The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-02-20

not been dropped among the rocks
and picked at by birds of prey, but
the search was in vain. The law OF
gravitation had been defeated.
My subject also reminds us of the
Importance of keeping our chief inn
plement for work in good order. I
think that young theological student
on the banks of Jordan was to blame
for not examining the ak before he
lifted it that day against tree. He
could in moment have found out
whether the halve and the head were
firmly fastened. The simple fact was
the ak was not in good order or the
strongest stroke that sent the edge
into the hard sycamore would not
have left the implement headless. So
God has given every one of us an ak
with which to hew. Let us keep it
in good order, having been sharpened
by Bible study and strengthened by
prayer. The reason we sometimes
fail in our work is because we have
a dull ak or we do not know how
Alright to swing it. The head is not
Alright on the handle. At the time
we want the most skill for work and
perfect equilibrium we lose our head.
We expend in useless excitement the
nervous energy that we ought to have
employed in direct, aightforward
work. Your AK may be pen or
type or a yardstick or scales or
tongue which in legislative hall Or
business circles or Sabbath class or
pulpit is to speak for God and right
eousness, but the ak will not be
worth much until it has been sharp
ened on the grindstone of afIliction.
Go right through the world, and 60
right through all the past ages, and
show me one man or woman who has
done anything for the world worth
speaking of whose ak was not ground
on the revolving wheel of mighty trou-
BILE. 1t was not David, for he was de-
throned and bounded by unfilial Alb
salon. Surely it was not Paul, for he
was shipwrecked and whipped with
80 stripes from rods of elm wood on
his way to beheadment. Surely it was
not Abraham Lincoln, called by every
vile name that human and satanic
turpitude could invent and depicted by
cartoonists with more meanness than
any other man ever suffered, on the
way to meet bullet crashing through
his temples.
But 1 have come to the foot Of the
A AIv>e oh o1s l. I,
can see the wide reach of my subject.
See in all this theme how the impossi-
bilities may be turned into possibili-
ties. That ak head was sunken in the
muddiest river that could be found.
The alarmed student of Elisha may
know where it went down and may
dive for it and perhaps fetch it up, but
can the sunken AK head be lifted with
out a hand thrust deep into the mud at
the bottom Of the river? No; that is
impossible. / admit, SO far as human
power is concerned, it is impossible,
but with God all things are possible.
After the tree branch was thrown upon
the surface of Jordan "the iron did
SWIM"
You have wayward boy. Only God
knows how you have cried over him.
You have tried everything for his ref
orma ton. Where is he now-in this
city, in this country, or has he crossed
the sea? "Oh," you say, II do not
know where he is. He went away in
the sulks and did not say where he
was going" You have about made up
your mind that you will never hear
from him again. Pretty hard pay he
gives you for all four kindness and
the nights you sat up with him when
he was sick. Perhaps he struck you
one day when you were trying to per-
suade him to do better. How different
was the feeling of that hard fist
against your face from his little hand
in infancy patting your cheek! Fa-
ther! Mother! That is an impossible
that l would like to see God take hold
of, the conversion of that boy, for he
will never be anything but a boy to
you, though you should live to see him
so years of age Did you say his
heart is hard? How hard? Hard as
stone? "Yes," you say; "harder than
that. Hard as iron." But here is
God who can lift the soul that has
been deepest down. Here is God
who can raise a soul out of the black
est depths of sin and <wretchedness.
Here is God who can make iron
swim, the God of Elisha, the God of
the young student that stood in dis
may on the banks of the Jordan at the
time of the lost AK head. Lay hold of
the Lord in prayer that will take no
denial.
Alas, there are impossibilities before
thousands of people-called to do work
that it is impossible for them to do.
called to bear burdens that it is inn
possible for them to bear, called to
endure suffering that it is impossible
for them to endure. Read all the Cos
pei promises, rally all your faith, and.
while you will always be called to
worship the God of hope, to-day, with
all the concentrated energies of my
soul, implore you to bow down and
worship the God who can turn the
impossibles into the possibles. 1t was
no trivial purpose, but for grand and
nlo rcac hayo cnoI-ar - ro,,