The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1900-02-03

zen moving in these civilized regions
needs such reinforcement. II you are
afraid TO go down these streets OF
along these country roads without
dagger or firearms, better ask your
grandmother to go with you armed
with scissors and knitting needle
What towards, If not intended muir
derers, uselessly 10 carry weapons OF
death! In our two hands God gave us
all the weapons we need to carry!
Again, the hand is the chief exec
utive officer of the soul for affording
help. Just see how that hand is con-
structed. How easily you can lower
1T to raise the fallen. How easily II
is extended to feel the invalid's pulse,
CT gently wipe away the tear of or
phanage, or contribute aims, OF
smooth the excited brow, or beckon
into safety. . the helping hands!
There are hundreds of thousands OF
them. and the world wants at least
1000, 000,0 900 of them. Hands to bless
others, hands to rescue others, hands
to save others. What are all these
schools and churches and asylums OF
mcrci? Outstretched hands. What
are all those hands distributing tracts
and carrying medicines and trying to
cure blind eyes and deaf ears and
broken bones and disordered intel
lects and hayward sons? Helping
hands. Let each one of us add two
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 OF folded in indif-
ference or employed in writing wrong
things or doing mean things or heav-
ing up obstacles in the way of right
cons progress might from this hour
be consecrated to helping others out
and up and ON. they would be hands
worth being raised on the resurrec-
ton morn and worth clapping in eter-
nal gladness over world redeemed.
The great artists of the ages
Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci and
Quentin Matsys and Rembrandt and
Albert Durer and Titan - have done
their best 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 mir
acles He performed by word of mouth
and without touching the subject be-
fore Him, but most of them He per-
formed 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 restored? HE
took him by the hand" Was the demon
to be exercised from suffering man?
HE took him by the hand" The peo-
pie 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
case of atrophy, 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 more important of the.two,
for the left side in all its 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 arma-
ment. 1t would not have been so bad if
it had been the left hand. But Christ
looked at the shriveled up right hand
dangling uselessly at the mans side
and then cried out with voice that had
omnipotence in it: "Stretch forth thy
right 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
heightened, and the dead nerves
thrilled, and the lifeless fingers tingled
with resumed circulation, and the re-
stored man held up in the presence of
the skeptical Pharisee one of Jehovah's
masterpieces-a perfect hand. No won
der that story is put three times in the
Bible, SO that if u sailor were cast away
on a barren island, OF soldiers New
Testament got mutilated in battle and
whole pages are destroyed, the ship
wrecked or wounded man in hospital
would probably have at least one of
those three radiant stories of what
Christ thought of the human hand.
Do not eulogize the eye and ear at the
expense Of the hand, for the eye may be
blotted out, as in the case of Milton,
and yet his hand writes a paradise
Lost" or Samson Agonistes;" as in
the case of William Fl. Prescott, and yet
his hand may write the enchanting
Conquest of Peru" Or the ear may be
silenced forever, as in the case of Bee
thoven, and yet his hand put into i'm
mortal cadences the Ninth Sym
phony." Oh, the hand! The God-fash-
Toned hand! The triumphant hand!
1t is an open Bible of divine revelation,
and the five fingers are the Isaiah, and
the Ezekiel, and the David, and the
Micah, and the Paul of that almighty
A pastor in his sermon told how
little child appreciated the value of
his hand when he was told that on
the morrow it must be amputated in or
der to save his life. Hearing that, he
went to quiet place and prayed that
God would spare his hand. The sur
geon, coming the next day to do his
work, found the hand so much better
that amputation was postponed, and
The hand got well. The pastor, telling
Of this in a sermon, concluded by hold
ng up his hand and saying: THAT is
the very hand that was spared in an
'wer to prayer, and hold it up, mon
lment of Divine mercy"
Again, the hand is the chief execu-