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


"a man of great stature, whose fin
gers and toes were four and twenty
six on each hand and six on each foot
and he also was the son of a giant
But when he defed Israel, Jonathan
the son of Shimea, David's brother
slew him."
Malformation photographed, and fol
what reason? Did not this passage
slip by mistake into the sacred Scrip
lures, as sometimes paragraph ut
terly obnoxious to the editor gets into
his newspaper during his absence? Is
not this scriptural errata? No, no;
there is nothing haphazard about the
Bible. This passage of Scripture was
as certainly intended to be put in the
Bible as the verse; I'm the beginning
God created the heavens and the
EARTH" or God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son"
And l select it for my text to-day
because it is charged with practical
and tremendous meaning. By the peo-
pie of God the Philistines had" been
conquered, with the exception of a
few giants. The race of giants is
mostly extinct, | am glad to say.
There is no use for giants now except
to enlarge the incomes of museums.
But there were many of them in olden
times. Goliath was, according to the
Bible, IL feet Az inches high, or, if
you doubt this, the famous Pliny de-
clares that at Crete by an earthquake
a monument was broken open discov-
@ing the RENAME of a giant 46 cubits
long, or 50 feet high. So, whether you
take sacred or profane history, you
must come to the conclusion that there
Were in those times cases of human
altitude monstrous and appalling.
David had smashed the skull of one
of these giants, but there were other
giants that the Davidean wars had
not yet subdued, and one of them
stands in my text. He was not only
of Alpine stature, but had a surplus
of digits. To the ordinary fingers was
annexed an additional finger, and the
foot had also a superfiuous addendum.
He had "a examinations to hands and
feet, where others have 20. 1t was not
the only instance of the kind. Ia
the emperor of Java had a son en-
dOwed with the same number of eX-
tremities. Volcatius, the poet, had six
fingers on each hand. Maupertuis, in
his celebrated letters, speaks of two
families near Berlin similarly equipped
of hand and foot. All of which | can
believe for l have seen two cases of
the same physical superabundance.
But this giant of the text is in battle.
and as David, the STRIPPING warrior,
had dispatched one giant, the nephew
of David Stays this monster of my
text, and there he lies after the battle
in Gath, a dead giant. His stature
did not save him, and his superfluOus
appendices of hand and foot did not
save MIN. The probability was that
in the battle his sixth finger on his
hand made him clumsy in the use of
his weapon, and his sixth toe crippled
his gait. Behold the PROSTATE and
uniformed giant of the text: "A man
of great stature, whose fingers and
toes were four and twenty, six on
each hand and six on each foot, and he
also was the son of a giant. But when
he detied Israel, Jonathan, the son of
Shimea, David's brother, slew him."
Behold how superfuities are a him
drance rather than help! In all the
battle at Gath that day there was not
man with ordinary hand and ordn-
airy foot and ordinary stature that was
not better off than this physical curl
osity of my text. A dwarf on the
s,l+ To
the wrong side, and all the body and
mind and estate and opportunity nat
you cannot use for God and the bet
terment of the world are a sixth fin
ger and a sixth toe and a terrible him
drance. The most of the good done in |
the world and the most of those who |
win the battles for the right are or
binary people. Count the fingers of |
their right hand, and they have just |
five-nO more and no less. One DIR. |
Duff, among missionaries, but 1900 |
missionaries that would tell you they |
have only comon endowment. One
Florence Nightingale to nurse the sick
in conspicuous places, but 10000 wo-
men who are just as good nurses,
though never heard of. The Swamp /
Angel was big gun that during the
civil war made big noise, but musk
cts of ordinary calibre and shells of
ordinary heft did the execution. Pres
ident Tyler and his cabinet go down
the Potomac one day to experiment
with the "Peacemaker," a great iron
gun that was to alright with its thun-
der foreign navies. The gunner
touches it off and it explodes and
leaves cabinet ministers dead on the
deck, while at that time, all up
and down our coasts, were cannon of
ordinary bore, able to be the defence
of the nation and ready at the first
touch to waken to duty. The curse
of the world is big guns, After the
politicians, who have made all the
noise, go home hoarse from angry dis
custom on the evening of the first Mon
day in November, the next day the
people, with the silent ballots, will
settle everything and settle it right, a
million Of the white slips of paper
they drop making about as much noise