The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1895-05-29

evangelism of that faro!f land for
which they have been praying. Stop
singing. Ely abroad thou mighty
gospel. unless you are willing to give
something of vourown meansto make
it fly
Have you been praying for the saliva
ton of :; young mans soul? That is
right, bat also extend the hand Of in
vitation to come 10 a religious meet
ing. 1t always eXcitcs our sympathy
to see man with his hand in sling.
We ask him: What is the matter:
Hope it is nota felon, or. Have Your
fingers been crushed" But nine out
of ten of all Christians are going their
lifelong with their hand in a sling.
They have been hurt bv Indifference
or wrong ideas Of what is best, or it is
injured of conventionalitieS, 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 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 we'll asfor ourselves
we We're to hold fast, to lift, to push.
to pull, to help to rescue. Wondrous
hand. You know something of the
''Bridgewater Treatises. : When Rev.
Francis Henry Bridgewater. in his
will. left 10000 for essays on The
Power. Wisdom and Goodness of God
as Manifested In the Creation and
Davis Gilbert, the president of the
Royal society, chose eight persons to
write eight books. Sir Charles Bell, the
scientist. chose as the subject of his
great book, The Hand, It's Mechan-
ism and Vital Endowments as Evinc-
ing Design" Oh, the hand. Itsmachin-
cry 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 II bones of the
fingers and thumb, and composed of a
labyrinth of the muscle and nerve and
flesh. which no one but Almighty God
coIid have planned or executed But
how suggestive when it reached down
to US from under the wings of the
cherubim.. THE likeness Of the hands
of a man was under the wings
This idea is combined in Christ.
When he rose from Mount Oiivet, he
took wing. All up and down his life
you see the uplifting divinity. 1t
glowed in his forehead. 1t flashed in
his eye. Its cadences were heard in
his voice. But he was also very hu-
man. 1t was tie hand under the
wing that touched the woes of the
world and took hold ofthe sympathies
of the centuries. Watch his hand be-
fore it was spiked. There was a dead
girl in a 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 weeping house
hold aud 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 rose. \ follower, angered at
an insult offered Christ, drew the
sword from sheath and struck at a
man with the sharp edge, aiming, l
think, at his forehead. But the wea-
pon glanced aside and took off the
right ear at its roots. Christ with his
hand reconstructed that wonderful
organ of sound, that whispering gal
lerv of the soul, thatcollector Of vibra-
tons, that arched way to the auditory
nerve, that tunnel 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 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 medicament,- ana
suddenly all tbs 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 itseems because
of its farreaching sympathies about
the largest-''Jesus wept.." So very
humane. 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 human. Omnipotent and
glorious, this angel of the new cove
nant, with wings capable of encircling
a universe, and yet hands of gentle
ness, hands of helpfulness, The hands
of man under the wings There is
kind of religion in our day that my
text rebukes. There are men and wo-
men spending their time in delecta-
ton over their saved state, going about
from prayer meeting to prayer meet
ing and from church to church telling
how happy they are. But show them
subscription paper, or ask them to
60 and visit the sick, or tell them to re-
claim 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 is ali wing and no hand.
They can fly heavenward, but they
cannot reach out earthward.
While Thomas Chalmers occupied
the chair of moral philosophy in st.
Andrews university he had at the
same time Sabbath school class Of
poor boys down in the slums of Edin
burgh. While Lord Fitzgerald was
travelling in Canada he saw poor In
dian squaw carrying a crushing load.
and he took the burden on his own
shoulders. That was 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 shipwreck-
ed planet. Such people are busy now
Il