The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-06-12

about? Mother, what are you crying about?'
The book says, "He took her by the hand,
and the maid arose." A follower. angereo
at an insult offered Christ, drew the sword
from sheath and struck at a man with the
sharp edge, aiming, think, at his fore,
head. But the weapon glanced aside and
| took off the right ear at Its roots. Chrlsl
| 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 tun-
mel without which all the musical instruments
of earth would be of no avail. The book says,
'He touched his ear and healed him" Meet
ing full grown man who had never seen a
sunrise, or sunset, or flower, or the face
| of his own father or mother, Christ moistens
| the dust from His own tongue and stirs the
dust into an eye salve, and with His own
| hands applies the strange medicament, and
suddenly all the colors of earth and sky rush
| in upon the newly created optic nerve and,
| the instantaneous noon drove out the long
night.
While Thomas Chalmers occupied II
chair Of moral philosophy In St, Andrew
Universityhe had at the same time Sabbath
school class Of poor boys down in the slums
of Edinburgh. While Lord Fitzgerald was
travelling in Canada he saw poor Indian
squaw carrying crushing load, and ne took
Christlike. That was "a hand under the
wing" The highest type Of religion says
little about itself, but is busy for God and in
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 quarries 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
ton Territory. now OF Washington State.
The people Of Seattle had raised a generous
sum of money for the Johnstown sufferers
from the flood. A few days after Seattle
was destroyed by fire. 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 No! No!
No! Send the money to Johnstown, and oy
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.
In our time it Is the habit to denounce the
cities and to speak Of them as the perdition
Of all wickedness. Is 1t not time for some
one to tell the other side of the story and to
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 100 900 come
to get bread for this lite and bread for the
life to come, all the pillows Of that institu-
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 al
who come under its benedict1on; the mid
night missions, which pour midnoon upon
the darkened; the Prison Reform Associa-
ton; the houses Of mercy; the infrmaries;
the sheltering arms; the. aid societies; the
industrial schools; the Sailors Snug Harbor;
the founding asylums; the free 6ispensaries;
where greatest scientific skill feels the pulse
OF wan pauper; the ambulance, the startling
place of casualty, and good souls like the
mother who came to the Howard Mission,
with its crowd of friendless boys picked up
from the streets, and saying, "1f you have a
crippled boy, give him to me; my dear boy
died with the spinal complaint" and such q
one she found and took him home and
nursed him till he was we'll. It 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 Christlike hand,
the cherubic hand, "the hand under the
wing"
There is also in my subject the suggestion
of rewarded work for God and righteo
When the wing went the hand went. When
the wing ascended the hand ascended; and
for every useful and Christian hand there
will be elevation celestial and eternal. Ex.
pect no human gratitude, for 1t will not
come. That was wise thing Fenelon wrote
TO his friend: ~ 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. I try to do
much for them and to expect nothing In re-
turn. I find decided advantage in these
terms. On these terms I defy them to dis.
appoint me-" But, my hearers, the day
cometh when your work, which perhaps no
one has noticed or rewarded or honored,
will rise to heavenly recognition. While !
have been telling you that the hand was un-
der the wing OF the cherubim I want you to
realize that the wing was over the hand.
Perhaps reward may not come to you right
away. Washington lost more battles than he
won, but he triumpned at the last. Walter
Scott. in boyhood. was called 'the Greek
blockhead," but what height of renown did
he not afterward tread2
And I promise you victory farther yet and
higher up, If not in this world then In the
next. Oh, the heavenly rest when your
lifted hand shall be gloved with what honors,
its finger enringed with what jewels, its
wrists 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 shoe last! Come up and take it, you
professional nurse, whose compensation
never fully paid for broken nights and the
whims and struggles of delirious siokroomsl
Come up and take 1t, you flremen, besweated,
far down amid the greasy machinery Of ocean
steamers, and ye conductors and engineers
on railroads, that knew no Sunday, and
whose ringing bells and loud whistle never
warned off your own anXieties!
Come up and take it, you mothers, who
rocked and lullabled the family brood until
they took wing for other nests and never ap-
preciated what you had done and suffered
for them. Your hand was we'll favored
when you were young, and it was beauti-
full hand, so we'll rounded, so graceful that
many admired and eulogized it, but hard
work calloused it and twisted it, and self
sacrificing toll for others paled it, and many
household griefs thinned il, and the ring
which went on only with push at the mar