The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1898-09-30

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
torie of the. hand. The hands are moi
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 benedic
ton. The malformation of the giants
hand in the text glorifies the usual
hand. Fashioned Of God more eXquis-
itely and wondrously than any human
mechanism that was ever contrived, ]
charge you to use it for God and the
lifting of the world out of its moral
predicament. Employ it in the sub
lime work of gospel handshaking. You
can see the hand is just made .or
that. Four fingers just set right to
touch your neighbours hand on one
side, and your thumb set so as to
clinch it on the other side. BY all it's
bones and joints, and muscles and car
tilageS and ligaments the voice of ma
| ture joins with the voice of God com
handing you to shake hands. The
custom is as old as the Bible anyhow.
Jehu said to Jehonadab: ''Is thine
heart right as my heart is with thine
heart? If it be, give me thine hand"
When hands join in Christian saluta-
ton, gospel electricity thrills across
the palm from heart to heart, and from
the shoulder of one to the shoulder of
the other,
Yea, the malformation of this fallen
giants foot glorifies the ordinary foot,
for which | 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, flying arch, and ready
for movements innumerable. The hui
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 sand, the foot of the bird fashioned
for the tree branch, the foot of the
hind fashioned for the slippery rock,
the foot of the lion fashioned to rend
its prey the foot of the horse fashion
ed for the solid earth, but the foot of
man made to cross the desert, or climb
the tree, or scale the cliff, or walk the
EARTH or go anywhere he needs to 60.
With that divine triumph of anato-
my in your possession where do you
walk? In what path of righteousness
or what path of sin have you set it
down? Where have you left the mark
of your footsteps? Amid the petrii-
cations in the rocks have been found
the marks of the feet of birds and
beast of thousands of years ago. And
God can trace out all the footsteps of |
your lifetime and those you InaJei~fsfCy |
years ago are as plain as those made |
in the last soft weather, all of them |
petritied for the judgment day. Oh, |
the foot. Give me the autobiography |
of your foot from the time you stepped |
out of the cradle until to-day, and | /
will tell your exact character now and |
what are your prospects for the world
to come.
That there might he no doubt about
the fact that both these pieces Of, di-
vine mechanism, hand and foot, belong
to Christ's service, both hands of
Christ and both feet of Christ We're
spiked on the cross. Right through
the arch of both his feet to the hOl-
low of his instep went the iron of tor
ture, and from the palm of his hand
to the back of it, and there is not
muscle or nerve or bone among the 81
bones of hand and wrist or among the
26 bones of the foot but it belongs to
him now and forever
That is the most beautiful foot that
goes about paths of greatest useful
ness, and that the most beautiful hand
that does the most to help others. l
was reading of three women in rivalry
about the appearance of the hand.
berries and said the beautiful tinge
made hers the most beautiful And
another put her hand in the mountain
brook and said as the water dripped
off that her hand was the most beau
tiful. And another plucked flowers
off the bank and under the bloom con-
ended that her hand was the most at
ractive. Then a poor old woman ap-
1eared, and, looking up in her decrepi-
.ude. asked for aims. And a woman
who had not taken part in the rivalry
rave her aims. And all the women re-
solved to leave to this beggar the
question as to which of all the hands
present was the most attractive, and
he said: 1.-The most beautiful of them
LII is the one that gave relief to my
And as she so said her
wrinkles and rags and her decrepitude
nd her body disappeared, and in place
hereof stood the Christ, who long ago
aid, "Inasmuch as We did it to one
# the least of these We did it unto me-"
md who to purchase the service of
'ur hand and foot here on earth had
rs own hand and foot lascerated.