each owes its special power of service to some adaptation of the structure of the hand.

"By

Even Sir Charles, however, glances occasionally at the spiritual force that underlies the natural power. observation," he says, "the strictest relation may be seen to be established between the intellectual faculties and the material world ;" and he asserts that the hand is not the cause of man's superiority, as some philosophers have maintained; but that man's higher nature, as to spirit, demanded, for the accomplishment of his purposes, a nobler natural endowment.

And admirable indeed is the instrument with which man is furnished, whether for work or play, for necessity or luxury, for body or mind, for self or the neighbour, for the individual or society. While simple in appearance, it is complex in structure and organization, and it is as multifarious in its uses as are the wants and wishes of mankind. Its form is unique, its position is singularly adapted to the purposes to be accomplished, and its capacity of motion is comparatively unlimited, while its muscular strength gives it a vast power of reiteration of the same act and of endurance in prolonged labour.

If the beauty of a composition depends upon the presence of curved lines, according to the artist's theories, here we see them in multiplied variety. Not a single straight line, I fancy, can be found in the surface of the hand, which consists of a series of undulations of the most varied kind from wrist to finger-tips. A change of form, too, takes place with every movement of muscle, according as the hand is opened or closed, as the fingers lie quietly parallel with each other or bend and separate, as the limb is laid listlessly on the lap or springs up with rapid leap to grasp the tool and begin the labour to which the tongue of time suddenly summons it.

But at the root of all this beauty of form, freedom of action, and persistent strength, lies the interior anatomical structure of which it will be right to give a brief account. First, then, the bones. Who would suppose, on merely looking at his hand, that there are in it twenty-seven of them. Eight go to form the wrist, or carpus, as it is technically called. They move slightly on each other, and are so strongly bound together by ligaments and tendons as to constitute one of the strongest joints of the human body, and yet it possesses a surprising ease and facility of motion. The middle portion of the hand, the palm, called also the metacarpus, is composed of five bones, placed nearly parallel with each other, convex outwardly, concave inwardly, and so forming the hollow of the hand. They are large at each end where they join the wrist and the fingers, and small in the middle, to give room for the muscles that move the fingers. These bones also are tied by powerful ligaments to those of the wrist. The fingers have three bones each, called phalanges, but the thumb has only two. These bones, again, are convex outwardly to increase their strength, and flattened somewhat inwardly for the sake of grasping. The small bones at the end of the fingers terminate underneath in a rounded surface, and on this is spread the nervous substance in which lies especially the sense of touch. The points of the fingers are guarded on the upper surface by the nails. We may note, too, the different lengths of the fingers, the ends of which assume a straight line when bent down upon the palm. Time will not allow of any detail as to the muscles, the inembranes, the nerves, the arteries and veins, and the various coverings of the whole, by means of which, on the foundation of bone, the beautiful superstructure of the hand is built. Every motion has a muscle to produce it; every muscle and tendon have their offices assigned them. The ball of the thumb is a mass of muscles, and

there is another mass at the base of the little finger; these acting simultaneously and in opposite directions. give strength and firmness to the grasp. One certain motion of the hand deserves particular notice, as a special provision is made for it: I mean the turning of the hand downwards and upwards, technically called pronation and supination. The forearm has two bones in it; one is joined to the upper arm, the other to the wrist. They are so arranged that the one, called the radius, rolls easily in a groove on the other, the ulna; and as it is to the radius the hand is fastened, when the former rolls rapidly round the latter turns with it, and the motion thus effected is quick as thought.

From this complicated combination of bone, muscle, nerve, blood-vessel, ligament,, tendons, etc., there results then an instrument of extraordinary capacity, whether for motion, strength, or endurance. It can seize, hold, pull, push, and strike. It can lift great weights and apprehend the minutest objects. It can bring into being the magnificent cathedral, and guide the finest tool with gentle precision and accuracy in the process of the engraver. Few indeed are the conceptions of the designing mind that the skilful hand cannot execute. To the power of the hand may be referred all the conquests effected by man over material nature, all the products of the useful arts, and all the results in the sphere of beauty and grandeur which painting and sculpture and architecture can show. Its laborious perseverance built the pyramids ; its graceful skill amid Greek refinement gave birth to elegance and glory in statue and temple never since surpassed; its iron strength among succeeding Romans subdued the world and held it long in thrall; while huge theatres arose for games and plays, noble aqueducts were built to supply the first necessary of life to city and town, and roads that have lasted to the present day were made, along which their armies could be despatched in case of need to quell rebellion, to maintain their authority, or to extend their dominion.

If we want modern proofs of the hand's wonderful variety of skill and power let us stand under the dome of stately St. Paul's, and realize in thought as far as possible not only the genius that imagined the fabric, but also the labour of the hands that erected it. Let us go to our picture-galleries and view the mimicry of nature and the embodiment of historical events from the hands of Reynolds and Turner, Phillips and Landseer, Doré and Hunt, and most of the other masters in art. Let us visit the iron foundry, where, amid heats more fiery than torrid zone, hands black with grimy stain are rolling out the war-ship's armour, or drawing forth the rods and bars that minister on railway or in crystal palace to more peaceful ends. Or again, let us look at the potter, whose hands are moulding the clay into models of classic beauty for everyday use in kitchen, or for adornment of drawing-room; or seek access to the pin factory, scene of a different kind of skill, but residing in the same curious member; or inspect the doings of the lucifermatch-makers as tiny fingers ply their calling at poverty's cold bidding. And still again, go to some neighbouring schoolroom and watch the young hands as their pens glide over the sheet and leave impressions all similar yet all different, each clear in its meaning, each characteristic of the writer, who is gaining thus the power of placing in time to come before the eyes of his fellows "thoughts that breathe in words that burn," which may influence the destinies of mankind for all time. As for the strength of grasp and power of holding to which the hand can attain, watch the common sailor as he draws himself up hand over hand from the deck to the mainyard rigging; or gaze at Romah with the crowd who stand aghast at his

feats in the Crystal Palace. And once more, to gain some idea of the swiftness and precision of motion of which the hands and fingers are capable, look at Norman Neruda as she draws entrancing music from her violin, or at Hans von Bülow as he improvises on the pianoforte.

The expression of which the hand is capable is as remarkable as its skill and power. The phlegmatic Englishman makes but little use of the hand in his habitual conversation, but the Continental nations impart much liveliness and force to their ordinary talk by its movements, rapid or otherwise. Only the other day I witnessed an earnest conversation in French between a Frenchman and an Englishman; the latter, though greatly animated and speaking rapidly, kept his hand in his coat-pocket; the former seemed to express no thought which he did not confirm and illustrate by the action of his hands. Father Gavazzi was called the orator of the hand from the use he made of it in his addresses on his first arrival in this country; and all public speakers when roused to fervid advocacy of their purpose avail themselves of illustration by the action of the hand.

The

These facts may suggest a thought as to the education of the hand, and the development of the powers stored within its organization. Special adaptations there doubtless are, both bodily and mental, in individual cases which fit the possessors of them for special employments and for excellence in the practice of them. creations of the great painters and the ravishing strains, "untwisting all the links that tie the hidden soul of harmony," of the master performers on flute and viol and organ may not be within our reach; but none of us are entirely without the mechanical faculty, by which, if carefully trained, no inconsiderable beauty of form and colouring, no despicable expression of melody, may be attained. Yes, in these ten fingers of ours we have a mine of joyous wealth, not to be exhausted in the longest and busiest life. Exhaustion indeed! why, the more we use the instrument, the more are its powers multiplied; and the hand that is most busily occupied is generally the readiest and most successful in any new occupation.

The great painters have expressed almost every sentiment by means of the hands. Instances of this expression occur in Guido's Magdalens, Raphael's Cartoons, Da Vinci's Last Supper, etc. Quintilian says that by the hands we promise, work, dismiss, threaten, entreat, and express fear, joy, doubt, assent, penitence, and mark also number and time. To the deaf the hands serve for the sense of hearing, and nothing is more interesting than to watch two persons thus afflicted hold converse by the hand-alphabet. It is sight, too, to the blind man; for as his finger passes over the embossed page the light of Divine Wisdom or human knowledge enters his soul. See him, too, passing safely through the busy street as he projects his sense of feeling to the point of the staff with which he touches the straight edge of the

curbstones.

The hand serves as a platter for bread and meat, and as a cup to draw water from the fountain; it is a shield ever ready for defence, and a weapon equally prompt for offence; with soothing touch on the head of ingenuous boyhood it fosters young ambition in the aspiring soul; with violent and repeated blows it wreaks vengeance on our enemy, and turns any rising feeling of kindness and reconciliation to bitterness and gall; with cold and ceremonial touch it offers a finger or two to the unwelcome visitor and tells him plainly of our disgust; while in warm grasp and lengthened shake of the hands, the heart's pulses and the vibrations of the soul are felt by the dear old friend who comes to greet us from some distant clime after long years of separation.

Leigh Hunt has an essay on shaking hands, most characteristic of that radiant spirit and joyous temperament which brightened every theme he touched upon. After describing and discussing the friendly shake, the ceremonial and the boisterous, the sailor's squeeze, the shake theatrical, and the electioneering shake, he concludes with the lover's shake, or manual embrace, as he styles it, which, if you desire to know what it is and whether it corresponds to your correspondence, I will read to you the lover's shake: "Love is the quintessence of friendship; as then it is a pleasure to grasp the hand of a friend in true amity, the delight of the lover's manual embrace must be proportionately fraught with joy. It is a misnomer to call it a shake; it is a manual embrace. The pleasure is too delightful to part with it so transiently as a shake implies. When lovers meet alone their hands are locked together from meeting to parting. They wander in some shady grove or by some meandering stream hand in hand. Milton thus beautifully describes Adam and Eve

'So hand in hand they passed,—the loveliest pair.' Then when after sweet communings lovers are obliged to part, what a world of affection is there in his warm earnest pressure of her hand, and in her more gentle, but not less loving return. But I must curb my flowing guilt, just in its humour to grow eloquent on the subject."

What an important part among the forces that move the world in general does the decimal scale of notation play! And this probably owes its origin to the human hand, for we may readily conceive how in early times, when the materials we now so plenteously avail ourselves of and the art of writing itself were unknown, the ten fingers would be in requisition for the expression of numbers. It is no uncommon practice now to touch the finger-tips in succession when we are in the act of numbering, in order by some outward symbol to fix the object in the memory; and children will by this means easily master simple arithmetical calculations though Lord Dundreary found the matter so difficult.

(To be continued.)

WORK-"GO WORK TO-DAY."

R. A.

COME suppose that all duty and daily tasks are confined to earth; that in the heavenly world only pleasures and rest await us. True, the earnest workers here "rest from their labours " there; but it is the toil that arises from conflict which ceases, the rest that follows victory into which they enter.

66

They rest"—and "their works do follow with them" (per' avrov). It is not said they shall rest from work, only from labour; for work is pleasant and healthy, labour wearisome and painful. And the more faithfully and diligently and lovingly will they perform the work there, in the degree that they earnestly and obediently practised it here.

Man, in his state of innocency, was placed in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it; and still now, and to us, the Lord says, "Go work to-day in My vineyard." At twelve years of age the Saviour commenced His work in the world, and when asked why He had left the guiding-strings of His earthly parents, replied, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" 'Work," He says to His disciples, and to His disciples in all ages-"work while it is day, for the hour cometh when no man can work ;" for they who have not worked here in their lifetime, will be ill prepared-unprepared for the loving duties of the life everlasting. The Lord Himself was a constant diligent worker, working out from His

Infinite Love blessings for the meanest thing on earth as well as for the brightest angel in heaven. "I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," said the Lord when "He went about doing good;" and at the conclusion of His beneficent acts below, He joyfully, triumphantly exclaimed, "Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do."

Nations, like individuals, have flourished so long as they gave themselves to the particular work assigned them; and when they became unfaithful to duty they fell, and their work passed into more willing and obedient hands. So too with Churches. The Jewish Church had a work to perform, and only came to its end because the "fulness of time" had come-only collapsed because it had become idle and corrupt. The first Christian Church did good work in the past, and only lost its influence and usefulness when it became base and bad. Each and all

of the previous Churches passed away-righteously, justly -when, like the man ordered to work in the vineyard, by their words and their actions they replied, "I go, sir, and went not."

The angels work—" Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" The very throne of heaven is the centre of uses, and all "the elders round about the throne" are ministering servants.

66

"The wide world

Is full of work, and everything therein
Finds in it its best blessedness."

But to man, particularly, the Lord emphatically says,
'Go-work-to-day-in My vineyard," and "work while
it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work.”
Let us gladly and cheerfully, then, perform all, even the
lowest, duties-perform them for the sake of the duties,
indifferent whether we hereafter sit on thrones or on foot-
stools, and we shall, by those very duties, climb the
highest stairs of that throne which is the centre of service,
and bring ourselves nearer to the Being who ministers
unto all.
J. D. B.

T

THE NAME OF JESUS.

HE Christian Age has a brief article on this subject, which is worthy of the widest circulation. It links together the names of Jehovah and Jesus. in a way which is seldom seen outside of the New Church :

"The name of Jesus is the same as the Hebrew Joshua, or rather Jehoshuah, and consists of two Hebrew words, meaning Jehovah-Salvation. This is the name of the God-man, God incarnate, 'God, manifest in the flesh,' and announces at once the infinite dignity of His Godhead and the grand purpose of His mission-salvation. He has many names and titles, but this is His peculiar, distinguishing name.

"At the annunciation the angel Gabriel, with divine authority, said to Mary: Thou shalt call His name Jesus.' To Joseph in a dream the angel of the Lord foretold the wonderful event that was to occur, adding: 'And thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.' And the evangelist Luke has left his record: 'And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, His name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel.'

"The Apostle Paul dwells on this theme: 'Therefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.' The prophet Jeremiah saw this in prophetic vision, saying, 'This is the name whereby He shall be called, Jehovah our righteousness; and the rapt Isaiah exclaims, The Lord Jehovah is my strength and song; He also is become my salvation.'

"Surely the name Jehovah-Salvation has in it enough to inspire reverence. Let the Church, in her prayers and songs of praise, never cease to dwell on this name, which declares in one word the divinity and humanity of our Redeemer.

'How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear!'

'Jesus, lover of my soul.'

'Jesus, I live to Thee.'

'All hail the power of Jesus' name.'

THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY.

HE Rev. W. M. Statham in a paper contributed to the Christian World expresses his deep regret that the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul was not appended to the doctrines notified in the Congregational Union resolutions. He maintains that the question is not one of the minor points of doctrine, but one of the "fundamentals" of Christian faith. "The denial of natural immortality impugns the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, because the being the Gospel appeals to is thus different in kind." He proposes to take up the question in a series of papers, which, judging from the first one, promise to be of more than usual ability and interest. "Christ," he says, "came not to create immortality, but to bring life and immortality to light." His criticisms upon various statements and arguments in "Life in Christ" are clear and searching, and generally sound. He impugns the doctrine of conditional immortality as opposed to the main drift of Divine revelation and to the instincts of the race, as tending to the spread of materialism, as having a demoralizing influence upon the minds of those inclined to be worldly, and as weakening the power of the preacher, who has to plead with men on the ground of the greatness of their nature, and promises to take up the question of the influence of this fearful heresy more fully in another

paper.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The Unitarian Herald of August 16, under the heading "Sin makes Hell," has the following comment and extract from the sermon of a New Church minister: "While many voices are crying aloud against the old doctrine of punishment endlessly inflicted, and many are crying aloud for its retention as a part of God's government and of divine revelation, it may be that the line of the New Church, or Swedenborgian teaching, suggested by the following extracts from a sermon of the Rev. L. P. Mercer, will be found wise and timely: "We cannot run away from our sins, for they fix their consequences in the spiritual organism whose functions they pervert. Affections and thoughts and determinations are attended with variations in the organic substances of the soul, and these variations are by habit made permanent. Where you sowed your seed, therefore, there will your harvest be, in the soul itself. The violinist who took great trouble to procure some pieces of an old violin to mend his own, assigned as the reason that the very vibrations of the music of many years had altered the quality and susceptibility of the wood. It is certainly so with the human spirit which has vibrated to the harmony or discord of life. The effect becomes lasting and permanent. It takes on in itself the form of the affections, passions, purposes, which have most powerfully and continuously played upon it. The law works on whether we heed it or not; and what we sow is growing where we sow it, unto the reaping. We cannot choose how to live. We cannot stop willing, we cannot stop thinking. Life comes by influx to every man; he cannot refuse it; he can only say how he will use it.

When it enters into his will, he becomes conscious of it as if it were his own. He has no choice but to determine it to the accomplishment of some desire and thought, good or bad. And by every desire and every thought, whether we think of it or not, we are sowing for a spiritual harvest which we shall reap in the soul here, carry with us into the hereafter, and make the groundwork of our existence there. . . . Two radically different kinds of life lie before us, and not even the Lord Himself can choose for us. And the outcome of it is equally plain: "What a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Life is within us and this world is before us; the one spurring us on to deeds, the other furnishing the opportunity.""

In answer to a correspondent the Daisy, a weekly journal which aims at supplying pure literature for the household, gives the following: "The labours which will be 'rested from ' in heaven are the resistance of temptations, the endurance of trials, the struggles with evil which incessantly harass our earthly life; but all our chosen and happier activities will continue, in a far more glorious manner, and with the perfect results which on earth are unattainable, we have no doubt."

On the evening of Saturday, the 10th of August, a meeting was held at Besses-o'-th'-Barn to serve as an introduction of the Rev. I. Tansley to the Society there. A number of ministers were present, and the Rev. W. H. Benade, the Rev. C. H. Wilkins, the Rev. P. Ramage, the Rev. I. Tansley, and others addressed the meeting. "Consider all your accomplishments as means of assistance to others," is the sound advice of Mr. Ruskin.

Dr. Geikie reasons towards the spiritual analogy of water in the following beautiful passage. The great law of correspondence which reduces it from the fanciful and the poetical to a scientific truth is as usual not even suggested: "The last day of the Feast, known as the Hosanna Rabba, and the Great Day, found Him, as each day before,

doubtless, had done, in the Temple arcades. He had gone thither early, to meet the crowds assembled for morning prayer. It was a day of special rejoicing. A great procession of pilgrims marched seven times round the city, with their lulabs, music, and loudvoiced choirs preceding, and the air was rent with shouts of Hosanna, in commemoration of the taking of Jericho, the first city in the Holy Land that fell into the hands of their fathers. Other multitudes streamed to the brook of Siloah, after the priests and Levites, bearing the golden vessels, with which to draw some of the water. As many as could get near the stream drank of it amidst loud chanting of the words of Isaiah-Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,' 'With joy shall we draw water from the wells of salvation,'-rising in jubilant chants on every side. The water drawn by the priests was, meanwhile, borne up to the Temple amidst the boundless excitement of a vast throng. Such a crowd was, apparently, passing at this moment. Rising as the throng went by, His spirit was moved at such honest enthu siasm, yet saddened at the moral decay which mistook a mere ceremony for religion. It was burning autumn weather, when the sun had for months shone in a cloudless sky, and the early rains were longed for as the monsoons in India after the summer heat. Water at all times is a magic word in a sultry climate like Palestine, but at this moment it had a double power. Standing, therefore, to give His words more solemnity, His voice was sounded far and near over the throng, with soft clearness, which arrested all : ‘If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink. For I will give him the heavenly waters of God's heavenly grace, of which the water you have now drawn from Siloah is only, as your Rabbis tell you, a type. He that believes in Me drinks into his soul from My fulness, as from a fountain, the riches of Divine grace and truth. Nor do they bring life to him alone who thus drinks. They become in his own heart, as the whole burden of Scripture tells, a living spring, which shall flow forth from his lips and life in holy words and deeds, quickening the thirsty around him."

SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSONS.

JESUS INSTRUCTS NICODEMUS.

September 1, Morning.—John iii. 1-13. The internal sense is as follows. Nicodemus represents those in the perverted Church who in consequence of the Lord's miracles sought to be conjoined with Him and acknowledged His teachings to be Divine Truth. They are taught that all perception of good and truth comes by regeneration. This is a spiritual and not a natural work; they must be born of the Spirit and not again naturally. This is done by the reception of the truths of faith in the understanding, and by a love and life in accordance therewith. Man has a capacity of becoming spiritual though at first born natural, and ought not to regard regeneration as a strange operation. Like the wind which bloweth where it listeth, the mysteries of regeneration come only slightly to the knowledge of man. This cannot be comprehended by those who are natural or in external truth only, though that ought to have conducted them to a knowledge of internal truth. The reception into the mind of Divine Truth, which alone is capable of elevating any into the things of heaven, enables one to understand, and helps one to lead the regenerate life.

SAMUEL AND THE ARK'S RECOVERY. September 1, Afternoon.-1 Samuel vii. 1-8. The ark of God was taken away from the children of Israel, and remained a long time in the hands of their enemies. Not that the ark of God is ever

allied to the genuine enemies of Israel, but because the state of the children of Israel is such that they think God in His chastisement of their evils for their good is joined with their enemies. The children of the Spiritual Israel may have a longing for a return of the ark of God to their midst, and for the peace and rest and blessing which will accompany it, but Samuel, the representative of the Church, says to them, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you.' It is only by repentance and a putting away of our idolatrous loves of anything above the Lord our God that the ark of God can return again into our midst. Before that is effected the Philistines within us will withstand our good resolutions in many pitched battles; but let us rely implicitly upon the Divine help and it will never fail, and we shall once more reclaim the ark of the Lord to abide with us, and to be our help and our comfort.

MARRIAGE.

On August 3, at the New Jerusalem Church, Camden Road, by the Rev. J. Presland, Frank, eldest son of the late George Flowers, Esq., of Grafton Road, Holloway, to Ellen Maria, second daughter of John Smith, Esq., of 324 Liverpool Road.

Printed by MUIR AND PATERSON, 14 Clyde Street, Edinburgh, and published by JAMES SPEIRS, 36 Bloomsbury Street, London, W.C.