Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-02-06
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE Blythe NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject God Does the Im2ossible-Scme
Wonders of Divine epower-SuperiOr to
Every Law of Nature Which He Has
Made For Mankind.


Kings vi, O., "The iron did SWIM"
| A theological seminary in the valley Of
| palms near the River Jordan, had become
SO popular in the time Of Elisha, the pro-
phet, that more accommodations were
needed for the students. The classrooms
an entirely new building constructed.
What will they do? Will they send up to
Jerusalem and solicit contributions for
this undertaking? Will they send out
agents to raise the money for a new theo-
logical seminary? Having raised the
anon 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 ruSged boys, who had been brought
up in the country and who had never
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 Jor
| dan. The sycamore is stout, strong
! tree and good for timber. Mr. Gladstone
| asked me il l had seen in Palestine any
! sycamore tree more beautiful than the one
| we stood under at Hawarden. / told him
| l had not.
| The sycamores rear the Jordan are
now attacked by Elishas students. for
| they must have lumber for the new theo-
| logical seminary. / suppose some of the
! students made an awkward stroke, and
| they were extemporized axemen. Stand
from under! Crash goes one of the trees
and another and another But something
now happens so wonderful that the occur
renee 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 axe, had borrowed one.
sf ,looy- hat tybi hn IF
| olden time was much like our modern axe,
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 axe was
| fastened ON the handle by leathern
thong, and so it might slip the helve. 4
axe against one of those trees, and whether
| it was at the moment he made his first
/ stroke and the chips flew or was after he
| had cut the tree from all sides so deem
that it was ready to fall we are not told,
but the axe head and the handle parted.
Being near the riverside, the axe head
dropped into river and sank to the muddy
| bottom. Great was the students dismay
If it had been his own axe, it would have
| been bad enough, but the axe did not be-
long to him. He had no means to buy an
! other for the kind man who had loaned it
! to him. but God helps through some good
and Tz1SG9sthitic soal, aTd Il this case it
/
the river bsal at the time. He did not
see the axe head fly of, 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 tree and threw it into Che water. and
river and fonted to the Z, so that the
student had just to stoop down and take
up the restored property. Now you sec,
the meaning of my text, "The iron did
SWIM
Suppose hundred years ago some one
had told people the time would come when
hundreds of thousands of tons of iron
would float on the Atlantic and Pacific,
iron ships from New York to Southamp.
ton, from London to Calcutta, from San
Francisco to Canton. The man making
such a prophecy would have been sent to
an asylum or carefully watched as incom'
petent to go alone. We have all in our
day seen iron swiL. Now, II man can
make hundreds of tons of metal float, /
am disposed to think that the Almighty
could make an axe head float.
y What" says some one, would be the
use of such a miracle:" OF v4s;, of. inf;
nite of eternal Importance. Those stu.
dents were preparing for the ministry.
They he'd .ioirsa the theological seminary
have their faith strengthened; they needed
to be persuaded that God can do every,
thing; they needed to learn that God
takes notice of little things; that there IL
no emergency of life where He is not will
ing to help
! Standing on the banks OF that Jordan,
| those students of that day of the recalled
axe head had their faith re-enforced, and
nothing that they found out in the class
rooms of that learned institution had ever
| done more in the way OF fitting them for
their coming profession.
/ hear from different sources that there
is great deal of infdelity in some of the
| theological seminaries of our day. They
| think that the Garden of Eden is an ale
CORY, 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 water
was not turned into. wine, although 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 natnra'
causes. When those infidcls graduate
from the theological seminary and take
the pulp.ts of America as expounders o.
the Holy Scriptures, what advocates they
will be of that gospel for the truth OF
which the martyrs died.
Hail the Polycarps and Hugh Latimera
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 theo
logical seminaries of this land, confirming
the faith of the coming eXpounders of an
entire Bible!
Furthermore, in that scene Of the text
| God sanctions borrowing and sets forth
| the importance OF returning. | do not
| think there would have been any miracle
performed if the young man had owned
the axe that slipped the helve. The young
man cried out in the hearing OF the pro
| phet. "Alas, master, for it was borrowed
| He had a right to borrow There are
times when we have not only right to
borrow, but it is duty to borrow. There
are times when we ought to lend, for Christ
in His sermon on the mount declared
"From him that would borrow of thee turn
not thou away"
1t is right that one borrow the means
of getting an education, as the younS stu
dent of my text borrowed the axe. It is
| right to borrow means for the forwarding