THE HELPING HAND by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 24, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 12.

THE HELPING HAND.

By T.

THE helping hand is what many a poor man and woman is in need of to-day. They are in much the same condition as a person who is overboard in the waves. If they can have a helping hand to bring them safely to shore, they are prepared to care for themselves and those also who may be dependent upon them. But if left where they are, there is nothing for them but to perish.

And even some of those who have become so shiftless that they seem to have no other desire than to tramp, are sometimes reformed when the proper efforts are put forth in their behalf. Perhaps their vagabond life was begun through some discouragement that completely unnerved them, and if the “helping hand” had been held out at that time, they would have been saved from such a course.

Only a few days ago a healthy, robust man in one of our western cities took his life because he had a few small debts that he could not meet. His creditors were urging him, and a friend who had sometimes helped him under such circumstances turned against him, and his courage failed him when he thought of meeting the men he owed and with no money to pay them. This poor man left a beautiful and esteemed young wife and a little child to mourn the rash act of the husband and father.

The first thought is to call such a person a wretch and a coward. But, after all, one feels for a man who realizes so keenly the obligations of honest debts. There is no doubt but that the matter weighed so heavily on his mind that his reason forsook him before he did the deed. But how much sorrow might have been saved had only the “helping hand” been there to assist this struggling fellow-mortal before he lost his reason and took his life!

The world is full of people who need the helping hand. Sometimes the strength of the bravest fails them, and how good it is, when in discouragement and sorrow, for one to feel the warm and friendly grasp of the “helping hand.” Keep your eyes open, brother and sister; perhaps some one is near you even now who is about to perish for lack of just a little aid from a helping hand.

“The helping hand!” How good the expression sounds! It is music indeed to the ear. But the actual grasp of the helping hand is far more than music. It is strength and life to the sinking soul. And what a peculiar fitness there is in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES having a “helping hand” mission in the midst of the throng of needy ones who are stranded in the great city of San Francisco. The SIGNS not only desires to point men to the way of salvation, but in the most practical way to follow the example of the great Teacher, who was never too weary or too indifferent to the needs of humanity to lend a “helping hand,” by supplying a need that could not be given in words alone. T.