The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-02-09

tive officer of the soul for affording
help. lust see how that AND is con-
structed. How easily You can lower 1t
to raise the fallen. How easily il is ex-
tended to feel the invalid's pulse, or
gently wipe away the tear Of orphan
age, ar contribute aims, or smooth the
excited brow, or beckon into safety. o
of thousands Of them, and the world
wants at least 1,600, 100000 of them.
Hands to bless others, hands to rescue
others, hands to save others. What are
all these hoo n churches and asy-
lums of mercy? Outstretched hands.
What are all those hands distributing
tracts n carrying medicines and try
ing to cure bin eyes amn deaf ears
and broker bones and disordered in
~tellects and hayward sons? Helping
hands. Let each one OF ns d two to
that number If We have two, or, II
through casualty only one add that
one. II these hands which we have kept
SO long thrust into pockets Through in
dolence or folded in Indifference or en-
ployed in writing wrong things or do
ing mean things or heaving up obsta-
cles in the way of righteous progress
might from this hour be consecrated to
helping others out and up n on, they
would be hands worth being raised on
the resurrection morn and worth clap
ping in eternal gladness over a world
redeemed
The great artists of the ages-Ra-
phael and da Vinci and
Quentin Matsys and Rembrandt and
Albert Durer and Titian-have done
their best p%icturing 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 g~entleness of that hand, is
beyond all artistic portrayal. Some or
his miracles ne performed by word OF
mouth and without touching the SUBJ
ject before him, but most of them ne
performed through the hand. Was the
lead damsel to be raised to life? He
took her by the hand." Was the blind
man to have optic nerve restored? He
took him by the hand" Was the demon
to be exercised from a suffering man?
He took him by the hand" The people
saw this and besought him to put his
hand on their afflicted ones.
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 ueen reduced in size
beyond any medical or surgical reStOr-
alton. Moreover, it was his right hand,
the most important of the two, for the
left side in all it's parts is weaker than
the right side, and We invOluntarily,
III ILL., CAiSClINyp pun Jul liz il6iN 1iAiie
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 locke
at that shriveled up right hand dang
ling uselessly at the nan side and
then cried out with a voice that had
omnipotence in it, Stretch forth thy
hand!" and the record is h stretched
it forth whole as the other" The
blood rushed through the
veins, and the shortened muscles
heightened, and the dead nerves thrill
ed, and the lifeless fingers tingled with
resumed circulation, and the restored
man held up in the presence of the
skeptical Pharisees one of J~ehovah's
masterpieces perfect hand. No
wonder that story is put three times in
the Bible, so that if a sailor were cast
away on a barren island, or a soldiers
| New Testament got mutilated in bat
tie and whole pages are destroyed, the
Shipwrecked 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
THE HAND OF DESTINY.
How often has the hand decided "a
destiny, Mary, queen of Scots, was
escaping from Imprisonment at LOch-
lever in the dress of a and
had her face thickly yelled. When a
boatman attempted to remove the veil
she put up her hand to defend it and
so revealed the white and fair hand Of
a queen, and so the boatman took her
back to captivity. Again and again
it has been demonstrated that the hand
hath a language is certainly as the
mouth. Palmistry, or the science by
which character and destiny are read
i'm the lines of the hand, is yet crude
and uncertain and unsatisfactory, but
as aStrology was the mother of aStron-
omy and alchemy was the mother Of
chemistry, it may be that palmistry
will result in a science yet to be born.
Again, as the chief executive officer
of the soul. behold the hand busy in
the arts! What a comparatively duh
place this world would be without pic
lures, without statuary, without music,
without architecture. Have you ever
realized what so seeming miracles are
in the five minutes lingering of piano
or harp orf1ute? Who but the eternal
God could make a hand capable of that
swift sweep Of h keys, or that quick
feeling of the pulse of a flute, or the
twirl of the fingers mid the strings Of
the harp? All the composers of music
who dreamed out the oratories and
the cantatas of the ages would have