Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1900-02-07
SERMON
Rev. DR.. Caln1aqe

Subject: The Wonders OF the Hamar
Hand-Our Phvsical Structure Proc
OF Divine wisdom-The Extended
Hand the Symbol Of In finite Mercy.
Copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1901
WASHINGTON, D. C.-The discourse OF d.
Talmage is a lesson OF gratitude for that
which none OF US fully appreciate and
shows the Divine meaning In our physica
structure; text, I Corinthians Kill, 81, "Tht
eye cannot say unto the hand. have nc
need of thee"
These words suggest that some time ewc
very important parts the human body got
into controversy, and the eye became inso.
lent and full OF braggadocio and said: 81
am an independent part OF the human sys-
tenn. How far! can see. taking In spring
morning and midnight aurorai Compared
with myself what an Insignificant thing is
the human handl 1 look down upon it.
There 1t hangs, swinging at the side, a
clump OF muscles and nerves, and 1t can
not see an inch either way. 1t has no lus-
ter compared with that which I bean
FORTH" "What senseless talk" responds
the hand. "YOu, the eye, would have been
put out long ago but for me. Without the
food have earned you would have been
sightless and starved to death years ago.
You cannot do without me any better than
can do without you." At this part of the
ends the controversy by declaring, "The
eye cannot say unto the hand, have no
need Of thee"
Fourteen hundred and thirty-thre.
times, as nearly as I can count by aid Of
concordance, does the Bible speak Of the
human hand. We are all familiar with the
hand, but the man has yet to be born who
can fully understand this wondrous instru-
ment. Sir Charles Bell, the English sur
geon, came home from the battlefield Of
Waterloo, where he had been amputating
limbs and binding up gunshot fractures,
and wrote a book entitled 1.-The Hand: Its
Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evil
dencing Design" But 1t Is so profound a
book that only a scientist who is familiar
with the technicalities of anatomy and
physiology can understand 1t.
So we are all going on opening and shut
ting this divineIy constructed instrument,
the hand, ignorant OF much OF the revela-
tion 1t was intended to make Of the wis.,
dom and goodness Of God. You can see ry
their structure that shoulder and elbow
mInation in the hand. There is your
wrist, with its eight bones aud their liga-
ments in two rows. That wrist with its
bands Of fbres and its hinged joint and
turning on two axes-on the larger axis
moving backwar and forward and on the
smaller axis turning nearly around. And
there is the palm OF your hand, with its
five bones, each having a shaft and two
Examinations. There are the fingers OF
that hand. with fourteen bones, each fin
five Of the homes with ending roughened
for the lodgment of the nails. There is
the thumb, coming from opposite direc-
tion to meet the fingers, so that in con-
junction they may clasp and hold fast that
which you desire to take. There are
armpit to the forty-six muscles.
so that all are under mastery.
The whole anatomy OF your hand as
complex, as intricate, as symmetrica', as
useful, as God could make 1t. What can it
not dOf 1t can climb. it can lift, :. can
cluch, 1t can deny, 1t can affirm, 1t can ex-
tend, 1t can weave. 1t can bathe, 1t can
smite, 1t can humble, 1t can exalt, 1t can
soothe. 1t can throw. It can defy. 1t can
wave, 1t can imprecste, 1t can pray.
skeleton Of the hand traced on black
BOARD or unrolled in diagram or hung in
medical museum is nightly illustrative of
the Divine wisdom and goodness but how
much more pleasing when in livI.g action
all its nerves and muscles and bones and
tendons and tissues and phalanges display
what God invented when He invented the
human ha. Two specimens Of it we
carry at our side from the time when in
infancy We open them to take toy till in
the last hour Of IA long life we extend them
in bitter farewell.
With the Divine help shall speak OF the
hand as the chief executive officer OF the
soul, whether lifted for defense, or ex-
tended for help, or tusied In the arts. or
offered in salutation, or wrung in despair
Or spread abroad In benediction. God evil
IDENTIFY intended all the lower order OF liv-
ing 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 highest order OF living
beings on earth, defenseless and at the
mercy Of brutal or ruf1an attack. The
right-yea. the duty-of self defense Is so
evident 1t needs no RECOMMENDATION. The
hand is the Divinely fashioned weapon of
defense. We may seldom have to use it
for such purposes, but the fact that We are
equipped insures safety. The hand is IA
weapon sooner loaded than any gun,
bent into the palm, 1t becomes bolt of
dem clifton.
What a defense 1t is against accidentI
There have been times in all our expert
ences when we have with the hand warded
OIL something that would have extinguished
our eyesight or broken the skull or crippled
us for a lifetime. While the eye has dis
has beaten it back or struck 1t down or
disarmed 1t. Every day thank God for
your right hand, and II you want to hear
its eulogy ask him who in swift revolution
Of machinery has had it crushed or Mt
Chapultepec or South Mountain or San
Juan Hill or Sedan lost 1t.
And In passing let me say that he who
has the weapon Of the hand uniDjured and
In full use needs no other. You towards
who walk with sword cane or carry pis-
tol in your hip pocket had better lay aside
your deadly weapon. At the frontier or in
n n l,,u la or na m nff1cpr nf ha la "
about to make an arrest such armfng may
be necessary, but no citizen moving In
these civilized regions needs such REIN
forcement. II you are afraid to go down
these streets or along these country roads
without dagger or firearms, better ask
your grandmother to go with YOU armed
with scissors and knitting needle. What
towards, IL not what intended murdereIs,
uselessly to carry weapons OF death! In
our two hands God gave us all the weapons
we need to carry.
Again, the hand Is the chief executive Of
hcer OF the soul for affording help. Just
see how that hand ia constructed H "
easily you can lower it to raise the falleni
How easily 1t is extended to feel the in
valid's pulse. or gently wipe away the tear
smooth the excited brow, or beckon into
safety! Oh, the helping handsl There are
hundreds OF thousands of them, and the
world wants at least 600 900 900 Of them.
Hands to bless others, hands TO rescue
others, hands to save others. What are
all these schools and churches and asylums
of mercy? Outstretched hands. What are
all those hands distributing tracts and car
rying medicines and trying to cure blind
eyes and deaf ears and broken bones and
disordered intellects and wayward sons?
Helping hands. Let each one OF us add to
that number, II we have two, or IL through
casualty only one add that one. II these
hands which we have SO long kept thrust
into pockets through fndolence or folded
in Indifference or employed in writing
wrong things or doing mean things or
heaving up obstacles In the way OF righte-
Gus progress might from this hour be con-
secrated to helping others out and up and
on, they would be hands worth being
raised on the resurrection m orn and worth
clapping In eternal gladness over u world
redeemed.
The great artists OF the aees-Raphaet
and Leonardo de Vinci and Quentin Matsys
I'm and Til.