The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-02-28
DR.TALnAdE's sERnON
The Eminent Divine's Sunday
Discourse.

WASHINGTON, ID. C.-In this discourse
DIR. Iamage makes practical use of an oc-
currence an the Orient which has seldom
attracted particular attention; text, III
Kings vi, 9, "Ihe iron did swim"
theological seminary in the valley Of
palms near the River Jordan, had become
80 popular in the time Of Elisha. the pro-
phet, that more accommodations were
needed for the students. The classrooms
and the dormitories must be enlarged OF
an entirely new building constructed.
What viii they do? win they send up TO
Jerusalem and solicit contributions for
this undertaking? win they send out
agents to raise the money for q new theo-
logical seminary? Having raised the
money, will they send for cedars of Ieb.
anon and marble from the quarries where
Ahab got the stone for the pillars and
walls of his palace? No; the students
propose to build IL themselves They
were rugged boys, who had been brought
up IN the country and who had never
been weakened by the mNuries of city life.
All they ask is that Elisha. their professor
and prophet go along with them TO the
woods and boss the job. They start for
the work, Elisha and his students. Plenty
o. lumber in those regions along the Jor-
dan. The sycamore is a stout, strong
tree and good for timber. Mr.. Gladstone
asked me if / had seen in Palestine any
sycamore tree more beautiful than the one
we stood under at Hawarden. / told him
/ had not.
The sycamores near the Jordan are
now attacked by Elisha's students, for
they must have lumber for the new theo-
logical seminary. / suppose some of the
students made an awkward stroke. and
they were extemporized aXemen. Stand
from under! Crash goes one of the trees
and another and another. But something
now happens so wonderful that the occur
renee will tax the credulity of the ages, so
wonderful that many still think it never
happened at all. One Of the students, not
able to own an axe, had borrowed one.
You must remember that while the axe of
olden time was much like orr modern axe,
it differed in the fact that instead of the
helve or handle being thrust into a socket
in the iron head the head Of the axe was
fastened on the handle BY a leathern
thong, and so it might slip the helve. A
student of the seminary was swinging his
axe against one of those trees, and whether
it was at the moment he made his first
stroke and the chips few OF was after he
had cut the tree from all sides so deep
that it was ready to fall we are not told,
but the axe head and the handle parted.
Being near the riverside, the axe head
dropped into river and sank to the muddy
bottom. Great was the students dismay.
If it had been his own axe, it would have
been bad enough, but the axe did not be-
long to him. he had no means to buy an
other for the kind man who had loy ned it
to him, but God helps through some good
and sympathetic soul, and in this case it
was Elisha who was in the woods and on
the river bank at the time. He did not
see the axe head fly off. and so he asked
the student where it dropped He was
shown the place where it went down into
the river. Then Elisha broke off branch
of tree and threw it into the water, and
the axe head rose from the depths of the
river and foated to the bank, so that the
student had just to stoop down and take
up the restored property Now you see
the meaning of my text, "Ihe iron did
swim"
Suppose hundred years ago some one
had told people the time would come when
hundreds of thousands of tons of iron
would float on the Atlantic and Pacific
iron ships from New York to Southamp.
ton, from London to Calcutta, from San
Francisco to Canton. The man making
such a prophecy would have been sent to
an asylum or carefully watched as incom.
petent to go alone. We have all in our
day seen iron swim. Now, if man can
make hundreds of tons of metal float, {
am disposed to think that the Almighty
could .Aake an axe head float.
What" says some one, would be the
use of such a miracle% OF vast, of inf
mite, of eternal Importance. Those stu.
dents were preparing for the ministry.
They had joined the theological seminary
to get all its advantages. They needed to
have their faith strengthened; they needed
10 be persuaded that God can do every.
thing; they needed to learn that God
takes notice Of little things; that there ID
no emergency of life where He is not will
ing to help.
Standing on the banks of that Jordan,
those students of that day of the recalled
axe head had their faith REINFORCED, and
nothing that they found out in the class
rooms of that learned institution had ever
done more in the way of fitting them fol-
their coming profession.
I hear from different sources that there
is a great deal of infdelity in some of the
theological seminaries of our day. They
think that the Garden of Eden is an allie
CORY, and that Moses did not write the
| Pentateuch and that the book of Job il
only a drama, and that the book of Jonal
is an unreliable fish story, and that watel
was not turned into VINE, although the
bartender now by large dilution turns
wine into water, and that most of the so
called miracles of the Old and the New
Testaments were wrought by natura
causes. When those infdels graduate
from the theological seminary and take
the pulpits of America as expounders O
the Holy Scriptures, what advocates they
will be of that gospel for the truth o
which the martyrs died.
Hail thn pOlvoo rrNc and TI,1nI, a.
and John Knoxes of the twentieth cen
fury, believing the Bible is true in spots
Would to God that some great revival 0
religion might sweep through all the theo
logical serninaries of this land, confr1hin,
the faith Of the coming expounders of al
entire Bible!
Furthermore, in that scene of the tex
God sanctions borrowing and sets fort
the importance of retnrning. I do NO