The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-01-26

alarmed student of Elisha may know. where it went down and may dive for it and perhaps fetch it up. but can the sunkep ax head be lifted without hand thrust deeI into Nn the tSaa msd s possible. I admit. so far as human pow CT Is concerned, it Is impossible. but with God all things are possible. After the face of Jordan 'the iron did swim.'
 Some one asks me. Did you ever see iron swim?" Yes. yes; many time. saw soul hardened until nothing had piled that soul. It was petrifed as to ali fine feeling. It had been hardening for thirty years. It had gone into the deepest depths. It had been given up as lost. The father had given it up. The mother. the last to do so, had given 1t up. But one day in answer to some prayer a branch of the disfoliaged tree or Calvary was thrown into the dark responded to it's power and rose into the light, and, to the astonishment of the church and the world, 'the iron dld swim have seen hundreds of cases the cross beside Christ's cross was coil-. verted. When Jerry McAuley, a ruffian graduate of Sing Sing prison. was changed into an evangelist, so useful in reclamation of wandering men and wo- men that the merchant princes of New York established for him the Water Street and Cremorne missions and mourned at his burial; amid the lamen- b1asphemino sailor. under the power of the truth was brought to Christ and be- came 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 wonderful dream. The Pil- grim's Progress. in such a way that tna taA fhonGanda have fnund through 1t the road from the "city of destruc- tion" to the celestial city" In all these cases I think iron was made to swim. worship the God who can do the i'm
 Lost and Restored.
 You have a wayward boy. Only God knows how you have cried over him. You may 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. T 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 persuade him to do better. How different was the feeling of that hard fist against your face from his little hand in infancy batting your cheek! Father! MOtHefi InAL IS an HlpOSslDic Iudt I 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 God who can raise a soul out of the blackest depths of sin and wretchedness. Here is a God who can make iron swim. the God of Elisha, the God of the young student that stcod in dismay on the banks of the Jordan at the time Of the lost ax head. Lay hold of the Lord in prayer that will take no denial
 Alas. there are impossibilities before thousands of people-caled to do work that it is impossible for them to do, called to bear burdens that it is impos- sible for them to bear, called to endure suffering that it Is impossible for them to endure. Read all the Gospel prom ises. rally all your faith, and, while you will always be called to worship the God of hope, today. with all the con- centrated energies of my soul. imploro you to bow down and worship the God who can turn the impossibilities into possibilities IT was no trivial purpose, but for grand and glorious uses l have spoken to you today of the borrowed, the lost and the restored ax head.
 Copyright, 1902, by Louis klopsch, N. x'l