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.