The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-05-31

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prayer had only feet, it might run here
and there and do wonders. But it has
wings, and they are rs radiant OF
plume, and as swift to rise. or swoop,
or dart, or circle, as the cherubim's vi
sion. But, oh. my friends, the prayer
must have the hand under the wing,
or it may amount to nothing. The
mothers hand. or the fathers's
hand, must write to the hayward boy
as soon as you can hear how to adj
dress him Christian souls must con-
tribute to the evangelism of that far
off land for which they have been
praying. Stop singing: Fly abroad,
thou mighty Gospel, unless you are
willing to give something of your own
means to make it fly.
Have you been praying for the saliva
tion of young mans soul? That is
right; but also extend the hand of in
vitation TO come to religious meeting.
1t always excites our sympathy to see
a man with his hand in a sling. We
ask him: ''What is the matter? Hope
it is not a felon;" or, "Have your fin
gers been crushed?" But nine out of
ten of all Christians are going their
lifelong with their hand in sling.
They have been hurt by Indifference,
or wrong ideas of what is best; or by
conventionalities; and they never put
forth that hand to lift, or help. or
rescue anyone. They pray, and their
prayer has wings, but there is no
hand under the wings. From the
very structure of the hand, we might
make up our mind as to some of
the things it 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, to push, to pull, to help, to res
cue. WOndrous handl You know some
thing of the "Bridgewater Treatises. :"
When Rev. Francis Henry Bridgewa-
ter in his will left forty thousand dol
lars for essays on 1.-The Power, Wis
Com and Goodness of God, as Manifest
ed in the Creation" and Davies Gill
bert, the president of the Royal so
ciety, chose eight persons to write
eight books, Sir Charles Bell, the
scientist, chose as the subject of
his great book: THE Hand;
Its Mechanism and Vital Endow-
ments as Evincing Design" Oh, the
hand! Its machinery beginning at the
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
fourteen bones of the fingers and
thumb, and composed of a labyrinth of
muscle, and nerve, and artery. and
flesh, which no one but Almighty God
could have planned or executed. But
how suggestive when it reached down
to us from under the wings of the
cherubim! 1.-THE likeness of the hands
of man was under the wings"
This idea is combined in Christ.
When He rose from Mount Olivet, He
took wings. All up and down His life
you see the uplifting divinity. 1t
glowed in His forehead. 1t flashed in
His eyes. It's cadenees were heard in
His voice. But He was also very hui
man. 1t was the hand under the wing
that touched the woes of the world,
and took hold of the sympathies of the
centuries. Watch His hand before it
was spiked. There was a dead girl in
a governors house and Christ comes
into the room and takes her pale, cold
hand in His warm grasp, and she opens
her eyes on the weeping household, and
says: Father, what are you crying
about? Mother, what are you crying
about?" The book says: 'He took her
by the hand, and the maid arose." A
follower, angered at an insult offered
Christ, drew the sword from sheath
and struck at man with the sharp
edge. aiming, think, at his forehead
But the weapon glanced aside and took
off the right ear at its roots. Christ
with his hand reconstructed that won
derful organ of sound. that whisper
ing gallery of the soul, that collector
of vibrations, that arched way to
the auditory nerve, that tunnel
without which all the musical instrU-
ments of earth would be of no avail.
The book says: "He touched his ear
and healed him" Meeting a full
grown man who had never seen a sun
rise, or a sunset, or a 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 medicamen mt, 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. When He sees the
grief of Mary and Martha, He sits
down and cries with them. Some
say it is the shortest verse in the
Bible; but to me it seems, because of
it's far-reaching sympathies, about the
largest-"Jesus weptr' So very hui
man. He could not stand the sight of
dropsy, or epilepsy, or paralysis, or
dementia; but He stretches out His
sympathetic hand toward it. So very,
very human. Omnipotent,andm majestic,
and glorious, this angel of the new
covenant, with wings capable of en-
circling the universe, and yet hands of
gentleness, hands of helpfulness. The
hands of a man under the wings.
There is a kind of religion in
our day that my text rebukes.
There are men and women spend
ing their time in delectation 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 subscrip
ton paper, or ask them to go and visit
the sick, or tell them to reclaim a wan
derer, or speak out for some unpopular
enterprise, ana they have bronchitis,
or stitch in the side, or sudden attack
of grip. Their religion is all wing,
and no hand. They can fly heaven