Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1900-03-09
VALUE OF THE HAND.
Dr. Talmage Calls It the Souls
Executive Officer.
ats Coustructis. illustrates Divine
wisdom and Its Right Employ
ment Makes Mankind Ret
ter and Happier.
Copyright. 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l
Washington,

hone OF US iuIiy appreciate anu suo"S
the divine meaning in our physical
structure; text. l Corinthians 1891:
THE eye cannot say unto the hand,
| have no need of thee"
These words suggest that some time
two very important parts OF the HUI
man body got into controversy, and the
eye became insolent and full OF brag-
gadocio and said: IL am an independ-
ent part of the human system. How
far can see, taking in spring morning
and midnight aurora! Compared with
myself, what an Insignificant thing is
the human hand. look down upon it.
There it hangs, swinging at the side,
a clump of muscles and nerves, and
it cannot see an inch either way. II
has no luster compared with that which
| 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 sight
less and starved to death years ago.
You cannot do without me any better
than I 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
times, as nearly as | can count by aid
of concordance, does the Bible speak
of the human hand. We are all ia
miliar with the hand, but the man has
vet to be born who can fully under
stand this wondrous instrument. Sir
Charles Bell. the English surgeon, came
home from the battlefield of Water
loo, where he had been amputating
limbs and binding up gunshot frac-
lures, and wrote a book entitled: THE
Hand; Its Mechanism and Vital En-
dowments as Evidenciug Design" But
1t is SO profound book that only a
scientist who is familiar with the
techpicalities of anatomy and physi-
ology can understand it.
So we are all going on opening and
shutting this divinely constructed in
strument-the hand-ignorant Of much
OF the revelation it was intended to
make of the wisdom and goodness OF
God. You can see by their structure
that shoulder and elbow and forearm
are getting ready for the elimination
in the hand. There is your wrist, with
its eight bones and their ligaments in
two rows. That wrist, with its bands
of fibers and its hinged joint and turn
ing on two axes-on the larger axis
moving backward and forward, and on
toe smaller axis turning nearly round.
And there is the palm Of your hand,
with its five bones, each having shaft
and two examinations. There are the
fingers of that hand, with IA bones,
each finger with its curiously wrought
tendons, five Of the bones with end
ing roughened for the lodgment of the
nails. There is the thumb, coming
from opposite direction to meet the
fingers, so that in conjunction they
may clasp and hold fast that which
| you desire to take. There are the long
nerves running from the armpit to the
&c muscles, so that all are under mas
terry. The whole anatomy of your hand
as complex, as intricate, as symmet-
rical, as useful as God could make it.
What can it not do? 1t can climb, it
can lift, it can push, it can repel, it
can menace, it can clutch, it can deny,
il can affirm, it can extend, it can
weave, it can battle, it can smite, il can
humble, it can exalt, it can soothe, il
can throw, it can defy, 1t can wave,
1t can imprecate, it can pray.
skeleton of the hand traced on
blackboard, or unrolled in diagram, or
hung in medical museum, is nightly
illustrative of the divine wisdom and
goodness, but how much more pleas
ing when in living action all its nerves
and muscles and bones and tendons
and tissues and phalanges display
what God invented when He invented
the human hand. Two specimens of
II we carry at our side from the time
when in infancy we open them to take
toy till in the last hour of long life
we extend them in bitter farewell.
With the divine help l shall speak
of the hand as the chief executive Off
Ger Of the soul, whether lifted for de-
tense, or extended for help, or busted
in the arts, or offered in salutation, or
wrung in despair, or spread abroad in
benedction. God evidently intended
all the lower orders of living 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 tc
the lower orders of living beings, OF
course He would not leave man, the
highes: order of living beings on earth
defenseless and at the mercy of brutal
or ruffian attack. The right, yea, the
duty of self-defense is SO evident II
needs no augmentation. The hand
is the divinely fashioned weapon oil
defense. We may seldom have to use
1t for such purposes, but the fact thai
we are SO equipped insures safety
The hand is a weapon sooner loaded
than any gun. sooner drawn than any
sword. Its fingers bent into the palm
II becomes bolt OF demolition. Sol
omon speaks of the hands as The
keepers Of the house." or the defend
ers. Surely such castle as the hu
man body needs such protection as thu
hand alone can offer.
What defense it is against acct
dentl There have been times in al
Cur experiences when we have will
the hand wsrded of something tina
would have 'extinguished our eye