HAVE lived a poor wretch all my life, and I am determined to DIE RICH." So said a seaman on board the ship" Britannia,” which struck on the rocks off the coast of Brazil, and which was fast sinking. She had a large consignment of Spanish dollars on board, and in the hope of saving some of them a number of barrels were brought on deck, but the vessel was sinking so fast that the only hope for life was in taking at once to the boats.
The last boat was about to push off, when a midshipman rushed back to see if anyone was still on board. To his surprise there sat a man on deck, hatchet in hand, with which he had broken open several of the casks, the contents of which he was now heaping up about him.
"What are you doing?" shouted the youth. "Escape for your life!! Don't you know the ship is fast going to pieces?”
“The ship may," said the man, "but I have lived a poor wretch all my life, and I am determined to DIE RICH.”
The middy's remonstrance was answered only by another flourish of the hatchet, and the man was left to his fate. In a few minutes the ship was engulfed in the waves.
We count such conduct madness, but alas! this sailor has too many imitators, and that is a far more serious matter. Many from their boyhood seem determined to DIE RICH at all hazards. Least of all do they count the chance of losing their soul in the struggle. And yet the only riches we can keep in the dying hour and retain forever are the riches of grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Reader, the bark of your life, pierced by the rocks of your many sins, may founder in the waves of death at any moment. Are you thoughtlessly or defiantly flourishing the hatchet of riches or pleasure or the vanities of this life, deaf to all the entreaties of a Savior-God and the smiting of conscience? Let me re-echo the words of our narrative, “What are you doing? '' Frittering away the precious hours of God's grace when He would make you rich indeed? The pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, will be dearly bought, if you wake up in a lost eternity. Escape for your life and flee from the wrath to come.
Are you determined to die rich? Then turn at once to Him who once was rich but tor your sake became poor that you, through His poverty, might be rich. No mortal can ever estimate the depth of poverty to which the Savior went in order to save the souls of men; for, laying aside His royal robes and His true title to life as the only Man who had glorified God in His life down here, He went to Calvary's cruel cross and there cried that bitter cry: "My God, My God, why halt Thou forsaken Me? Listen! It was for you that you might be rich indeed.
“Was it for me— that agony
Sustained in dark Gethsemane;
That scarlet robe, those thorns He wore—
Was it for me all this He bore
Was it for one He bowed His head
Upon the cross, and freely shed
His precious blood—that crimson tide—
Was it for me the Savior died
“It was for me—yes, all for me,
The Savior came in grace so free!
For me He left those realms on high:
It was for me He came to die!”
Bow, then, at once to a Savior's love, own your poverty that He may make you rich indeed.
“For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him." (Rom. 10:12.)
F. G. W.