The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-02-09
THE HANDS MISSION.
DR.. TALMAGE CALLS 1T THE SOULS
EXECUTIVE OFFICER.
Wisdom, and Its Right Employment
Makes Better and Happier.

Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1900
The discourse of DR.. Talmage is a
lesson Of gratitude for that which none
of us fully appreciate and shows the
divine meaning in our physical struc-
ture; text, 1 Corinthians xii, q, THE
eye cannot say unto the hand, l have
no need of thee"
These words suggest that some time
W very important parts OF the human
body got into controversy, and the eye
became insolent and full of bragadocio
and said: Il am an independent part of
the human system. How far 1 can see,
taking in spring morning and midnight
aurora Compared with myself, VIA
an Insignificant thing is the human
hand 1 look down upon it. There it
hangs, swinging at the side, a clump of
muscles and nerves, and cannot see an
inch either way 1t has no luster COM
pared with that which l beam forth"
what senseless talk" responds the
hand YOU, the eye, would ave been
put out long ago but for me. Without
the food l ave earned you would have
been SightlesS and starved to death
years ago. You cannot do without me
any better than 1 can do without you"
AT this part of the disputation Paul of
my text breaks in and ends the con-
troVersy by declaring, The eye cannot
say unto the hand, l have no need or
thee"
Fourteen hundred and thirty-three
times, as nearly as l can count by aid
of concordance, does this 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 instrument. Sir Charles Bell,
the English surgeon, came home from
&In hntfIaGal1 nf XTntor1nn yyhara he
had been amputating limbs and bind
ing up gunshot fractures, and wrote a
book entitled The Hand: Its Mechan-
ism and Vital Endowments as Evil
dencing Design" But it is so profound
q book that only a scientist who is ia
miliar with the technicalities of an
atomy and physiology can under
stand it.
So we are all going on opening and
shutting this divinely constructed in
strument-the hand-ignordnt Oh much
of the revelation it was intended to
make of the wisdom and goodness or
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
it's eight bones and their ligaments in
two rows. That wrist, with it's bands of
fibers and it's hinged joint n turning
on two axis-on the larger axis NOV
Ing ana FORWARD, anu Oh l1e
smaller axis turning nearly And
there is the palm of your hand, with
it's five bones, each having a shaft and
two teminatiOnS. There are the fingers
of tina hand, with IA bones, each finger
with it's ~curiously wrought
five of the bones with ending rough
ened for the Judgment of the nails.
There is the thumb, coming from oppo-
site direction to meet the fingers, SO
that in conjunction they may clasp and
hold fast that which they desire to
take. There are the long nerves run
ming from the armpit to the 46 mus
cles, so that all Under mastery. The
whole anatomy of your hand, as COM
pick, as intricate, as symmetrical, 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, it affirm,
it can extend, it can weave, 1t can
battle, it can smite, it can humble, it
can exalt, it can soothe, it can throw,
it can defy. it a wave, 1t can lmpre-
cate, it can pray.
ILLUSTRATES DIVINE WISDOM.
A 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 pleasing
when in living action all it's nerves and
muscles and bones and endOn and
tissues and phalanges display what
God invented when he invented the hui
man hand. Two specimens of it we
carry at our side from the time when
in infancy we open them to take a toy
till in the last hour of a long life we
extend them in bitter farewell.
With the divine help l shall speak of
the hand as the chief executive officer
of the SOUL, whether lifted for defense,
or extended for help, or busted in the
arts, or offered in salutation, or wrung
in despair, or spread abroad in bene-
dition. 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, n the lions
tooth, and the insects sting. Having
given of defense to the lower
orders Of living beings, OF course ne
would not leave man, the highest order
of living beings on earth, ~defenseIess
and at the mercy of brutal or ruttian
attack. The right, yea, the duty OF sell
defense is so evident it needs no argu-
mentation. 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 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, it begins a bolt of de-
molition. Solomon speaks of the hands
as the keepers of the house" or the
defenders. Surely, such a castle as the
human body needs such protection as
the hand alone can offer.
What q defense it is against accident.
There have been times in all our rxpe-
riences when we have with the hand
warded of something that would have
ex~tinsuished our eyesight,or broken the
skull, or crippled is for a lifetime
while the eye has discovered the ap-
preaching peril, the hand has beaten II
back. OF struck it down, or disarmed II
Every day thank God for your right
hand, and if you want to- hear Its
eulogy ask him who in swift revolution
OF machinery has had it crushed, or al
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 min
jured and in full use needs no other
You towards who walk with sword