Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-01-29


crushed or at Chapultepec or Soutl
Mountain or San Juan Hill or Sedan
lost it.
And in passing let me say that h'
who has the weapon of the hand unin
jured and in full use needs no other
You towards who walk with SWORD
cane or carry pistol in your hip peck
ct had better lay aside your deadly
weapon. At the frontier or in barbar
GUS lands or as an officer of the law
about to make an arrest such arming
may be necessary, but no citizen NOV
ing in these civilized regions needs
such reinforcement. If you are afraid
to go down these streets or along these
country roads without dagger or fire
arms, better ask your grandmother to
go with you armed with scissors and
knitting needle. What towards, if not
what intended murderers, uselessly to
carry weapons of death! In our two
hands God gave us all the weapons we
need to carry.
Asylums of Mercy.
Again, the hand is the chief execu-
tive officer of the soul for affording
help. Just see how that hand is con-
structed! How easily you can lower it
to raise the fallen. How easily it is
extended to feel the invalid's pulse, or
gently wipe away the tear of orphan
age, or contribute aims, or smooth the
excited brow, or beckon into safety!
Oh, the helping hands! There are hun
dreds Of thousands Of them, and the
world wants at least 1905 100000 Of
them. Hands to bless others; hands to
rescue others; hands to save others.
What are all these schools and church
es and asylums Of mercy? Outstretch-
ed hands. What are all those hands
distributing tracts and carrying medi-
cines and trying to cure blind eyes and
deaf ears and broken bones and disor-
dered intellects and maynard sons?
Helping hands. Let each one of us
add to that number, if we have two,
Or if through casualty only one add
that one. If these hands which we
have SO long kept thrust into pockets
through Incidence or folded in indiffer-
ence or employed in writing wrong
things or doing mean things or heaving
up obstacles in the way Of righteous
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 morn
and worth clapping in eternal gladness
over a world redeemed.
The great artists Of the ages-Ra-
phael and Leonardo da Vinci and
Quentin Matsys and Rembrandt and
Albert Durer and Titian-have done
their best in picturing the face of
Christ. but none except AIRY Scheffer
seems to have put much stress upon
the hand Of Christ. Indeed, the mercy
Of that hand, the gentleness of that
hand, is beyond all artistic portrayal.
Some of his miracles he performed by
word Of mouth and without touching
the subject before him, but most Of
them he performed through the hand.
Was the dead damsel to be raised to
life? "He took her by the hand" Was
the blind man to have optic nerve re-
stored? Gle took him by the hand"
Was the demon to be exercised from
suffering man? ''He took him by the
hand" The people saw this and be-
sought him to put his hand upon their
afflicted ones.
The Lords Sympathy.
His own hands free, see how the
Lord sympathized with the man who
had lost the use Of his hand. 1t was a
case of atrophy, a wasting away until
the arm and hand had been reduced in
size beyond any medical or surgical
restoration. Moreover, it was his right
hand, the most important of the two,
for the left side in all it's parts is weak
er than the right side, and we invOlun-
tarily in any exigency put out the right
hand because we know it is the best
hand. So that poor man had lost more
than half Of his physical armament.
1t would not have been so bad if it
had been the left hand. But Christ
looked at that shriveled up right hand
dangling uselessly at the mans side
and then cried out with a voice that
had omnipotence in it, "Stretch forth
thy hand" and the record is, "He
stretched it forth whole as the other"
The blood rushed through the shrunk-
en- veins, and the shortened muscles
and the dead nerves thrill
ed, and the lifeless fingers tingled with
circulation, and the restored
man held up in the presence of the
skeptical PhariseeS one of Jehovah'S
perfect hand. No Won
der that story is put three times in the
Bible, so that If a sailor were cast
away on a barren island or soldiers
New Testament got mutilated in battle
and whole pages are destroyed the
or wounded man in hos
pital would probably have at least one
Of those three radiant stories of what
Christ thought Of the human hand.
How often has the hand decided a
destiny! Mary, queen Of Scots, was
escaping from Imprisonment at Loeb
lever in the dress of laundress and
ttiolzl1r