The age-herald., 1902-01-26


 Washington. January 1s-In this dis- course pr. Talmage makes practical use Of an occurrence in the orient which has seldom attracted particular attention; text. II King vi. .'The Iron Did Swim . A Theological seminary in the valley of palms near the river Jordon, had become so popular in the time of Elisha. the prophet, 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 undertakings? Will they send out agents to raise the money for new the ological seminary? Having raised the money. will they send for cedars of Leb- anon and marble from the ouarlies where Ahab got the stone for the pillars and walls of his palace? No; the students propose to build 1t 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 woods and boss the job. They start for the work. Elisha and his stu dents Plenty of lumber in those regions along the Jordon. The sycamore is
 
 mr. Gladstone asked me if l had seen in Palestine any sycamore tree more beautiful than the one we stood under at Hawarden. I told him l had not
 The sycamores near the Jordon are now attacked by Ellsha's students. for they must have lumber for the new the ological seminary. I suppose some of the students made an awkward stroke and they were extemporized axmen. Stand From under! Crash goes one of the trees and another and another. But some thing now happens so wonderful that the occurrence will tax the credulity of the ages. so wonderful that many still think tt never happened at all. One of the Students, not able to own an ax. had bor- rowed one. You must remember that while the ax of olden times was much like our modern ax, 1t differed in the fact that instead of the heve or handle being thrust into socket in the iron head the. head of the was fastened pn the handle by leathern thong and so Ii might slip the helve. A student of the seminary was swinging his against one of those trees, and whether 1t was Rt the moment he made his first stroke and tho chips flew was after he had cut the tree from all sides so deep that lt was ready to fall we are not told, but the ax head and the handle parted. Being near the riverside. the ax head
 
 muddy bottom. Great was the students 8 dismay. If 1t had been his own ax, it would have been bad enough, but the ax 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 help less and he generally helps through some good and sympathetic soul and in this case 1t was Elisha. who was in the woods and Dn the river bank at the time He did not see the ax 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 n branch of tree and threw 1t into the water, and the ax head rose from the depths of the river and foated 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
 The Iron Did Swim.
 Suppose a hundred years age some one had told people that the time would come when hundreds of thousands of tons of iron would float on the Atlantic and Pacihc--iron ships from New York to Southamption, from London to Calcutta. from San Francisco to Canton. The man making such prophecy would have been watched, as incompetent to go 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 ax 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 semina- " to get all its advantages. They need ed to have their faith strengthened; they needed to be persuaded that God can do vt hi n 0d takes notice of little things; that there is no emergency of life where he is not willing to help. Standing on the banks of that Jordon, those students of that day of the recalled ax head had their faith re-enforced. and nothing that they had found out in the cassrooms of that learned institution had ever done more in the way of fitting them for their com ing profession.
 I hear from different sources that there is a great deal of infidelty in some of the theological seminaries of our day. They think that the garden of Eden is an ale gory. and that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. and that the book of Job is only 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 50 called miracles of the Old and the New TeStamentS were wrought by natu- < ral causes. When those infides graduate From the theological seminary and take the puIpits of America as expounders of the Holy Scriptures what advocates they will he of that gospel for the truth of which the martyrs died! Hail the Poly carps and Hugh Latimers and John Knoxes of the twentieth century, believ- ing tho Bible is true in spots, Would to God that some great revival of reli- gion might sweep through all the theolo- gcal seminsries of this land, confirming the faith of the coming eXpounders of an entire Bible
 The Right to Borrow.
 Furthermore, in that scene of the text God sanctions borrowing and sets forth the importance of returning. I do not think there would have been any miracle performed if the young man had owned the ax that slipped the helve The young man cried out in the hearing of the prophet. Alas. master, for it was bor- rowedr' He had a right to borrow. There