The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1902-02-05

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of our time have seen the divine poweri
but this miracle of my text was in the
backwoods, far away from the city, in tho
lumber districts, where the students had
gone to cut timber for the new theological
seminary. And if this sermon shall come,
as it will come, like my other sermons for
the last thirty years, without missing
week, let me say to those far away from
the house of God and in the mountain
districts that my text shows the divine
power in the backwoods.
The Lord by every. stream as He GER
tainly was by the Jordan, on every mount.
ain as surely as He was on Mount Zion,
on every lake as on Tiberias, by, every
rock as by the one whose gushing waters
slaked the thirst of the marching Israel
ties.
Do not feel lonely because your nearest
neighbor may be miles away, because the
width of the continent ~ Y separate you
from the place where >ur cradle was
rocked and your father grave was dug.
Weakened though you may be by lions
roar or nanther's scream, God will help
YOU, whether at tie time the forest around
you raves in the midnight hurricane or you
suffer from something quite insignificant,
like the loss of an axe head. Take your
Bible out under the trees. if the weather
will permit, and after you have listened to
the solo of bird in the tree tops or the
long meter psalm OF the thunder, read
those words of the Bible, which must have
been written out of doors: 'The trees of
the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of
Lebanon which He hath planted, where
the birds. make their nests; as for the
stork, the FIR trees are her house. The high
hills are a refuge for the wild goats and
the rocks for the comics. Thou makest
darkness. and it is night, wherein all the
beasts of the forest do creep forth, The
young lions ROAR after their prey and seek
their meat from God. The sun ariseth,
they gather themselves together and lay
them down in their dens. Man goeth
forth unto his work and to his labor until
the evening. o Lord, how manifold are
Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made
all. The earth is full of Thy riches" How
do you like that sublime pastoral?
NV subject also reminds US of the i'm
portance of keeping. our chief implement
for work in good order. think that young
theological student on the banks of Jor-
dan was to blame for not examining the
axe before he lifted it that day against
tree. He could in a moment have found
out whether the helve and the head were
firmly fastened. The simple fact was that
the axe was not in good order or the
strongest stroke that sent the edge into
the hard sycamore would not have LETT
the implement headless. So God has gwen.
every one of us an axe with which to hew.
Let us keep it in good order, having
been sharpened by Bible study and
strengthened by prayer. The reason we
sometimes fail in our work is because we
have a dull axe or we do not know how
Alright to swing it. The head is not Alright
on the handle At the time we want the
most skill for work and perfect equili-
brium we lose our head. We expend in
useless excitement the nervous energy that
we ought to have employed in direct.
STRAIGHTFORWARD work.
Your axe may be pen or type or
yardstick or a scales or tongue which IN
legislative hall or business circles or Sab.
bath class or pulpit is to speak for God
and Righteousness, but the axe vii! not
be worth much until it has been sharp
ened on the grindstone of afaiction.
Go right through the world and g.
right through all the past ages, and show
thing for the world worth speaking of
whose axe was not ground on the revolv.
ing wheel Of mighty trouble. 1t was not
David, for he was dethroned and bounded
by unfilial Absalom. Surely it was not
Paul, for he was shipwrecked and whipped
with thirty-nine stripes from rods Of elm
wood on his way to beheadment.
Surely it was not Abraham Lincoln,
called by, every vile name that human
and satanic turpitude could invent and de-
picted by cartoonists with more neanness
than any other man ever suffered, on the
way to meet bullet crashing through his
temples.
But 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 impossibilities may
be turned into possibilities. That axe
that could be found. The alarmed student
Of Elisha may know where it went down
and may dive for it and perhaps fetch 1T
up, but can the sunken axe head be lifted
without a hand thrust deep into the mud
at the bottom of the river? No; that ls
impossible. I admit, 80 far as human pow
er is 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"
Some one asks me, did you ever see
iron swim" Yes, yes; many q. time.
saw a soul hardened until nothing could
make it harder. All styles OF sin had
piled that soul. It was petrified as to all
6ne feeling. 1t had been hardening for
thirty years. It had gone into the deep.
est depths. It had been given up as lost.
The father had given it up. The mother,
the last to do so, had given it up. But
one day in answer to some prayer branch
of the disfoliaged tree of Calvary was
thrown into the dark and sullen stream,
and the sunken soul responded to Its pow
er and rose into the light, and, to the as
tonishment of the church and the world,
"the iron did SWIM" I have seen hum
dreds of cases like that. When the dying
bandit on the cross beside Christ was con-
verted. When Jerry McAuley, ruttla91
graduate of Sing Sing prison, was ehangea rag,s
into a great evangelist, so useful In recla.
nation of wandering men and women that
the merchant princes of New York estab-
lished for him the Water street and Gre
morne missions and mourned at his burial,
amid the lamentations of a city. When
Newton, the blaspheming sailor, under the
mower 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 t1sh mar
ket, was so changed in heart and LIE that
he could write that wonderful dream, line
Pilgrims Progress" in such way that un.
counted thousands have found through 1t
the roa from the Getty of destruction" to
the celestial city" In all these cases
think iron was made to swim. -! ! worship
the God who can do the impossible,
You have a wayward boy. Only God
knows how you have cried over him. You
have tried everything for his reformation.
Where is he now-in this city,, in this
country, or has he crossed the sea? Oh.
YOU say, "I 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