. and amid the rigging
helping To tasc in another reef before the
Caribbean whirlwind.
y friend was telling me of an exquisite
| tHlHp uubit .NtstiIle. iltn ol Washington
territory. now of Washington state. The
people of Seattle had raised n generous
,um Of money for the .Iohnstown sufferers
.rom the flood A few days after Seattle
was destroyed hy fire. saw 1t while the
whole city was living in tents. In n pub
lie meeting some one proposed that the
money raised for .Johnstown he used for
the relief of their own city, and the cry
was No, No, No! Send the money to
Johnstown. and by acclamation the mon
ey was 81 sent. Nothing more beautiful or
sublime than that. Under the wing of
fire that sniotc Seattle the sympathetic
hand. the helping hand the mighty hand
of Christian relief for people thousands of
miles away. Why. there arc "a hundred
thousand men and women whose one bust
Ness Is to help others Helping hands,
inspiring hands. lifting hands, cmanci-
pating hands. saving hands Sure enough
those people had wings of faith, and wings
of prayer, a.d wings Of consolation, but
1.-The likeness of the hands of "a man was
| NJ ths. Ignhy 4. Guttinr Teeth