Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1895-06-06

boys down in the slums of Edinburgh.
While Lord Fitzgerald was travelling
In Canada he saw poor Indian squaw
carrying crushing load, and he took
the burden on his own shoulders.
That was Christ-like. That was "a
hand under the wing.
In our time it is the habit to denounce
the cities, and to speak Of them as the
perdition Of all wickedness. Is it not
time for someone to tell the other side
OF the story and to say that the city is
the heaven Of practical helpfulness?
Look at the empowered and fountained
parks, where the invalids may come
and be refreshed; the Bowery mission,
through which annually over 1000
come to get bread for this life, and
bread for the life to come, all the pill
lows of that institution under the bless
ing of Him who had not where to lay
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 midnight missions, which pour mid
noon upon the darkened; the Prison Re-
form association; the house Of mercy;
the in6rmaries; the sheltering arms:
the aid societies; the industrial schools;
the sailors snug harbor; the founding
asylum; 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 lsace of casualty; and good
souls like the mother who came to the
Howard mission, with it's crowd of
friendless boys picked up from the
streets, and saying: IF you have a
crippled boy, give him to me; my dear
boy died with the spinal complaint
and such a one she found and took
him home end nursed him till he was
| well. 1t would take sermon three
weeks long to do justice to the mighty
things which our cities are doing for
the unfortunate and the lost. Do not
say that Christianity in our cities is all
show, and talk, and genufexion, 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 institutions, the Christ-like
hand, the cherubic hand, "the hand
under the wings"
There is also in my subject the sug-
| gestion of rewarded work for God and
righteousness. When the wing went
the hand went. When the wing as
,ended the hand assembled; and for
avery useful and Christian hand there
will be elevation celestial and eternal.
Expect no human gratitude, for it will
not come. That was wise thing Fen
alon wrote to his friend: II am very
glad, my dear, good fellow, that you
are pleased with one of my letters
| which has been shown to you. You are
right in saying and believing that | ask
little of men in general. | try to DO
much for them and to expect nothing
| in return. l find a decided advantage
| IN these terms. On these terms defy
chem to disappoint me-" But, my
hearers, the day cometh when your
work, which perhaps no one has no
ticed, or rewarded, or honored, will
rise to heavenly recognition. While
have been telling you that the hand
vas under the wing of the cherubim, !
want you to realize that the wing was
over the hand. Perhaps reward may
not come to you right away. Wash
ington lost more battles than he won,
but he triumphed at the last. Walter
Scott, in boyhood, was called 1.-The
Greek Blockhead," but what height OF
renown did he not afterwards tread?
And promise you victory further on
and higher up; if not in this world,
then in the next. o, the heavenly day
when your lifted hand shall be gloved
with what honors, its fingers enringed
with what jewels, its wrist clasped
with what splendors Come up and
take it, you Christian woman, who
served at the washtub. Come up
and take it, you Christian shoemaker.
who pounded the shoelast Come up
and take it, you professional
nurse, whose compensation never fully
paid for broken nights and the
whims and struggles OF delirious sick
rooms. Come up and take it, you fire.
men, besweated, far down amid the
greasy machinery Of ocean steamers,
and We conductors and engineers on
railroads that know no Sunday, and
whose ringing bells and loud whistles
never warned off your own anxieties.
Come up and take it, you mothers,
who rocked and lullabied the family
brood until they took wing for other
nests. and never appreciated what you
had done and suffered for them. Your
hand was well favored when you were
Young, and it was beautiful hand, SO
well rounded, so graceful that many
admired and eulogizsd it; but hard
work calloused it, and twisted it, and
self-sacrifcing toll for others paled
it, and many household griefs thinned
it. and the ring which went on only
with push at the marriage altar,
now is too large, and falls off, and
again and again you have lost it. Poor
hand! Weary hand! Worn-out hand!
But God will reconstruct it, reanimate
it, readorn it, and all Heaven will know
the story of that hand. What fallen
ones it lifted! What tears it wiped
way! What wounds it oandaged!