Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-10-10

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your spirits raised than by drinking
gallons of bad-tasting water at Sara
toga, Hamburg or Carlsbad-give to
God, humanity and the Bible ten per
cent. of all your income. and it will
make new man If vou and from
restless walking Gf - a. a: night
you shall have eight hours sleep with
| out the help of bromide of potassium.
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 a
sigh of relief when you are gone out
of the world, and when over your re-
mains 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 ordi.iary equip
ment be thankful for what they have
and rightly employ it. think you all
have, fgura tively as well as literally,
fingers enough. Do not long for him
dering superfuities. 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 thousand things, but I warrant
you never thanked Him for those two
| implements of work and locomotion
that no one but the infinite and ON
nipotent God could have ever planned
or made-the hand and the foot. Only
that soldier Of that mechanic who in
battle or through machinery has
lost them knows anything adequately
about their value, and only the Chris
tian scientist can have any apprecia-
ton of what divine masterpieces they
are.
| Sir Charles Bell was so impressed
| with the wondrous construction of
| the human hand that when the earl
of Bridgewater gave $4,000 for es-
says on the wisdom and goodness Of
| Sod, 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
81 bones in the hand and wrist with
sartilages 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 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 victories of the
hand. The hands are not dumb, but
often speak as distinctly as the lips.
With our hands we invite, we repel,
we entreat, we wiring them in grief
or clap them in joy, or spread them
abroad in benediction. The malforma-
ton of the giants hand in the text
glorifes the usual hand. Fashioned
of God more exquisitely and wondrous-
ly than any human mechanism that
was ever contrived. I charge you to
use it for God and the lifting of the
world out Of its moral predicament.
With the timid and for their encour-
agement, shake hands. With the trou-
bled, in warm-hearted sympat thy,
shake hands. With the young man
just entering business and discouraged
at the small sales and the large ex-
penses, shake hands With the child
who is new from God and 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 hands. Across cradles and dy-
ing beds and graves. shake hands.
With your enemies who have done all
to defame and hurt you, brit whom
you can afford to forgive, shake hands.
At the door of the churches where peo-
pie come in, and at the door Of
churches where people go out, shake
hands. Let pulpit shake hands with
pew and Sabbath day shake hands
with week day, and earth shake hands
with heaven. Oh, the strange, the
mighty, the underlined, the mysterious,
the eternal power of an honest hand
shaking! The difference between
lnSSe lIluGS anu the ullIouD1dl times IS
that now some shake hands, but then
all will shake hands, throne and foot
stool, across seas, nation with nation,
God and man, church militant and
| church triumphant.
Yea, the malformat ion 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
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 adjustab BILE
! arch, a yielding arch, flying arch,
and ready for movements innumer-
able. The human foot, so fashioned
as to enable a man to stand upright
as no other creature, and leave the
hand that would otherwise have to
Lo1x e.