Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-02-22
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

Hand-Our Physical structure Proc f
of Divine Wisdom-The Extended
Hand the Symbol of In finite Mercy.
Copyright. Louis Klopsch 1900
WASHINGTON, d. C.-The discourse OF Dr.
Talmage is lesson OF gratitude for that
| which none OF lis fully appreciate and
shows the Divine meaning In our physical
| structures; text, 1 Corinthians Kill, 81, 1.-The
eye cannot say unto the hand. I have no
nee,l OF thee.''
These words suggest that some time two
very important parts of 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-
| tem How far can see, taking In spring
morning and midnight aurora! Compared
! with myself what IN insignificant thing is
| the human hand! l look down upon it,
There it hangs, swinging at the side, u
clump of muscles and nerves, and it can
not SEQ an inch either way. 1t has no lus-
ter compared with that which l beam
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
sightlcss 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
concordance, does tho 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
Seon, came home from the battlefield OF
Waterloo, where he had been amputating
limbs and binding up gunshot fractures,
and wrote Il book entitled Tho Hand Its
Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evil
dencing Design But it is so profound n
book that only 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-
ton it was intended to make OF the wis
dom and goodness of God. You can see ry
their structure that shoulder and elbow
and forearm are getting ready for the cul-
mination in the hnnd. There is your
wrist, with its eight bones and their liga-
ments in two rows. That wrist with its
bands of ilbres and it's hinged joint and
turning on two aXes-on the larger axis
moving backward and forward and on the
smaller axis turning nearly around. Aud
there is the palm of your hand with its
five bones, each having II shaft aud two
terminations. There are the fingers of
that hand, with fourteen bones, each fin
ger with its curiously wrought tendons,
five of the bones 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
armptt to the forty-siX muscles,
so that all are under mastery.
The whole anatomy OF your hand as
complex. as intricate, as symmetrical, as
useful, as God could make 1t. What can 1t
not do? 1t can climb, 1t can lift, 1t can
push, it can repe!, it can menace, it can
cluch, 1t can deny, 1t can affirm, it can eX-
tend, 1t can weave, it can battle it can
smite, it can humble, it can exalt, Il can
soothe, it. can throw, it can defy. it can
wave, 1t can imprecate, it can pray.
A 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 living action
all its nerves and muscles and bones and
tondons and tissues and phalanges display
what God invented when He invented the
human hand! Two specimens OF it we
carry at our side from the time when In
infancy we open them to take Il toy till in
the last hour Of II long life we extend them
in bitter farewell.
hand as the chief executive officer of the
soul, whether lifted for defense, or en-
tended for help, or busted 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, deienseless and at the
mercy of brutal or rufIlan attack. The
right yea. the duty-of self defense is so
evident 1t needs no augmentation. 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,
sooner drawn than any sword. Its fingers
bent into the palm, it becomes II bolt of
demolition.
What defense it is against accident!
There have been times in all our expert
ences when We have with tho hand warded
on something that would have eXtinguished
our eyesight or broken the skull or crippled
us for lifetime. While the eve has dis
covered the approaching peril the hand
has beaten 1t back or struck it down or
disarmed 1t. Every day thank God for
youE riRnt manu-, anu IL you want TO near
Its eulogy ask him who in swift revolution
Of machinery has had it crushed or at
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 uninjured 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
bnrbarous lands or as an officer of the law
about to make an arrest such arming may
be necessary, but no citizen moving in
these civilized regions needs such rein
forcemsnt. III 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 murderers,
uselessy to carry weapons OF DEATH In
our two bands God gave us all the weapons
we need to carry.
Again, the hand is the chief executive Of
ficer OF the soul for atfording help. Just
see how that hand Is constructed! How
easily you can lower it to raise the fallenl
How easily it is extended to feel the in
valid's pulse, or gently wipe away the tear