The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1902-02-05
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

| Subject God Does tho Impossible-some
Wonders Of Divine Power-Superior to
Every Law OF Nature Which He Has
Made For Mankind.
WASHINGTON, D. C.-In this discourse
| DR.. Talmage makes practical use OF an oc'
currence in the Orient which has seldom
attracted particular attention; text, IL
Kings vi 6, 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
and the dormitories must be enlarged or
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 new theo-
logical seminary? Having raised the
money, will they send for cedars of Leb-
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 rugged 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
the work, Elisha and his students. Plenty
of lumber in those regions along the Jor-
dan. The sycamore is a stout, strong
tree and good for timber. Mr.. Gladstone
asked me il I had seen in Palestine any
sycamore tree more beautiful than the one
Sye stood under at Hawarden. l told him
I had not.
The sycamores Eear the Jordan are
now attacked by Eiisha's students, for
they must have lumber for the new theo-
logical seminary. I 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 creduGty of the ages, 80
wonderful that many still think it never
happened at all. One of the students, not
able to own an axe, had borrowed one.
You must remember that while the axe of
olden time was much like our modern axe,
it differed in the fact that instead OF the
helve or handle being thrust into socket
in the iron head the head OF the axe was
fastened on the handle by a leathern
thong, and so it might slip the helve. A
student Of the seminary was swinging his
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 deep
that it was ready to fall we are not told,
but the axe mead 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 sympathetic soul, and in this case 1t
was Elisha who was in the woods and on
the river bank at the time. He did not
see the axe head fly off. and so he asked
the student where it dropped. He was
the river. Then Elisha broke off branch
of tree and threw it into the water, and
the axe head rose from the depths of the
river and hoated to the bank, so that the
student had just to stoop down and take
up the restored property. Now you see
the meaning of my text, "The iron did
swim"
Suppose a 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 aad Pacific
iron ships from New York to Southamp'
ton, from London to Calcutta, from San
Francisco to Canton. The man making
such prophecy would have been sent t.
an asylum or carefully watched as incom'
petent to 20 alone. We have all in our
day seen iron swim. Now, if man can
make hundreds of tons of metal float, I
am disposed to think that the Almighty
could make an axe head float. =,
"What," says some one, would be the
use of such a miracle?" Of vast, of inf.
mite, of eternal Importance. Those. stu.
dents were preparing for the ministry.
They had joined the theological seminary
to get all its advantages. They, needed, to
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 REINFORCED, 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.
I 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 allie
CORY, and that Moses did not write the
Pentateuch, and that the book of Job is
only drama, and that the book of Jonah
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
Tcstaments were wrought by natural
causes. When those infdels graduate
from the theological seminary and take
the pulpits 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
md John Knoxes of the twentieth cen.
| bury, 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 e1pounders of an
entire Bible!
Furthermore, in that scene of the text
God sanctions borrowing and sets forth
the Importance of returning. l do not
think there would have been any miracl.
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
ire 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"
It is right that one borrow the means
] of getting an education, as the young stu
dent of my text borrowed the axe. 1t is
right to borrow means for the forwarding
of commercial ends Most of the vast for
tunes that now overshadow the land were
tatched out of borrowed dollar.
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