IT is over fifty years ago; but the lesson I learned that day has lived freshly in my memory and has told on my life. I was living with my parents at a seaside town stretching far out into the sea. At low water miles of rocks surrounded it on three sides; and on those rocks the children were wont to amuse themselves—some of the older ones going far out to gather dulse, a seaweed of which we boys were fond. I had seen some of them coming in laden with it; and, in disobedience to my parents' instructions, I went out alone across the dark rocks in the hope of reaching the dulse which grew far out.
I was not much more than a child, and had no thought of danger—no notions about the tides—indeed, it was my first journey on the outside rocks.
I gained my point, reached the rocks, and soon engaged myself in gathering and eating the seaweed. When satisfied, I began my return journey, but had only come a little way when I was stopped by the inflowing sea. Thinking I had come the wrong way, I tried another, and yet another, to find at last that I was completely surrounded. How deep the sea was I did not know, hut the rush of the waves and the swirl of the water made me afraid to attempt to wade it.
I shall never, never forget the moment when I sat down on the higher rocks to die.
It was not that I was able to reason about the tide flowing up and drowning me; but it was the strange, weird feeling that I was separated by an impassable gulf from all mankind—never to see my parents or friends again —that this had come to me through disobedience. And I felt God would be angry as well as my parents.
I was very far away, and the hope of being seen or heard did not occur to me. I sat down, broken-hearted and hopeless, to cry.
How long I sat I cannot tell—it seemed to me ages—when I heard a voice and started up. A big, sturdy fisherman had seen me from the pier wall, and guessing my hopeless plight he had come to my rescue, and standing above the waist in the water was calling me to come down to the edge.
At any other time I would have hesitated to commit myself to one whom I had never seen or known before, but there was no time for questions or delay. Gladly I committed myself to his powerful grasp, and was hoisted on to his shoulder, held there by his hands and arms, as he waded through the waters which would have drowned me. Thus he carried me home, and put me in the safe keeping of my parents, who were so glad of my rescue that they passed over my fault, thinking the lesson had been enough punishment.
Ten years after, conviction of sin and fear of death and judgment laid hold on me, and once more I felt myself a hopeless, lost, lonely sinner, with death on every side, and no apparent way of escape. In my agony and distress I heard One say, "Come unto Me." I might have doubted and hesitated, as I have since seen others do, who had not learned how terrible their danger was; but the old lesson I had learned on the rocks stood me in good stead, and I committed myself to One who had at a great cost come a long way to save me, and His strong everlasting arms lifted me above death and sin and judgment, putting me on to His almighty shoulders, and as He put me there, He did so rejoicing, and His word of love was, "No one shall pluck you out of My hands.”