The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1902-01-23

neighhor may be miles away, because tho
width Of the continent may separate you
rocked and your fathers grave was dug.
Weakened though you may be by lions
roar OF panther's scream, God will help
you, whether at the time the forest around
you raves in the midnight hurricane or you
suffer from something quite insignificant,
like the loss of an axe head. Take your
Bible out under the trees, If the weather
the solo Of bird in the tree tops or the
long meter psalm of the thunder, read
those words Of the Bible, which must have
been written out of doors: "The trees Of
the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of
Lebanon which He hath planted, where
the birds make their nests; as for the
stork, the fir trees are her house. The high
the rocks for the comics Thou makest
darkness. and it is night, wherein oil the
beasts of the forest do creep forth. The
young lions roar after their prey and seek
their meat from God. The sun ariseth,
they gather themselves together and lay
them down in their dens. Man goeth
forth unto his work and to his labor until
the evening. o Lord, how manifold are
Thy works In wisdom hast Thou mede
ALL The earth is full of Thy riches" How
do you like that sublime pastoral?
My subject also reminds us of the i'm
portance of keeping our chief implement
for work in good order. / think that young
theological student on the banks of Jor.
dan was to blame for not examining the
axe before he lifted it that day against a
tree. He could in moment have found
out whether the helve and the head were
firmly fastened. The simple fact was that
the axe 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 axe 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 axe 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 equili-
brium we lose our head. We expend in
useless excitement the nervous energy that
we ought TO have employed in direct,
straightforward work.
Your axe may be q pen or a type or n
yardstick or a scales or tongue which in
legislative hall or business circles or Sab
bath class or pulpit is to speak for God
and righteousness, but the axe will not
be worth much until it has been sharp
ened on the grindstone of affliction.
Go right through the world and 60
right through all the past ages, and show
me one man or woman who has done any
thing for the world worth speaking Of
whose axe was not ground on the revolv-
ing wheel of mighty trouble. 1t was not
David, for he was dethroned and bounded
by unfilial Absalom. Surely il wns not
Paul, for he was shipwrecked and whipped
with thirty-nine stripes from rods of elm
wood on his way to beheadment.
Surely it was not Abraham Lincoln,
1l.I L..
and satanic turpitude could invent and de-
picted by cartoonists with more meanness
than any other man ever suffered, on the
way to meet bullet crashing through his
temples.
But | have come to the foot of the Alps,
which we must climb before we can see
the wide reach of my subject See in all
this theme how the impossibilities may
be turned into possibilities. That axe
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 axe head be lifted
without hand thrust deep into the mud
at the bottom of the river? No; that is
impossible. | admit, so far as human pow
er is concerned, it is impossible, but with
God all things are possible. After the
tree branch was thrown upon the surface
Ol JOTudH LHe iron ulu swirl.
Some one asks me, Did you ever see
iron swim?" Yes, yes; many time.
saw soul hardened until nothing could
make it harder All styles of sin had
piled tina. soul. 1t was petrifed as to all
fine feeling. 1t had been hardening for
thirty years. 1t had gone into the deep
est depths. 1t had been given up as lost.
The father had given it up. The mother,
the last to do so, had given il up. But
nna do in fn ura n hiram n
of the disfoliaged tree OF Calvary was
thrown into the dark and sullen stream,
and the sunken soul responded to its pow
er and rose into the light, and, to the as
tonishment of the church and the world,
"the iron did swim" L have seen hun
dreds of cases like that. When the dying
bandit on the cross beside Christ was con-
verted When Jerry McAuley, ruffian
graduate of Sing Sing prison, was changed
into a great evangelist, so useful in recla-
nation of wandering men and women that
the merchant princes of New York estab-
lished for him the Water street and Gre
morne missions and mourned at his burial,
amid the lamentations of a city. When
Newton, the disappearing sailor, under the
power of the truth was brought to Christ
and became one of the mightiest preachers
of the gospel that England ever saw.
When John Bunyan, whose curses
shocked even the profane of the fish mar
ket. was so changed in heart and life that
he could write that wonderful dream, The
Pilgrims Progress" in such a way that un-
counted thousands have found through it
the road from the "city OF destruction" to
the celestial city" In all these cases l
think iron was made to swim. | worship
the God who can do the impossible.
You have wayward boy. Only God
knows how you have cried over him. You
have tried everything for his reformation.
Where is he now-in this city, IN this
YOU say, "I 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 your kindness and the
nights YOU sat up with him when he was
sick. Perhaps he struck you one day when
YOU were trying to persuade him to do bet
ter. How different was the feeling Of that
hard fist against your face from his little
hand in infancy patting your cheeckl
Fatherl Motherl 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 boy. to you,
though you should live to see him fifty
years of age. Did YOU say his heart Is
you say, harder than that Hard as
IRON" But here is a God who can lift
the soul that has been deepest down.
Here is God who can raise soul out
of the blacklist depths Of sin and wretch
edness. Here is God who can make iron
swim, the God OF Elisha, the God OF the
young student that stood in dismay on the
banks Of the Jordan at the time of the lost
axe head. Lay hold Of the Lord in pray