The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-02-20
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 Ak Head and
Its Recovery-Wonders of
Divine Power.
copyright, 1902, by Louis Klopsch, N. VI
Washington,

In this discourse DIR. Talmage
makes practical use of an occurrence
in the orient which has seldom at
tracted particular attention. Text,
2 Kings 6:6: "The iron did SWIM"
A 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? Will they send
up to Jerusalem and solicit contribu-
tions for this undertaking? Will they
send out agents to raise the money
for new theological seminary? Hav-
ing raised the money, will they send
for cedars of Lebanon and marble
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
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 of lumber In
those regions along the Jordan. The
sycamore is stout, strong tree and
good for timber. Mr.. Gladstone asked
me if had seen in Palestine any syc-
amore tree more beautiful than the
one we stood under at Hawarden.
told him l 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 were 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 was much like our modern ak, 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 ak was fastened on the handle by
a 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
and the chips few or was after he
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. If
it had been his own ak it would have
been bad enough, but the AK did not
belong to him. He had no means to
buy another for the kind man who
had loaned it to him, but God helps
the helpless, and He generally 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 AK 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 a tree
and threw it into the water, and the
AK head rose and floated to the bank,
SO that the student had just to stoop
down and take up the restored prop
erty. Now you see the meaning of
my text: "The iron did SWIM"
Suppose hundred years ago some
one had told people that the time
would come when hundreds of thou
sands of tons of iron would float on
the Atlantic and Pacifc-iron ships
from New York to Southampton,
from London to Calcutta, from San
Francisco to Canton. The man MAX
ing such a prophecy would have been
sent to an asylum or carefully
watched as incompetent to go alone.
We have all in our day seen iron
swim. Now, if man can make hun
dreds of tons of metal float, / am
disposed to think that the Almighty
could make an ak head float
What" says some one, 'would be
the-use of such miracle?" Of vast,
of infinite, of eternal Importance.
Those students were preparing for
the ministry. They had joined the
theological seminary to get all it's
advantages. They needed to have
their faith strengthened; they needed
to be persuaded that God can do ev-
erything; they needed to learn that
God takes notice Of little things; that
there is no emergency of life where
He is not willing to help. Standing
en- the banks of that Jordan, those
students of that day of the recalled
ak head had their faith reinforced,
and nothing that they had found out