1 Chronicles 20:6 And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand… The anxieties and annoyances of those whose estates have become plethoric can only be told by those who possess them. It will be a good thing when, through your industry and prosperity, you can own the house in which you live. But suppose you own fifty houses, and you have all those rents to collect, and all those tenants to please. Suppose you have branched out in business successes until in almost every direction you have investments. The fire-bell rings at night, you rush upstairs to look out of the window, to see if it is any of your mills. Epidemic of crime comes, and there are embezzlements and abscondings in all directions, and you wonder whether any of your bookkeepers will prove recreant. A panic strikes the financial world, and you are like a hen under a sky full of hawks, and trying with anxious cluck to get your overgrown chicken safely under wing. After a certain stage of success has been reached, you have to trust so many important things to others that you are apt to become the prey of others, and you are swindled and defrauded, and the anxiety you had on your brow when you were earning your first thousand dollars is not equal to the anxiety on your brow now that you have won your three hundred thousand. The trouble with such a one is, he is spread out like the unfortunate one in my text. You have more fingers and toes than you know what to do with. Twenty were useful, twenty-four is a hindering superfluity. Disraeli says that a king of Poland abdicated his throne and joined the people, and became a porter to carry burdens. And some one asked him why he did so, and he replied: Upon my honour, gentlemen, the load which I cast off was by far heavier than the one you see me carry. The weightiest is but a straw when compared to that weight under which I laboured. I have slept more in four nights than I have during all my reign. I begin to live and to be a king myself. Elect whom you choose. As for me, I am so well it would be madness to return to court. I am anxious that all who have only ordinary equipment be thankful for what they have and rightly employ it. I think you all have figuratively, as well as literally, fingers enough. Do not long for hindering superfluities. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot: and he also was the son of the giant. |
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