The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-02-02

which will never again occur and con-
science in its wrath pouncing upon the
soul and all the past horror, only to
be surpassed by the approaching hor-
rOr. So a man wrings his hands over
the casket of a dead wife whom he has
cruelty treated. So a man wrings his
hands at the fate of sons and daughters
whose prospects have been ruined by
his inebriety and neglect and depravity.
So the sinner wrung his hands when
after life full of offers of pardon and
peace and heaven he dies without hope.
When there are sorrows too poignant
for lamentation on the lip and too hot
for the tear glands to write in letters
of crystal on the cheek, the hand re-
cites the tragedy with more emphasis
than anything in Macbeth" and King
Lear"
Worse than the wringing of the
hands was the punishment that Gran
mer gave his right hand when he put it
in the fire of the stake and without
finching said: "Forasmuch as my
hand offended in writing contrary TO
my heart, my hand shall therefore be
the first punished. 1t shall be the first
burned. This was the hand that wrote
it,"
OF course there is a wicked shak
ing of hands, and Solomon refers to il
when he says: Though hand join i'll
hand, the wicked shall not be unpun.
ished." Shake hands in conspiracy to
damage individual or community or Ia
tion, shake hands to defraud, shake
hands to stand by each other in wrong
doing. You help me stuff this bal
lot box, and / will see that when l am
in power you shall have promotion.
You help me in my infamy, and l will
help you in your infamy. Oh, that is
PROCLAMATION of a holy rite; that is sac
rilege against a Divine arrangement;
that is gripping your own destruction
Plate and Herod, though antagonists
before, shook hands over Christ's pro
jected assassination.
But shake hands the way William
Penn shook hands with the Indians
for their civilization. Shake hands the
way Missionary Carey shook hands
with the Hindoos, for whose salvation
he became a lifetime exile. Shake
hands the way Havelock shook hands
with besieged women at Lucknow
whom he had come to save from mas
sacre. Shake hands as David BrainerG
did with the American Indians whom
he offered a glorious Heaven through
the Gospel. Shake hands as Lincoln
shook hands with the'agitated mother
to whom he gave back the boy who
had fallen asleep from overfatigue as
4 sentinel. Shake hands as during the
civil war Anna Ross shook hands with
the wounded soldier in Cooper Shop
hospital, Philadelphia. Shake hands as
Van Meter, the city evangelist, shook
hands with the waif of the street com
ing penitent into the midnight mis-
sion. Shake hands as heaven shook
hands with earth that night when
doxology in the gallery of clouds woke
the Bethlehem shepherds.
But it is not always in such glad
greeting that we can employ our right
hand. Ais, that so often we have to
employ the hand in farewell saluta-
tion. If your right hand retained
some impress of alI such uses, it would
be volume of bereayements. Oh, the
good-bys in which your right hand has
Good-by at the steam
boat wharf. Good-by at the rail train
window. Good-by before the opening
of the battle. Good-by at the dying
pillow We all needed grace for such
handshaking, though our hand was
strong and their hand was weak, and
we will need grace for the coming good
bys, and that grace we had better seek
while amid the felicities of health and
homes unbroken. Thank God, there
will be no good-by in Heaven.
Again, the hand is the chief executive
IF the soul when employed in benedic-
ton. No gesture of the human hand
means more than the outstretched ges-
ture. In many of our religious denom
nations we are not permitted to pro-
nounce an apostolic benediction until
we have been regularly ordained as
ministers of the gospel, but there are
kinds of benediction that you may all
pronounce without especial permission
from presbytery or conference or con-
7ention. You have a right to spread
abroad both right and left hand in be-
slowing a blessing of kindness and
good will upon all you meet. With
both hands bless the children. Take
hem in your arms and kiss their fair
cheek. Take with them a round of
merriment in the room before you
cave it, and by prayer put them in the
arms of the Christ, to go to whom in
1lden time they struggled to get out OF
the arms of their mothers. God bless |
he cradles and high chairs and nurser-
es all around the world.
Extend your hands in benediction for |
he aged. Take their counsel and ask |
heir prayers, and smooth the path |
Down the declivities. By neglect and |
lntilial demeanor add no wrinkles to |
heir brow, no more stoop to their |
houlders. They have their hand on |
he latch of the door through which |
hey will soon go out of sight of your |
homes and churches. May the mantles |
If Elijah fall upon the Elijahsl Spread |
our hand for the benediction upon all |
he men and women in the tug of life, |
many of them tired and buffeted and |
isheartened. Never go out of a store |
,r shop or office or field without pro-
ouncing a benediction.
And what better use can l make of |
ny hands, which are the CHIEF execu-
i've officer of my soul, than now to |
pread them abroad in the apostolic |
which has been pronounced |
or centuries and over hundreds of |
thousands of assemblages, at corona
ions and obsequies, as harvest homes |
ind on fast days. by all the minister's of |
he Gospel in the past as it viii be by |
III ministers of the Gospel until the |
.hurch militant reaches up its right |
land to take the right hand of the
'hurch triumphant; a benediction |