The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-02-20
BENTON LOUISIANA, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1902

in the classrooms Of that learned in
stitution had ever done more in the
way of fitting them for their coming
profession.
I hear from different sources that
there lis a great deal of infidelity in
some of the theological seminaries of
our day. They think that the garden
of Eden is an allegory, and that
Moses did not write the Pentateuch,
and that the book of Job is only a
drama, and that the book of Jonah is
an unreliable fish story, and that wa
ter was not turned into wine, al
though 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 natural causes. When
those infdels graduate from the the
illogical seminary and take the pull
pits of America as expounders of the
Holy Scriptures, what advocates they
will be of that Gospel for the truth
of which the martyrs died! Hail the
Polycarps and Hugh Latimers and
John Knoxes of the twentieth CEN
tury, believing the Bible is true in
spots! Would to God that some great
revival of religion might sweep
through all the theological semina-
ries of this land, confirming the faith
of the coming expounders of an en-
tire Bible!
Furthermore, in that scene of the
forth the Importance of returning. l
do not think there, would have been
any miracle performed if the young
man had owned the ak that slipped
the helve. The young man cried out
in the hearing of the prophet: "Alas,
master, for it is borrowed" He had
a right to borrow. There are times
when we have not only right to bor-
row, but it is a duty to borrow. There
are times when we ought to lend, for
Christ in His sermon on the Mount de-
clared: "From him that would borrow
right that one borrow the means of
getting an education, as the young stu
dent of my text borrowed the ak. 1t
is right to borrow means for the for
warding of commercial ends.
If in any assembly it were requested
that those who had never borrowed
hold up their hands, none would be
lifted, or if here and there hand were
lifted we would know that it was a
case of inveracity. Borrow! Why,
we are borrowing all the time. We
borrow from the Lord the sunlight
that shows us the way, our water that
slakes our thirst, the food that re-
freshes us three times day, the pill
low on which we slumber. We borrow
gladness from our friends; we borrow
all elevated surroundings. The church
borrows all its beauty from the Christ
who founded il. In our songs and SER
mons we borrow from the raptures of
Heaven. ....
We borrow time; we will borrow
eternity, and that constant borrowing
implies return. For what we borrow
from God we must pay back in hearty
anu Vii tLdH SCI WIZ III
provement of ourselves and helpful
ness for others. For what we borrow
in the shape of protection from good
government we must pay back in pa
triotic devotion. For what we borrow
from our parents in their good exam
pie and their hard work wrought for
US in our journey from cradle to man
hood -womanhood for all the ages
to come we ought to be paying back.
Hayden, the painter, said his ruin be-
gan the day he began to borrow money,
and he wrote in his diary: Here be-
gan debt and obligation out of which
l have never been and never shall be
extricated as long as I live" DR..
johnson said: "Do not accustom your
self to consider debt only as an in
convenience. You will find it calam-
ity." We have right to borrow for
the absolute necessities, expecting to
pay back again, but we ought never to
borrow for the luxuries.
Let all those who toll for their edu-
cation remember that they are es-
pecially favored, and if things go
against them and the ak head should
fly the helve that every hinderment
may some time turn out advantage
ously, as the accident by the river
Jordan, which seemed to finish the
young students capacity to help build
the new seminary, resulted in a
splendid demonstration of the power
of Elisha's God to help anyone who
helped himself. No AK that was ever
welded has wrought SO well as that
AK, the handle and head of which
parted.
Notice, also, how God is superior
to every law that He has made, even
the strongest law of nature, the law
of gravitation. The stick that Elisha
threw into the Jordan foated, but
the ak head sank. By inexorable law
it must go down into the depths of
the Jordan, yet without SO much as
a touch the hard, heavy metal sought
the surface. There it is, the floating
ak head. What a rebuke to those
who reject miracles on the ground
that they are contrary to nature, as
though the law were stronger than
the God who made the law! Again