The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-10-07
esting these Tremendous fortunes. 7

"oANA at OuIdIOSds
or Carlsbad: Give to God, humanity
and the Bible ten per cent. of all your
income, and it will make a new man
of you, and from restless walking on
the floor at night you shall have eight
hours sleep, without the help of bro
mide of potassium, and from no appe-
tite you will hardly lie able to wait for
your regular meals, and your wan
cheeks will fill up, and when you die
the blessings of those who but for you
would have persisted will bloom all
over your grave.
Perhaps some of you will take this
advice, but the most of you will not.
And you will try to cure your swollen
hand by getting on it more fingers,
and your rheumatic foot by getting on
it more toes, and there will be sigh
of relief when you are gone out of the
world; and when over your remains
the minister recites the words:
blessed are the dead who die in the
Lord, persons who have keen appre-
citation of the ludicrous will hardly be
able to keep their faces straight. But
whether in that direction, my words
do good or not, [ am anxious that all
who have only ordinary equipment be
thankful for what they have and
rightly employ it. 1 think you all
have, fguratively as well as literally,
fingers enough. Do not long for him
dering superfluities. Standing in the
presence of this fallen giant of my
text, and in this post mortem eXamina-
ton of him let US learn how much bet
ter off we are with just the usual
hand, the usual foot. You have
thanked God for a thousand things,
but l warrant you never thanked Him
for those two implements of work and
locomotion, that no one but the In
finite and Omnipotent God could have
ever planed or made-the hand and
the foot. Only that soldier or that
mechanic who in battle, or through
machinery, has lost them, knows any
thing about their value, and only the
Christian scientist can have any ap-
probation of what divine masterpieces
they are.
Sir Charles Bell was so impressed
with the wonderous construction of
the human hand that when the earl
of Bridgewater gave $4,000 for essays
on the wisdom and goodness of God,
and eight books were written, Sir
Charles Bell wrote his entire book on
the wisdom and goodness of God as
displayed in the human hand. The
% bones in the hand and wrist with
cartridges and ligaments and pha-
langes of the fingers all made just
ready to knit, to sew, to build up, to
pull down, to weave, to write, to pillow,
to pound, to wheel, to battle, to give
friendly salutation. The tips of its
fingers are so many telegraph Offices
by reason of their sensitiveness of
touch. The bridges, the tunnels, the
cities of the whole earth are the vic
tories of the hand. The hands are not
dumb, but often speak as distinctly as
the lips. With our hands we invite,
we repel, we invoke, we entreat, we
wiring them in grief, or clap them in
JOY, or spread them abroad in bene-
diction. The malformation of the
giants hand in the text glorifes the
usual hand. Fashioned of God more
and wonGerously than any
human mechanism that was ever con-
trived, l charge you to use it for God
and the lifting of the world out of its
moral predicament. Employ it in the
sublime work of Gospel Misunderstanding.
You can see the hand is just made for
that. Four fingers just set right to
touch your neighbours hand on one
side, and your thumb set so as to
,lench it on the other side. By all its
bones and joints and muscles and
,artilages and igaments, the com
you to shake hands. The
custom is as old as the Bible, anyhow.
Jehu said to Jehonadab: ''Is thine
leart right as my heart is with thine
leart? If it be, give me thine hand"
When hands join in Christian saluta-
ion a Gospel electricity thrills across
he palm from heart to heart, and
rom the shoulder of one to the shout
Ter of the other.
With the timid and for their en-
shake hands. With the
roubled in warm-hearted sympathy,
hake hands. With the yonug man
It the small sales and the large eX-
,enses, shake hands. With the child |
Who is new from God and started on
lnending journey, for which he needs |
o gather great supply of strength, and |
Who can hardly reach up to you now
because you are so much taller, shake |
lands. Across cradles and dying beds |
nd graves shake hands. With your |
who have done all to defamc |
nd hurt you, but whom you can af-
ord to forgive, shake hands. At the |
DOR of the churches where people go |
ut, shake hands. Let pulpit shake |
lands with pew, and Sabbath-day |
bake hands with weekday, and earth |
hake hands with Heaven. Oh, the
TRANCE, the mighty, the underlined,
he mysterious, the eternal power of
n honest handshaking! The differ
nee between these times and the
aelIenial times is that now some
bake hands, but then all will shake
ands, throne and footstool, across
cas-, nation with nation, God and man,
hurch militant and church trium-
hant.
That is the most beautiful foot that
oes about paths of greatest useful
ess, and that the most beautiful
and that does the most to help 9TH
rs. / was reading of three women
l rivalry about the appearance of the
and. And the one redeemed her
and with berries, and said the beau
full tinge made hers the most beau
full. And another put her hand in
alters dripped off, that her hand was
ne most beautiful. And another
tucked flowers off the bank, and I'M
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