BETWEEN the level of the great Lake Erie and that of Lake Ontario there is a difference of many hundred feet. The waters of Lake Erie are conducted to those of Lake Ontario by means of the Niagara River and Falls.
Thousands of persons visit these Falls every year. They are most wonderful to behold. But there are times when the waters of Lakes Erie and Ontario are frozen, and the Falls themselves become in turn almost frozen into a solid mass.
When spring arrives, and the snow melts, the force of the water rushing into Lake Erie breaks up the ice, and mixing with the great volume of water overflowing from the lake, this ice is carried in huge masses over the brink of the Falls, and is urged along in wild disorder through the narrow channel that leads to Lake Ontario.
It is a solemn sight! The ice was once an unbroken sheet, now its fragments are scattered everywhere, whirling along hither and thither, but never able to unite again. The dangers of the short and narrow channel cannot be exaggerated. Here there are rapids. There observe the whirlpools. Yonder there seems to be still water, but it is a delusion. It is a danger spot. There is a force beneath which is sucking down the ice so that it cannot reach the top; and, again, that awful seething water in you cauldron-like spot is called the Devil’s Hole. Nothing can escape once it be drawn within that boiling, foaming, devouring circle.
Looking down from the high banks upon the scene below there are times when it appears that the ice seeks to return whence it came. It seems to be struggling against the current, and as it does so it is whirled round and round until drawn below into the awful vortex.
Everyone cannot visit Niagara, but each reader may share the thoughts experienced by a recent visitor to Niagara Falls. How they suggest that terrible “Fall” which has ruined the whole human race. As the ice once over the Falls can never return to its place, and can never again become part of the perfect and unbroken sheet, so man by the “Fall” has lost all power to make himself “good,” and replace himself in that position of happiness from whence sin has driven him. Man having fallen he is forever being carried onward along the fearful channel that conducts to the Lake of Fire.
Sometimes men may seem to make a. struggle, like the ice referred to, to escape the whirlpools and rapids and eddies, but there is no strength in them sufficient for the purpose. Time is short! The Woeful Lake is in front! What is to be done? How can it be escaped?
How can the sinner be delivered from eternal destruction?
These thoughts laid hold of the visitor, and as he gazed and gazed he saw rising from the waters and from the floating ice white gulls! Joyful signs! Hopeful emblems! The gulls were never ice, but they rose from amidst the ice; and surely they speak of that great deliverance which the Lord Jesus has wrought. Seeing mankind had hurled itself to destruction, the Lord Jesus, from the purest and most perfect love, undertook to die for man. He took man’s sin upon Him. He died, “the JUST ONE for the unjust.” (1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18).)
Reader, if you were being carried along the overflow from Niagara no human means could rescue you. You are—unless you have already believed in the Lord Jesus—hurrying along a far more dangerous and fatal course. You cannot save yourself. No man can save you. But the Lord Jesus can. Hear His loving and solemn cry, “Why will ye die?” (Ezek. 18:3131Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 18:31).)
Even though spiritually dead, God is willing to save you yet, if you are willing to be saved, for He says: “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” (John 5:2525Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. (John 5:25).) He is able and willing to save. Shall He have to say of you, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life”? (John 5:4040And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. (John 5:40).) Don’t drift on. It is too awful! Cry aloud, “Lord! save me, I perish,”