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. There is a line of beauty even in the proposition of the young men. They desired Elisha’s permission. They said, in effect: “Father, may we go?” They were enthusiastic, but they were under discipline; they had fire enough, but they responded to the touch of the master. And one said to Elisha: “Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants.” They were stronger when the elder man was with them. Sometimes the eye is the best master. It often happens that the man who is standing in the harvest field, resting upon his rake, a picture of dignity and ease, is doing more than if he were sweltering himself by cutting down corn with his own sickle. His eye is doing the work, and his presence is exerting an immeasurable and happy influence upon the whole field. Elisha was not asked to go and fell the timber, but to be with the young men while they did the hard work; and, becoming young again himself, as old men do become young when associated with young life, he replied: “I will go. The work is a common work. It belongs to me as well as to you; it belongs to all Israel, in so far as all Israel is true to the living God. Come, let us go in one band; union is strength.” Now, they went--the old and the young together. Why would they not go alone? Perhaps they were all reminded of what happened when once they did go alone. Elisha ordered that food should be prepared, and when the seething pot was on, one of the young men went out and gathered something and threw it into the pot, and nearly poisoned the whole college. Small wonder if one of them, remembering this, said: