The Iola register., 1902-01-24
THE IRON DID SWIM"
Sermon Of DR.. Talmage from a Lit
tle-Used Text.
Lesson Drawn from story of the stu
dent and His Lost Az Head and
Its Recovery--Wonders of
Divine Power.

Washington, Jan. 10.
In this discourse DR.. Talmage |
makes practical use of an occurrence
IN the orient which has seldom at
tracted particular attention. Text,
Kings 6:6: THE iron did swim"
theological seminary in the val
ley of palms, near the river Jordan,
had become so popular in the time
OF Elisha, the prophet, that more ac-
commodations were needed for the
students The classrooms and the
dormitories must be enlarged or an
entirely new building constructed.
What will they do? viii they send
up to Jerusalem and solicit contriDu-
tions for this undertaking? VIII they
send out agents to raise the money
for a new theo.og.cal seminary? Hav-
ing raised the money, Will they send
Tor cedars of Lebanon and marble
z from the quarries where Ahab got the
stone for the pillars and walls of his
palace? No; the students propose to
build it themselves. They were rug
ged boys who had been brought up
in the country and who had never
been weakened by the luXuries of city
AAAN. al AilN u0h - lllAN isiiHAitAf N''NtA
professor and prophet, go along with
them to the woods and boss the job.
They start for the work, Elisha and
his students. Plenty of lumber I'D
those regions along the Jordan. The
sycamore is a stout, strong tree and
good for timber. Mr.. Gladstone asked
me if had seen in Palestine any sJc-
amore tree more beautiful than the
one we stood under at Hawarden. l
told him | had not.
The sycamores near the Jordan are
now attacked by Elisha's students,
for they must have lumber for the
new theological seminary. l suppose
some of the students made an awk-
ward stroke, and they We're extern
porized axmen. Stand from under!
Crash goes one of the trees, and an
other and another. But something
now happens so wonderful that the
occurrence 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 ak, had borrowed one. You must
remember that while the AK of olden
time wa~ much like our modern AK, 1t
differed in the fact that instead of
the helve or handle being thrust into
socket in the iron head the head OF
the ak was fastened on the handle by
leathern thong, and so it might slip
the helve. A student of the seminary
was swinging his AK against one of
those trees, and whether it was at
the moment he made his first stroke
-. IL. a s,f tom hp
had cut the tree from all sides SO
deep that it was ready to fall we are
not told, but the AK head and the
handle parted. Being near the river
side, the AK head dropped into the
river and sank to the muddy bottom
Great was the students dismay. II
it had been his own AK it would have
been bad enough, but the AK did not
belong to him. He had no means tC
buy another for the kind man who
had loaned il to him, but God helps
the helpless, and He generally he .p!
through some good and sympathetic
soul and in this case il was Elisha
who was in the woods and on tn,
river bank at the time. lie did no
see the AK head fly off, and so h,
ASkeu lHe NllNit II III pIpIh
He was shown the place where
went down into the river. Thel
Elisha broke off branch of tre
and threw it into the water, and tn
ak head rose and hoated to the bank
so that the student had just to stoo
down and take up the restored proT
erty Now you see the meaning O
nv text: "The iron did swim"
Suppose a hundred years ago som
one had told people that the tim
would come when hundreds of thou
sands of tons of iron would float o
the Atlantic and Pacifc-iron ship
from New York to Southampton
from London to Calcutta from Sa
Francisco to Canton. The man NAL
ing such a prophecy would have bee
sent to an asylum or CAREFUL
watched as incompetent to go alon
We have all in our day seen ire
swim. Now, if man can make hui
dreds of tons of metal float, l a
disposed to think that the Almight
could make an ak head float.
"What," says some one, would
the use of such miracle?" OF vas
of infinite, of eternal importanc
Those students were preparing f.
the ministry. They had joined Il
theological seminary to get all
advantages. They needed TO ha
their faith strengthened; they need
to be persuaded that God can do c
erything; they needed to learn tn
God takes notice of little things; tn
there is no emergency of life whe
He is not willing to help. Standi
on the banks of that Jordan, tho
students of that day of the recall
AK head had their faith reenforct
and nothing that they had found O
in the classrooms of that learned
stitution had ever done more in