This would seem to be the miracle which our own first zealous impulses would work, had they the power to express themselves in such a form. When the soul is alive with the purity of God, when the heart glows and burns with love, when the whole being is in vital sympathy with the purposes of the cross of Christ, the first and all but uncontrollable impulse is to destroy evil--not to reason with it, or make truce with it, or give it further treatment of any kind, but instantly and violently to crush it out of existence.
This impulse will be trained unto other uses in the School of Christ.
We see, in the opening of the sixth chapter of the second Book of Kings, some of the simple and happy relations which existed between the elder and the younger prophets.
Is it not possible to revive some of these relations? Look at the case:
“And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha: ‘Behold, now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us.’”
Put into modern language, the statement amounts to this: “Our college is getting too small, and we want more room. Let us, therefore, consider this practical question, and see what can be done.”
Elisha did not live with the young men. That, perhaps, was rather a happy than an unhappy circumstance--though a very beautiful picture could be drawn concerning domestic collegiate life. A college or a school with the teachers and the students all living together must, one would surely say, be a little Heaven on Earth. What can be, ideally, more perfect than the old prophet surrounded by all the younger prophets, eating and living together, having a common room, a common hostelry--a common home? What can be, imaginatively, more taking, pathetic and satisfactory?
Without pronouncing a judgment upon that inquiry, it is enough to be so far just to the text to say that Elisha did not adopt that system of collegiate life. He went around from place to place; he visited the schools of the prophets in the various localities, and when he came to this place the young men said: “We have not room enough; we must consider our circumstances, and endeavor to enlarge our accommodation.”
What did they propose?
It is well now and again to hear what young men have to suggest. It is useful to listen to young politicians in national crises, that we may hear how they would treat the patient. It is most desirable that young voices should mingle with old voices in the common council.
Now it is the turn of the young men to speak. What will they propose to Elisha?
The answer is given in the second verse: “Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make a place there where we may dwell.”
The city was not situated exactly upon the Jordan, but upon a stream a little way from it, which flowed into that great river; and now the young men proposed to get a little nearer to the main stream, for the district of it was called The Valley of Palms.
Palestine was notably destitute of trees, but in this particular locality timber was to be got. So the young men made the proposition to Elisha. What does the proposition amount to? It amounts to something which in this day might horrify a good many of the successors of Elisha.
The young men said: “Let us go and cut down our timber, and enlarge our college with our own hands.” Did they propose that the question should be “reported upon”--that it should be brought first under the attention of the general committee, then be referred to a sub-committee being bound to make a report to the general committee, and the general committee being unable to attend, or to constitute a quorum, and so go on to forget the whole business? The young men said:
“We want room; let us make it. We want a larger college; let us build it.”
Why not adopt the same principle today? There is nothing so easy as to send around an appeal for a contribution and never get any reply to it.
We, wanting to be missionaries, should go by the next boat; wanting to preach the Gospel to the heathen, we should ask: “When does the ship start?” Being unable to pay the fare, we should work our passage. If people should ask us what we are doing, and whether we have lost our senses, we should say: “Yes; if we be beside ourselves, it is unto God.”
Then an impression might be made upon those who look on. They would say: “Surely, these men are in earnest; be they right or be they wrong, be they fanatical or sober-minded, their earnestness burns in them like a fire, and such men can neither be put back nor be kept down.”
However, without wishing to modernize the details of this incident, which, owing to our civilization, would be impossible, it is enough to remember that, in the early days of collegiate and school life, the scholars were prepared to do something toward helping themselves. They did not send for builders from Jerusalem, or even from the city of Jericho; they undertook the work at their own impulse and at their own charges.