SAVED in the cleft of a rock. I know what that means. I was saved that way once; nor can I ever forget it.”
“How did it happen? Tell us about it.”
“You remember when the railroad first came through our town, it was a single track. You know where it runs in that long curve at the foot of the hill, how little space there is between the rocks on the one side and the deep water on the other?”
“Yes; I have often thought what an awful accident it would have been if the train had run off the track there. Just enough space for a train to pass without striking the rocks on the side of the hill,”
“And no place for a person to stand on the other side if a train should come while he was there. It’s an awful place, or it was once, before the second track was laid and the roadbed widened. I shudder whenever I think of what might have happened to me there.
“It was when we were yet boys, and not long after the railroad was built. My sister and I were coming home from school, and we thought would be shorter and easier, as well as more pleasant, to try the railroad instead of the long walk over the hill-path. We knew that it was after the time for the express, and that no other train was due: so we felt safe enough. We hardly thought of danger anyway. She was older than I, and I left care to her. We were going along leisurely; I was throwing stones into the water and she looking on, when suddenly she screamed, as she caught my hand,
“‘Run! The express is coming!’
“I heard its roar, and then the whistle as it came near the curve, but could not see it. Boys, you know, soon learn to tell trains and locomotives by the different sounds and by the differences in their whistles. I knew that it was the express. My heart seemed to stop. Had my sister not forced me on, I might have been powerless to run. We ran as fast as possible; but what are the feet of children in a race compared with an express train, and that train behind and trying to make up lost time?
“Had we gone back we should have been safe, for we had only just started on the narrow and dangerous place when we heard the train. All that long run was ahead before we could reach a spot wide enough to let a train go safely by: and not far behind came that express. It was a cloudy day and in the early winter, so that is seemed quite dark, especially on that side of the hill. Perhaps it was the darkness, perhaps the curve, that prevented the engineer from seeing us; he did not see us; the train came on as swiftly as ever.
“O! the awful terror of that minute, for it was but a minute! Each moment we felt must be our last. We could hear the roar of the train coming nearer and near, and did not know but that it was almost upon us, yet dared not look around lest we should lose time: we dared not even speak. Tightly holding each other’s hands, we ran on. All this, you need not be told, took less time than it takes to tell it.
“Suddenly the whistle blew. The engine had seen us, but too late to stop the train. Whether or not the whistle made my sister notice, I don’t know; but just then we reached a place where a large piece had been blown out of the rock by the side of the track; it seemed as if the rock had parted and a wedge had been taken out. Before I had time to think, my sister let go of my hand and at the same moment threw her arm about me and pushed me into that cleft in the rock. Then she threw herself forward and crowded me into the opening.
“Hardly had she done this when the train rushed by and left us safe in the cleft. We were saved, saved by a single moment only. Had we gone ten yards farther the train would have caught us, and—well, I would not be here to tell about it.”
“That was a narrow escape, surely.”
“Yes; and I never think of it without a shudder. We were saved by that cleft in the rock. If ever children were thankful for anything, we were for that cleft in the rock. I often think, What if it had not been there!
“All people who are not saved are in the way of’ danger, the way of death. Destruction’s express train is coming along; it will soon overtake them. Then what? Running away will not do, for they cannot get out of the way of judgment by running. There must be some place to hide, some place where destruction’s train cannot reach them.
“Right alongside life’s track is a Cleft Rock; and in that is the place to hide. That Rock is Christ.
“I have hidden in that Rock, and am sheltered in Him. Will you, too, not take refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ, and be able to sing,
“ ‘Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Grace hath hid me safe in Thee’”?
Will you let it mean the Rock in which you are hiding, dear reader?
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress; and my deliverer; the God of my rock; in Him will I trust,” 2 Sam. 22:2, 32And he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; 3The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence. (2 Samuel 22:2‑3).
ML-04/14/1935