Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-01-23

ly 10 was not Abraham Lincoln called
by every vile name that human and
satanic turpitude could invent and de-
picted by cartooDistS with more mean
ness than any other man ever suffered,
on the way to meet bullet crashing
through his temples.
God Does the impossible.
But I have come to the foot of the
Alps, which we must climb before we
can see the wide reach of my subject
See in all this theme how the impossi-
bilities may be turned into possibilities.
That ak head was sunkcn in the mud
dicst river that could be found. The
alarmed student of Elisha may know
where it went down and may dive for
It and perhaps fetch it up, but can the
sunken ak head be lifted without
hand thrust deep into the mud at the
bottom of the river? No; that Is i'm
possible. I admit, so far as human
power il concerned. it Is impossible,
but with God all things are possible.
After the tree branch was thrown upon
the surface Of Jordan "the iron did
SWIM"
see iron SWIM" Yes, yes; many n
time. | saw soul hardened until
nothing could make It harder. All
styles of sin had piled that soul. 1t
was petrified as to all fine feeling. 1t
had been hardening for thirty years.
1t had gone into the deepest depths.
1t had been given up as lost. The ia
Their had given it up. The mother, the
last to do so, had given 1t up. But one
day in answer to some prayer branch
of the disfoiaged tree of Calvary was
thrown into the dark and sullen
stream and the sunken soul responded
to its power and rose into the light,
and, to the establishment Of the church
and the world, "the iron did swim" l
have seen hundreds OF cases like that.
When the dying bandit on the cross
beside Christ's cross was converted.
When Jerry McAuley. a ruffian gradu-
ate of Sing Sing prison. was changed
into a great evangelist, so useful in
reclamation of wandering men and wo-
men that the merchant princes of New
York established for him the after
Street and Cremorne missions and
mourned at his burial, amid the lamen-
tations of city. When Newton, the
disappearing sailor, under the power
Of the truth was brought to Christ and
became one of the mightiest preachers
of the gospel that England ever saw
When John Bunyan, whose curses
shocked even the profane of the fish
market was so changed in heart and
life that he could write that wonder
full dream, The. Pilgrims Progress"
in such way that uncounted thou
sands have found through it the road
from the city Of destruction" to the
celestial city" In all these cases l
think iron was made to swim. | wor-
chip the God who can do the impossi-
bic.
Lost and Restored.
You have hayward boy. Only God
knows how you have cried over him.
You have tried everything for his ref
ormation. Where is he now--in this
city, in this country, or has he crossed
the sea? oh" you say. Il do not
know where he is. He went away in
the sulks and did not say where he
was going" You have about made up
your mind that you will never hear
from him again. Pretty hard pay he
gives you for all your kindness and
the nights you sat up with him when
he was sick. Perhaps he struck you
one day when you were trying to per-
suade him to do better. How different
was the feeling of that hard fist
against your face from his little hand
IN infancy patting your cheek, Ia
Their! Mother. That is an impossible
that | would like to see God take hold
of, the conversion Of that boy, for he
will never be anything but a boy to
you, though you should live to see him
fifty years of age. Did you say his
heart is hard? How hard? Hard as
stone? Yes you say; harder than
that. Hard as iron" But here is a
God who can lift the soul that has
been deepest down. Here is a God
who can raise a soul out of the black
est depths of sin and Indebtedness.
Here is a God who can make iron
swim. the God of Elisha. the God of
the young student that stood in dis
may OiI lHe DhllhS VI tli'' JOTUuU III lut
time of the lost ak head. Lay hold OF
the Lord in a prayer that will take no
denial.
Alas, there are iInpossibles before
thousands of people-callcd to do work
that it is impossible for them TO do
called to bear burdens that it is i'm.
possible for them to bear, called to
endure suffering that ii Is impossible
for them to endure. Read MI the Cos
pei promises, rally all your faith, and
while you will always be called tC
= worship the God of hope, today, with
all the concentered energies Of my
sorI, implore you to bow down and
worship the God who can turn the
impossibles into the possibles. 1t was
. no trivial purpose, bnt for grand and
- glorious uses l have spoken to yor
( today of the borrowed, the lost anC
. the restored ak head.
t Copyright. 1902, Louis Kiopsch, N. VI
, Strenuous Variety.