Elisha and the Axe.--When the Prophet Elisha relieved the distress of the young man who had lost an axe--a borrowed axe--in the stream on the bank of which he was hewing timber, [1] it may have been supposed, by some skeptical on-looker, that the man of God was working in opposition to law. The account given states that "he cut down a stick" and cast it into the water, and "the iron did swim"--in spite of the fact that it is the nature of iron to sink. The law of gravitation required that the axe remain at the bottom of the stream, unless, by the application of some counter-force, ordinary or otherwise, it could be recovered. The force applied in this case was extraordinary. Elisha invoked a law superior to the law of gravitation, suspending its complete action upon that particular piece of iron. [2] Scientific Achievements.--Today, iron ships are floating upon every sea. While this is not a miracle such as Elisha wrought, it would have been deemed a miracle in earlier ages of the world, before such wonders became commonplace. The achievements of modern science, compared with past conditions in the same field of thought and action, ought to convince any reasonable mind that the days of miracles are not over. Light Production.--Men once made light by briskly rubbing together two pieces of wood, until friction generated flame. Gas light or electric light, with the present means of producing them, would have filled the souls of such men with fear and wonder. To them it would have been a miracle. And yet, to press a button or turn a switch, and thus obtain light, is a very clumsy device--or will be so considered when men learn to make light as God made it on the morning of creation. [3] "The Earth Moves."--The telegraph, the telephone, the electric car, the automobile, the airship--these and a hundred other marvelous manifestations of scientific power, now quite common, would have been deemed visionary and impossible in former ages. To have avowed even a belief in them would have imperiled one's life or deprived him of his liberty, in the days when Galileo was threatened with torture for declaring that the earth moves, or when women, in later times were hanged or burned as witches for nothing at all. So dangerous is human prejudice, in its fanatical opposition to things new and strange. This, of course, refers only to former ages and to semibenighted peoples. We would not have done as our forefathers did! So each generation thinks. Let us be thankful that the earth "does move," and that the mind of man moves with it, so that perils such as confronted Galileo and others of his class are now less likely to show their ugly features.