Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1895-05-25

boy is voyaging Yea, prayer can fly
clear down into the future When the
father Of Queen Victoria was dying, he
asked that the infant Victoria might be
brought while he sat up in bed, and the
babe was brought, and the father prayed,
"If this child should live to become
queen of England, may she rule in the
fear of Godr' Having ended his prayer,
he said. Take the child away" But
all who know the history of England
for the last so years know that the
prayer for that infant more than 70
years ago has been answered, and with
what emphasis and affection millions Of
the queens subjects have this day i'll
chapels and cathedlrals, on land and sea,
duplicated, God save the qucenl"
Prayer flies not only across continents.
but across centuries. If prayer had only
feet, it might run here and there and do
wonders. But it has wings, and they
are as radiant of plume and as swift to
rise or swoop or dart or circle as the
cherubini S wings which swept through
Ezekiel's vision. But, oh, my friends,
The prayer must have the hand under
the wing, or it may amount to nothing.
Tho mothers hand, or the father
hand, must write to the Maynard boy
us soon rs you can hear how to address
him. Christian souls must contribute to
the evangelism Of that fsl off land for
which they have been praying. Stop
singing ely abroad, thou mighty gos-
pei, unless You are willing to give
something of your own means to make
it fly Have you been praying for the
salvation of young mans soul? That
is right, but also extend the hand Of in
vitation to come to a religious meeting
Useless Christian Hands.
1t always excites our sympathy to see
man with his hand in asling. We ask
him; "What is the matter? Hope it is
not felon;' or, Have your fingers
been crushed:" But nine ont Of ten of
all Christians are going their life long
with their hand in sling. They have
been hurt by Indifference or wrong ideas
Of what is best, or it is injured of con
ventionahties, 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 tho
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 our
selves we We're to hold fast, to lift, to
push, to pull, to help, to rescue Won
drous hand You know something of
the tBridgewater Treatises When
Rev. Francis Henry Bridgewater in his
viii left $40, 900 for essays on "Tho
Power, Wisdom and Goodness Of God,
as Manifested in the Creation" and
Davies 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 1.-THE Hand; Its Mechanism
and Vital Endowments as Evincing De-
sign" Oh, the hand Its machinery be-
ginning at the shoulder, and working
through shafts of bone, upper arm and
forearm, down to tho eight bones of the
wrist, and the five bones Of the palm,
and the fourteen bones Of the fingers
and thumb and composed of labyrinth
of muscle ard 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 cher
ubiml "The likeness of the hands of
man was under the wings.
Chrlst's Uplifting Divinity.
This idea is combined in Christ When
he rose from Mount Oliyet, he took wing
All up and down his life you see the up
lifting divinity. 1t glowed i'll his fore
head. 1t flashed in his eyes. Its ca
dences were heard in his voice But he
was also very human. 1t was the hand
under the wing that touched the wees
of the world and took hold of the sym
pathies of the centuries. Watch his hand
before it was spiked. There was dead
girl in a governors house, and Christ
comes into the room and takes her pale,
cold hand i'll his warm grasp, and she
opens her eyes on the weeping house
hold 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 in-
suit offered Christ, drew the sword from
sheath and struck at 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.
Christ with his hand reconstructed that
&c 81,
ing gallery of the soul, that collector of
vibrations, that arched way to the audi
tory nerve, that tunnel without which
all the musical instruments of earth
would be of no avail The book says,
HE touched his car and healed him"
Meeting a 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, and
suddenly all the colors of earth aud sky
rush in upon the newly created optic
nerve, and the instantaneous noon lrove
out the long night.
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 its far reaching sympathies about
the largest Jesus weptW So very,
human. He could not stand the sight of
dropsy Or epilepsy or paralysis CT hun
ger or Dement'S, but he stretches out
his sympathetic hand toward it. So very,
very human, O,nnipoteut aud majestic
ard glorious, this angel Of the Few
covenant, with wings capable of cncir
cling universe, and yet hands Of gen
tlenoss. hands Of kelpfulness, THE
hands Of man under the wings"
There is kind Of religion in cur day
that my text rebEkcs. There are rlen
and women spending their time i'll de-
lectation over their saved state going
abou, fro.l prayer meeting to prayer
meeting ana from church to church,
a. - q n "A