The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-10-04

and you will try to cure your swollen
hand by getting on 1t more fingers ana
your rheumatic foot by getting on IL
more toes, and there will be a sigh OF
relief when you are gone out OF the
world, and when over your remains
the minister recites the words. Bless
ed are the dead who die in the Lord"
persons who have keen appreciation
Of the ludicrous will hardly be able 10
keep their faces straight But, whether
in tina direction my words do good or
not, / am anxious that all who have
only ordinary equipment be thankful
for what they have and rightly en-
ploy it. I think o all have, figura-
lively, as we'll as literally, fingers
enough Do not long for hindering su-
periuities. Standing in the presence
Of this fallen giant of my text and in
this post norton examination of him.,
let US learn how much better off we
are with just the usual hand, the usual
foot. You have thanked God for a
thousand things, but / warrant you
never thanked him for those two i'm
plements of work and locomotion that
no one but the infinite and o~mnipotent
God could have ever planned or made
the hand and the foot. Only that
soldier or that mechanic who in a bat
tie or through machinery has lost them
knows anything adequately about their
value, and only the Christian scien-
fist a have any appreciation Of what
divine masterpieces they are.
THE HAND THAT WORKS.
Sir Charles Bell was so impressed
with the wondrous construction of the
human hand that when the Earl of
Bridgewater gave $40, 900 for essays on
the wisdom and goodness of God and
eight books were written Sir Charles
Bell wrote his entire book on the wis
dom n goodness of roc as displayed
in the human hand. The twenty bones
in the human and The q bones in
the hand and wrist with carriages and
ligaments and phalanges of the fingers
all made just ready to knit, to sew, to
build up, to pull down, to weave, to
write, to plow, to pound, to whee to
battle, to give friendly Salutation. The
tips of it's 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 benediction. The
malformation of the giants hand in
the text glorifies the usual hand. Fash
Toned of God more exquisitely and
hAAoi any III IlcCIIdll-
ism that was ever cOntrived. 7 charge
you to use 1T for God and the lifting
or the world out of it's moral predica-
ment. Employ it in the sublime work
of gospel is just made for that. Four
fingers just set right to touch your
nelghbor's hand on n side, and your
thumb set so as to clinch it on the
other side. By all it's bones and joints
and muscles and cartilages, and liga-
ments the voice of nature joins with
the voice of God commanding you to
shake hands. The custom is as old as
the Bible anyhow. Jehu said to Je-
rs thine heart right as nv
heart is with thine heart? If it be.
give me thine n When hands join
IN Christian salutat1on, a gospel cleo
tr1clty thrills across the palm from
heart to heart, and from the shoulder
of one to the shoulder of the other.
With the timid and for their encour-
agement, shake hands. With the trou-
bled in warm hearted sympathy, shake
hands. With the young man just en-
tering business and discouraged at the
small sales and the large expenses.
shake hands. With the child who is
new from God n started on amending
journey, for which he needs to gather
great supply Of strength and who can
hardly reach up to you now because
you are so much taller, shake shands.
Across cradles n dying beds and
graves, shake hands. With your enc
mics, who have done all to defame and
hurt yOu, but whom you can afford to
forgive. shake hands. At the door Of
the churches where people come in and
at the doo of churches where people
go out, shake hands. Let pulpit shake
hands with pew and Sabbath dav
shake hands with weekday and earth
shake hands with heaven. Oh. the
strange. the mighty, the underlined. the
mysterious, h eternal power of an
honest handshaking. The difference
between these times and the millen-
MAN times is that now some shake
hands, but then all will shake hands,
throne n footstool. across seas. ma
ton with nation, God and man. church
militant and church triumphant.
THE HUMAN FOOT.
Yea, the m~alformation Of this fallen
giants foot glorifies the ordinary foot
for which I fear yOu have never once
thanked God. The 26 bones of the foot
are the admiration of the anatomist.
The arch of the foot fashioned with a
grace and poise that Trajan's arch or
~Constantine's arch or any other arch
could not equal. Those arches stand
where they were planted, but this arch
Of the foot is an adjustable arch, a
yielding arch, a flying arch and ready
for movements innumerable. The hu-
man foot so fashioned as to enable a
man to stand upright as no other crea-
ture and leave the hand that would
otherwise have to help in balancing
the body free for anything it chooses.
The foot of the camel fashioned for the