The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-05-20

praying for the salvation OF a young mans
soul? That Is right; but also extend the
hand Of invitation 10 come 70 a religious
meeting. II always excites our sympathy
70 see a man with his hand in a sling.
We ask him: What IS the natter Hope
il IS not a feIon;" or Have your fingers
been crushed2'' But nine out Of ten Of all
Christians are going their life long with
their hand IN a sling. They have been
hurt by Indifference. or wrong ideas OF
what is best; or IL Is injured on convention
alities, and they never put forth that hand
10 lift. or help or rescue any
one They pray and their pray
CT has wings, but there IS no hand
under the wings. From the very struc-
ture Of the hand. We might make up our
mind as TO some OF the things Il was made
for. TO hold fast. to lift. 70 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. 70 lift. 10 push, to
pull, TO help. 20 rescue. Wondrous handi
You know something OF the "Bridgewater
Treatises." When Rev. Francis Henry
Bridgewater in his viii left $4,000 for es-
says on The Power. Wisdom and Good
ness Of God. as Manifested in the Crea-
fion," and Davies Gilbert, the president OF
the Royal Society. chose eight persons 10
write eight books, Sir Charles Bell, the
scientist. chose as the subject Of his great
tai Endowments 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 laby-
rinth Of muscle. and nerve, and artery.
and flesh. which no one but Almighty
God could have planned or executed But
how suggestive when 1t reached down 10
US from under the wings OF the cherubim!
The likeness Of the hands Of man was
under the wings"
THIS idea is combined in Christ When
he rose from Mt. Olivet he took wing.
All up and down his life you see the up
lifting divinity. 1t glowed In
his forehead. II flashed In his
eyes. Its cadences W ere heard
in his voice. But he was also very hui
man. II was the hand under the wing
that touched the woes Of the world. and
took hold Of the sympathies of the cen
turtles. Watch his hand before II was
spiked. There was a dead girl in a gov
ernors 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.
"IIc took her by the hand, and the maid
arose" A follower anEered at an insult
offered Christ, drew the sword from
sheath and struck az a man with the
sharp edge, aiming I think, at his fore
head. But the weapon glanced aside and
took Off the right ear at it roots. Christ
with his hand reconstructed that won
derful organ Of sound. that whispering
gallery of the soul, that collector 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" Meeting a full
grown man who had never seen sun
rise, 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 sud
denly all the colors of earth and sky rush
in upon the newly created optic nerve
and the instantaneous noon drove out che
long night. When he sees the grief Of
Mary and Martha. he sits down and cries
with them. Some say il is the shortest
verse in the Bible: but to me it seems,
because of its far-reaching sympathios,
about the largest-"Jesus wept!" So very
human. He could not stand the sight of
dropsy, or epilepsy, or paralysis, or hun-
ger or dementia; but he stretches out his
sympathetic hand toward IL. So very hui
man. Omnipotent, and majestic, and glor-
ious, this Angel of the New Covenant,
with wings capable of encircling the uni
verse. and yet hands of gentleness, hands
of helpfulness. The hands of a man un-
der the wings" There is a kind of relig-
ion in our day that my text rebukes. There
are men and women spending their time
in delectation over their saved state, 60
ing about from prayer meeting to prayer
meeting, going about from church 20
church, telling how happy they are. But
chn ar ask
them to go and visit the sick or tell them
to reclaim a wanderer, or speak out for
some unpopular Christian enterprise, ana
they have bronchitis, or stitch in the
side, or sudden attack of grippe. Their
religion is all 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 a
Sabbath school class of poor boys down
in the slums Of Edinburgh. While Lord
Fitzgerald was travelling in Canada, he
saw a poor Indian squaw carrying 4
crushing load and ne took the burden on
his own shoulders. That was Christ-lixe
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 pas
sengers 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 Washington
Territory, now Of Washington state. The
people of Seattle had raised a generous
sum of money for the Johnstown suffer-
ers from the flood. A few days after.
Seattle was destroyed by fire. l saw it
while the whole city were living in tents.
II a 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 Jamestown, and by ac-
clamation the money was so sem.
Nothing more beautiful or sublime
than that. Under the wing of fire that
smote Seattle the sympathetic hand, the
helping hand. the mighty hand of Christ
ian relief for people thousands of miles
away. Why. there are a hundred thou
sand men and women whose one business
is to help others. Helping hands, inspir-
ing hands. lifting hands, emancipating
hands, saving hands. Sure enough, those
people had wings of faith, and wings of