The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

THE DEMONIAC 333
the work. And thereby comes a lesson for us. Ay,
perhaps more than one lesson, for that pressure and
holding of the hand is symbolic of many things. Let
me try to speak to you of some of them.
Jesus took him by the hand. That is the dry
fact ;
you can understand that at once. But the
manner of it ! you cannot so easily understand that.
It was the way in which Jesus did everything that
made His actions so beautiful. There are a thousand
ways of taking a man's hand, and one way is as
sweet and solemn as a sacrament, and another way
is as hard and offensive as the touch of cold steel.
What we call handshaking is a study in character.
A man expresses all that is in his heart by that
action, and if he has no heart at all, you discover
it in a moment when his hand touches yours. When
some people give you their hands, you feel as if
you were holding a jelly-fish, cold and flabby, and
it is quite a relief to let them go ;
and some hands
are given to you in the shape of two finger-tips, as
if to give you more would encourage you to be too
familiar ;
and some hands are offered to you with
a shivering nervousness, as if their owners were
apologising for taking the liberty ; and some are
held out with a condescending patronage, which
makes every bit of pride within you writhe and
rebel ; and some grip you like a vice, half crushing
your bones, not to show how much they love you
but to show how strong they are ; and some shake
hands so swiftly and lightly that they are away and
out of your sight
before you know what they have
done. There is nothing more delightful than the
grasp of a man's hand when a heart full of love