REY. DR. TALMA6E
The Eminent New York Divines Sun -day
Sermon- . '
Subject: "Wing and Kan-'"
Text: "The likeness of the hands of a
man was under their wings." Ezekiel x., 21.
"While tossed on the sea between Australia
and Ceylon I first particularly noticed this
text, of which then and there I made memo
randum. This chapter is all aflutter with
cherubim. Who are the cherubim? An or
der of angels radiant, mighty, all knowing,
adoring, worshipful. When painter or sculp
tor tried in temple at Jerusalem or in mar
ble of E.ypt to represent the cherubim he
made them part lion or part ox or part
eagle. But much of that is an unintended
burlesque of the cherubim whose majesty
and speed and splendor we will never know
until lifted into their presence we behold
them for ourselves, as I pray by the pardon
ing grace of God we all may. But all the ac
counts Biblical and all the suppositions hu
man represent the cherubim with wings,
each winj? about seven feet long, vaster,
more imposing than any plumage that ever
floated in earthly atmosphere.
Condor in flight above Chimborazo, or
Rocky Mountain eagle aiming for the noon
day sun. or albatross in play with ocean
tempests, presents no such glory. We can
get an imperfect idea of the wing of cheru
- bim by the only wing we see the bird's
pinion which is the arm of the bird, but in
some respects more wondrous than the hu
man arm; with power of making itself more
light or more heavy, of- expansion and con
traction; defying all altitudes and all abysms;
the bird looking down with, pity upon boast
ing man as he t)ils up the sides of the Adi
rondacks, while the wing with a few strokes
Euts the highest crags far beneath claw and
eak. But the bird's wing is only a feeble
suggestion of cherubim's wing. The great
ness of that, the rapidity o't that, the
radiance of that, the Bible again and again
sets forth.
My attention is not more attracted by those
Wings than by what they reveal when lifted.
In two places in Ezekiel we are told there
were hands under the wings human hands,
hands like ours. "The likeness of the hands
of a man was under the wings." We have
all noticed the wing of the cherubim, but no
one seems yet to have noticed the human
hand under the wing. There are whole ser
mons, whole anthems, whole doxologies, whole
millenniums in that combination of hand
and wing. If this world is ever brought to
God, it will be by appreciation of the fact
that supernatural and human agencies are to
go together that which soars and that which
practically works, that which ascends the
heavens and that which reaches forth to
earth, the joining of the terrestrial and the
celestrial, the hand and the wing.
We see this union in thn (niisfnii.Hnn f
the Bible. The wing of inspiration is in
every chapter. What realms of the ran
somed earth did Isaiah fly over! Over what
battlefields for righteousness, what corona
tions, what dominions of gladness, what rain
bows around the throne did St. John hover!
But in every book of the Bible you just as
-certainly see the human hand that wrote it.
Moses, the lawyer, showing his hand in tne
Ten Commandments, the foundation of all
good legislation; Amos, the herdsman, show
ing his hand in similes drawn from fields
.and flocics: the fishermen apostles showing
their hand when writing about Gospel nets;
Luke, the physician; showing his hand by
Riving especial attention to diseases cured;
- Paul showing his scholarly hand by quoting
from heathen poets, ahd making arguments
about . the resurrection that stand as
firmly as on the day he planted them, and
bt. John shows his hand bv taking
his imagery from the appearance of the
wnght waters spread .around the island of
1 atmos at hour of sunset, when he speaks of
the sea of glass mingled with fire; scores of
hands writing the parables, the miracles,
the promises, the hosannas. the raptures, the
consolations, the woes of ages. Oh, the
Bible is so human, so full of heartbeats, so
sympathetic, so wet with tears, so trium
phant with palm branches, that it takes hold
of the human race as nothing else ever can
take hold of it. each writer in his own style
--Job, the scientific; Solomon, the royal
blooded; Jeremiah, the despondent; Daniel
the abstemious and heroic why, we know
their style so well that we need not look to
the top of the page to see who is the author.
No more conspicuous the uplifting wing of
inspiration than the hand, the warm hand
the flexible hand, the skillful hand of hu
man instrumentality. "The likeness of the
hands of a man was under the wings."
Again, behold this combination of my text
in all successful Christian work. We stand
or kneel in our pulpits and social meetings
and reformatory associations offering prayer
Now. if anything has wings, it is prayer. It
can fly farther and faster than anything I
can now think of. In one second of time
from where you sit it can fly to the throne of
God and alight in England. In one second
of time from where you sit it can fly to the
throne of God and alight in India. It can
girdle the earth in a shorter time than voucan
seal a letter, or clasp a belt, or hook an eye
Wings, whether that prayer starts from an
infant s tongue or the trembling lip of- a cen
tenarian, rising from the heart of a farmer's
wife standing at the dashing churn, or be
fore the hot breath of a country
oven, they soar away and pick
out of all the shipping of the earth cn all
the seas the craft on which her sailor bov
is voyaging. Yea. prayer can fly clear down
into the future. When the father of Queen
Victoria was dying, he asked that the infant
Jietoria might be brought while he sat up in
fced, and the babe was brought, and the
father prayed, Tf this child should live to
become Queen of England, may she rule in
the fear of God!" Having ended his praver.
he said, "Take the child away." But
all who know the history of Eng
land for the last fifty years know that
the prayer for that infant more than seventy
years ago has been answered, and with what
emphasis and affection millions of the
Queen's subjects have this day in chapels
and cathedrals, and sea, supplicated, "God
save the Queen!"
Prayer flie not onlyacross continents, but
across centuries. If prayer had only feet, it
might run here and there and do wonders.
But it has wings, and they are as radiant of
plume and as swift to rise or swoop or dart
or circle as the cherubim's wings which
swept through Ezekiel's vision. But, oh, my
friends, the prayer must have the hand un
der the wing, or it may amount to nothing.
The mother's hand, or the father's hand,
must write to the wayward .boy as soon as
you can hear how to address him. Christian
souls must contribute to the evangelism Of
that far off land for which they have been
praying. Stop singing "Fly abroad, thou
mighty Gospel," unless you are willing to
give something of your own means to make
it fly. Have you been praying for the salvr
tion of a young man's soul? That is right,
but also extend the hand of invitation to
come to a religious meeting.
It always excites our sympathy to see a
man with his hand in sling. We ask him:
"What is the matter? Hope it is not a
felon;" or, "Have your fingers been
crushed?" But nine out of ten of ail Chris
tians are going their life long with their
hand in a sling. They have been hurt by in
difference or wrong ideas of what is b6t.
or it is injured of conventlonalties, and they
never put forth that hand to lift or help or
rescue any one. They pray, and their prayer
has wings, but there is no hand under the
wings. From the very structure of the hod
we might make up our mind as to somO of
the things It was made for to hold fast, to
lift, to push, to pull, to help and to rescue.
And endowed with two hands, we might take
the broad hint that for others as well as for
ourselves we were to hold fast, to lift, to
push, to pull, to help, to rescue. Wondrous
hand! You know something of the "Bridge
water Treatises." When Eev. Francis Henry
Briderewater in his will lnft n nnn fnr p-j
saj-s on "The Power, Wisdom and Goodness
of God. as Manifested in the Creation," and
Davis Gilbert, the President of the Society,
chose eight persons to write eight books. Sir
Charles Bell, the scientist, chose an thn sn in
ject of his great book, "The Hand; Its Me
chanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing
Design." Oh, the hand! ' Its machinery be
ginning at the shoulder, and working
through shafts of bone, upper arm and fore
arm, down to the eight bones of the wTist,
and the five bones of the palm, and the four
teen bones of the fingers and thumb, and
composed of a labyrinth of muscle and nerve
and artery and flesh,1 which no one but Al
mighty God could have planned or executed.
But how suggestive when it reached down to
us from under the wings of the cherubim!
"The likeness of the hands of a man was un
der the wings."
This idea is combined in Christ. When He
rose from Mount Olivet, He took wing. All
up and down His life you see the uplifting
divinty. It flashed in His eyes. Its cadences
were heard in His voice. But He was also
very human. It was the hand under the
wing that touched the woes of the world
and took hold of the sympathies of the cen
turies. Watch His hand before it was spiked.
I here was a dead girl in a governor's house,
and Christ comes into the room and takes
her pale, cold hand in His warm grasp, aud
she opens her eyes on the weeping house
hold and says: "Father. what are you crying
v,uw mumcr, wnai are you crying about?"
The book says, "He took her by the hand,
and the maid arose." A follower, angered
at an insult offered Christ, drew the sword
from sheath and struck at a man with the
sharp edge, aiming, I think, at his fore
head. But the weapon glanced aside and
took off the right ear at its roots. Christ
with His hand reconstructed that wonderful
organ of sound, that whispering-gallery of
tne soul, that collector of vibrations, that
arched way to the auditory nerve, that tun
nel without which all the musical instruments
of earth would be of no avail. Thebooksays,
He touched his ear and healed him." Meet
ing a full grown man who had never seen a
sunrise, or a sunset, or a flower, or the face
of his own father or mother, Christ moistens
the dust from His own tongue and stirs the
dust into an eye salve, and with His own
hands applies the strange medicament, aud
suddenly all the colors of earth and sky rusk
in upon the newly created optic nerve and,
the instantaneous noon drove out the long
When He sees the grief of Ma rv and Mar
tha He sits down and cries with them. Some
say it is the shortest verse in the Bible, but
to me it seems, because of its far reaching
sympathies, about the largest "Jesus
wept!" So very human. He could not stand
the sight of dropsy or epilepsy or paralysis
or hunger or dementia, but He stretches out
His sympathetic hand toward it. So very
very human. Omnipotent and majestic and
glorious, this angel of the new covenant,
with wings capable of encircling a universe,
and yet hands of gentleness, hands of helnl
fulneSS. "Th hnnrla f o cT
Jt . There 13 a kind of religion in our
day that my text rebukes. There ae men
and women spending their time in delecta
tion over their saved state going about from
prayer meeting to prayer meeting, and from
church to church, telling how happy they
are. But show them a subscription paper,
?Skthem ,t0,g0 vLsit the si. or teli
them to reclaim a wanderer, or speak out
for some unpopular Christian enterprise.
and they have bronchitis or stitch in the side
or sudden attack of grin. Their reiiirion - is
au wing and no hand. Thev can flv
11 DUt tney cannot reach out
earthward.
While Thomas Chalmer3 occupied the
-chair of moral philosophy in St, Andrew's
University he had at the same time a Sabbath
school class of poor boys down in the slums
of Edinburgh. While Lord Fitzgerald was
traveling in Canada he saw a poor Indian
squaw carrying a crushing load, and he took
the burden on his own shoulders. That wa3
Christlike. That was "a hand under the
wing." The highest type of religion says
little about itself, but is busy for God and in
helping to the heavenly shore the crew and
passengers of this shipwrecked planet. Such
people are busy now up the dark lanes of
this city, and all through the) mountain
glens and down in the quarries where the
sunlight has never visited, and amid
the rigging, helping to take in another
reef before the Caribbean whirlwind.
A friend was telling me of an exquisite
tning aoout aeattie, tnen oi vvasning-
ton Territory, now of Washington State.
The people of Seattle had raised a generous
sum of money for the Johnstown sufferers
from the flood. A few days after Seattle
was destroved bv fire. I saw it whiles the
whole city was living in tents. In a public
meeting some one proposed that the money
raised for Johnstown be used for the relief
of their own city, and the cry was No! No!
No! Send the money to Johnstown, and by
acclamation the money wa3 so sent. Noth
ing more beautiful or sublime than that.
Under the wing, of fire that smote Seattle
the sympathetic hand, the helping hand, the
mighty hand of Christian relief for people
thousands of miles away.
Why, there are 100.000 men and women
whose o?.ie business is to help others. Help
ing hands, inspiring hands, lifting hands,
emancipating hands, saving hands. Sure
enough, those people had wings of faith and
wings of prayer and wings of consolation,
but "thij likeness of the hands of a man was
under the wings." There was much sense
in that 'ivhich the robust boatman said when
three ware in a boat off the coast in a sud
den stoi.-m that threatened to sink the boat,
and onij suggested that they all kneel down
in the boat to pray, and the robust man took
hold oi the oar and began to pull, saving.
"Let you, the strong, stout fellow, lay"hold
the otter oar, and let the weak one who can
not pull give himself up to prayer."
Pray 7jy all means, but at the same time pull
with iJl your might for the world's rescue.
An ai'ctic traveler hunting beaver while the
ice vf as breaking up, and supposing that
there was no human being within 100 miles,
heard the ice crackle; and lo! a lost man, in
sane with hunger and cold, wa3 wading in
the Ice water. The explorer took the man
into his canoe and made for land, and the
I edple gathered on the shore. All the island
ers had been looking for the lost man, and
finding him, according to prearrangement
all the bells rang and all the gunsjlred. Oh,
you can make a gladder time among the
to'wers and hilltops of heaven if you can
fetch home a wanderer!
In our time it is the hab.t to denounce the
c- ties and to speak of them as the perdition
of all wickedness. Is it not time for some
ine to tell the other side of the story and to
fcaythat the city is the heaven of practical
aelpfulness? Look at thejjembowered and
'fountained parks, where the invalids may
come and be refreshed; the Bowery mission
through which annually over 100,000 come
to get bread for this lite and bread for the
life to come, all the pillows of that institu
tion under the blessing of Him who had not
where to lay His head; the free schools,
where the most impoverished are educated;
the hospitals for broken bones; the homes
for the restoration of intellects astray;
the Orohan House, father
p who come under its benediction; the mid-
nignt missions, which pour midnoon upon
the darkened: the Prison Reform Associa
tion; the houses of mercy; the infirmaries
the sheltering arms: the aid societies; the'
industrial schools: the Sailor's Snug Harbor
the foundling asylums; the free dispensaries
where greatest scientific skill feels the pulse
of wan pauper; the ambulance, the startling
stroke of its bell clearing the way to the
place of casualty, and good souls like the
inotner who came to the Howard Mission,
with its crowd of friendless boys picked up
from the streets, and saying, "If you have a
crippled boy, give him to me; my dear boy
died with the spinal complaint," and such a
one she found and look him home and
nursed him till he was well. It would take
a sermon three weeks long to do justice to
the mighty things which our cities are doing
for the unfortunate and the lost. Do not
say tnat Christianity in our cities is all show
and talk and genuflexion and sacred noise.
Xou naye been so long looking at the hand
of cruelty, and the hand of theft, and the
hand of fraud, and the hand of outrage,
tha. you have not sufficiently appreciated
the hand of help stretched forth from the
doors and windows of churches and from
merciful institutions, the Christlike hand,
the cherubic hand, "the hand under th4
wing."
There is also in my subject the suirsrlo
of rewarded work f or God and righteousnef
When the wing went the hand wentTwSn
the wing ascended the hand ascended-and
for every useful and Christian hand there
UmIi8tillSaynS&nd mgthyat i
ask little of men in eeneral T Tt
much for them and to ectnotUlinre!
turn. I find a decided advantage!? t W
terms. On these terms I defv them t
appoint me." But, my hearers i ?h J ?
cometh when your work whh 2? ay
one has noticed or SVhSSSf
will rise to heavenly recognition. Whi f
have been telling you that the hand wwfun
der the wing of the cherubim I want yn
realize that the wing was oir Si k- 5?
Perhaps reward may not rome S you S
away. Washington lost more battles Sial
won. um uo uiauucu a, me last Wait
Scott, in boyhood, was called "the r 3l
uiwjuioou. uvj.1. nuoi, Lidiii ui renown a-j
AIM TIIII Hliri LI ri '. 1 T I
And I promise you victory farther vet
higher up, if not in this world then in
next. Oh, the heavenly rest when vS"
rifted hand shall be gloved with what kJ.111
its finger enringed with what jewels it
wrists clasped with what splendors! (W
up and take it you . Christian woman wt
served at the washtub! Come, up and tit
it you Christian shoemaker, who pound!
the shoe last! Come I up and take it 2
rjroiessionai nurse, iwnose compensating
whims and struggles of delirious sickroo
Come up and take it, you firemen, besweattf
far down amid the greasy machinery of
steamers, and ye conductors and eniiiS
on railroads, that knew no flun.int ...
whose ringing bells and loud vhistie . neI
warned off vour own aLnxietipQ' "
Come up and take lit. you mnfho
thev took winer for othpr neta n,-A
r uvuo ouu elinprM
for them. Yonr hand WAS Tirol 1 .
when you were young, and it was a beaS
"u u.;-ij, bj nou iuuuuou, so graceful thflf
many admired and eulogized it, bu hart
work calloused it and twisted it, and m5
sacrificing toil for others paled it, and man!
household griefs thinned it, and the rtof
which went on only with a push at the mar
riage altar now is too large and falls -off and
again and again you have lost it. Poor hand'
Weary hand! Wornout hand! But God wffl
reconstruct it, reanimate it, readorn it and
all heaven will know the storv m
i.1 l V. J TTTV. A. (.11 .. ... J W
fcuai uiuiu. iiat iauen ones it imri n
Wnat tears it wiped away! " What wounds it
bandaged! What lighthouses it kindled
What storm tossed ships it brought into th&
peari ueacnea narDor: un, i am so glad that
in the vision of my j text Ezekiel saw th
wing aoove tne nana.; i;oii on that everlast.
ing rest for all the toilincrandmteundfliNjt
andsuffering and weary children of God. and
know right well that f to join your hand at
last emancipated from the strueerle. will'
the soft hand, the gentle hand, the triuoy
pnant nana, oi mm i who wipeth away all
tears from all faces. That will be the DaW
of the King of which the poet sang in som
wnat acotcn aiaiect:
It's a bonnie, bonnie warl that we're livia
in ine noo.
An sunnv is the lan we aften traivel tw
But in vain we look ibr something to which
oor hearts can cling.
For its beauty is as naething to the palace o
tne lung.
We see oor frien's await us ower yonder at
His gate. j
Then let us a' be ready, for, ye ken, it's get-
tin late. t t
Let oor lamps be brichtly burnin; let's raise
oor voice and sing.
Soon we'll "meet, to part nae mair, i' the pal
ace oi tne mng.
TEMPfcBAXCE NEWS AND NOTES.
Most crooked lives I have been shaped If
means oi a corkscrewJ
The drunkard'3 appetite is measured bf
mo ueptn oi nis pocKet.
The screen in the saloon door is the snar
that hides the devil s trap.
The victim rolls in the crutter and the
saloon keeper rolls in) wealth.
The man who can tike liquor .without suf
fering injury, is not overburdened with
brains.
The Medical Brief
says: "Alcohol is per
haps the most deceitful drug in the whoU
materia medica." j
The next International Congress on Alco
holism will be held at Basle, Switzerland, on
August 20th, 21st and 22d. -
No man ever got Istung by hornets who
kept away from where they were. It is pre
cisely. the same with liquor.
The Norwegians in Boston opposed the
Norwegian, or Gothenburg, system Of liquor
selling. A significant fact.
Thomas Ed ward Murphy's recent campaiim
in Connecticut resulted in his securing 80,
000 signatures to the pledge.
Revenue officers in Virginia lately dis
covered four illicit j distilleries in Carroll
County and destroyed 8000 gallons of beeT.
Hon. Carroll D. Wright, the Labor Com
missioner, say.?: "For every dollar the
people receive from the saloon, they pay out
twenty-one."
Rev. Dr. Theodore. L. Cuylersays: "What
a younsr man earns tn the dnrtimo nrpq into
his pocket; what he spends at night goes into
liiauuaracier.
James Guthrie, of Scotland, said if he wa
sick and his doctor ishould order brandy he
might take it, but would change his doctor
as soon as he got well.
The Government of Canada has prohibited
the sale of intoxicants among the Indians of
Hudson Bay Territory and punishes severely
any violation of this law.
Total abstainers Command the most re
sponsible positions in factories, mines, oa
railroads and in all places where cool heads
and steady nerves are needed.
Alarmed at the ravages jof strong driafc
the Belgian Government has ordered the
display in all scbool rooms of a printed
placard setting forth the injurious effects of
alcohol. i "
The Chicago. Tribune savs: "In one or
two particulars Bishop FaUows's Horn
baloon does not undertake to compete with
the other saloons. It closes Sunday and has
no side door.?' j
Ir F. R. LeesJ of England,' the abl
scholar and writer,1 the philosopher of tfcj
temperance movement, is eighty yea" oI
ge, with brain as stronc and vigorous as U
'J i.iaii iiuoa.