The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1900-02-02
VALUE OF THE HAND.
DIR. Talmage Calls It the Souls
Executive Officer.
Its COnstruction illustrates Divine
wisdom md It's Right Employ
ment Makes Mankind Bet
ter and Happier.
copyright. 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l
Washington, jan Is

lesson of gratitude for that which
Lone of us fully appreciate and shows
the divine meaning in our physical
structure; text. | Corinthians 1921:
The eye cannot say unto the hand
1 have no need Of thee"
These words suggest that some time
two very important parts OF Nhe hu-
man body got into controversy, and the
eve became insolent and full of bragg
gaducio and said: II am an independ-
entapart OF the human system. How
Far can see. taking in spring morning
and midnight auroral Compared with
myself. what an insignificant thing is
Tue human hand. look down upon H.
There II hangs, swinging AT the SIDE
n clump OF muscles and nerves. and
H. cannot see an inch either way. u
has no luster compared with that when
/ beam forth" what senseless talk.
esponds the hand. You, the eye,
would have been put out long ago but
for me. without the food l have
earned you would have been sight
less and starved to death years ago
You cannot do without me any better
than can do without you" AT this
part Of the disputation Paul OF my
text breaks in and ends the controversy
by declaring; THE eye cannot say
unto the hand. ! have no need Of thee
Fourteen hundred and thirty-three
times, as nearly as can count by aid
of concordance, does the Bible speak
OF the human hand. We are all IA
miliar with the hand. but the man has
vet to be born who can fully under
stand this wondrous instrument. Sir
Charles Bell, the English surgeon, came
home from the battlefield Of Water
loo, where he had been amputating
limbs and binding up gunshot frac-
lures, and wrote a book entitled: The
Hand; Its Mechanism and Vital En-
dowments as Evidencing Design" But
il is so profound a book that only
scientist who is familiar with the
technicalities OF anatomy and physi.
oiogy can understand it.
So we are all going on opening and
shutting this divinely constructed in
strument--the hand-igporan of much
OF the revelation il was intended to
make OF the wisdom and goodness OF
God. You can see by their structure
that shoulder and elbow and forearm
are getting ready for the elimination
In the hand. There is your wrist, with
Its eight bones and their ligaments in
two rows. That wrist, with its bands
OF fibers and its hinged joint and turn
ing on two axes-on the larger axis
moving backward and forward, and on
tAe smaller axis turning nearly round.
Aud there is the palm of your hand,
with its five bones, each having a shaft
aud two examinations. There are the
fingers OF that hand. with IA bones,
each finger with its curiousiy wrought
tendons. five of the bones with end
ing roughened for the Judgment of the
nails. There is the thumb. coming
from opposite direction to meet the
fingers, so that in conjunction they
may clasp aud hold fast that which
you desire TO take. There are the long
nerves running from the armpit to the
&c muscles, so chat all are under mas
terry. The whole anatomy Of your hand
as complex, as intricate, as symmet-
rical, as useful as God could make IT,
What can it not doP 1t can climb, it
can lift, il can push, it can repel, it
can menace, il can clutch, il can deny,
IL can affirm, it can extend, il can
weave, il can battle, IL can smite, il can
humble. il can eXalt, il can soothe, il
can throw, it can defy, it can wave,
il can imprecate, it can pray.
A skeleton of the hand traced on
blackboard, or unroled in diagram, or
hung in medical museum, is nightly
illustrative of the divine wisdom and
goodness. but how much more pleas
ing when in living action all its nerves
and muscles and bones and tendons
and tissues and phalanges display
what God invented when lie invented
the human hand. Two specimens of
il we carry at our side from the time
when in infancy we open them TO take
toy till in the last hour Of "A long life
we rNtcnd them in bitter farewell
With the divine help ! shall speak
of the hand as the chief executive Off
Ger of the soul, whether lifted for de-
Tense, or extended for help, or busted
in the arts, or offered in salutation, or
wrung in despair, or spread abroad in
benedlction. God evidently intended
all the lower orders of living beings
should have weapons of defense, and
hence the elephants tusk, and the
horses hoof, and the cows horn, and
the lions tooth, and the insects sting.
Having given weapons of defense to
the lower orders of living beings, of
course He would not leave man, the
highes; order of living beings on earth,
defenseless and at the mercy of brutal
or rufIian attack. The right, yea, the
duty of self-defense is so evident it
needs no augmentation. The hand
is the divinely fashioned weapon of
defense. We may seldom have 10 use
IL for such purposes, but the fact that
we are so equipped assures safety.
The hand is a WeaDOn sooner lOnded