St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-03-01
1.-THE IRON DID SWIM
Sermon Of DR.. Talmage from q 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. "
Washington,

makes practical use of an occurrence
in the orient which has seldom at
tracted particular attention. Text
Kings 6:6: 1.-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 &C
| 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-
tons 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, 60 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. I
told him I 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
q socket in the iron head the head of
the ak was fastened on the handle by
q 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 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 of branch of . tree
and threw it into the water, and the
AK head rose and foated to the bank,
30 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 a hundred years ago some
Dne had told people that the time
would come when hundreds of thou
sands of tens of iron would float on
the Atlantic and Pacific-iron ships
from New York to Southampton,
from London to Calcutta, from San
Francisco to Canton. The man max
ng such prophecy would have been
sent to an asylum or carefully
as incompetent to go alone.
We have all in our day seen iron
swim. Now, if man can make hum
lreds of tons of metal float, 1 am
disposed to think that the Almighty
,Ould make an ak head float.
what" says some one, "would be
he use of such miracle?" OF vast.
# infinite, of eternal Importance.
Those students were preparing for
he ministry. They had joined the .
theological seminary to get all its
dvantages. They needed to have
heir faith strengthened; they needed
o be persuaded that God can do ev-
rything; they needed to learn that
rod takes notice of little things; that
here is no emergency of life where
lie is not willing to help. Standing }
n the banks of that Jordan, those
tudents of that day Of the recalled (
K head had their faith REINFORCED.
nd nothing that they had found out }
n the classrooms Of that learned in 9
had ever done more in the p
ray of fitting them for their coming
rofession. t
I hear from different sources that q
here is great deal of infidelity in a
ONE of the theological seminaries of \
ur day. They think that the garden t
+ Eden is an allegory, and that b
loses did not write the Pentateuch. t
nd that the book Of Job is only q t
rama, and that the book of Jonah is p
n unreliable fish story, and that wa n
er was not turned into wine, al
hough the bartender now by large a
Hutton turns wine into water, and r
nat most Of the so-called miracles of d
lie Old and the New Testaments were t.
rought by natural causes. When I
lose infidels graduate from the the t