A man started out for church one icy Sunday morning, and presently came to a place where a little boy was standing, who, with a choking voice, said, ―
“Please don’t step there.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stepped there and fell down,” sobbed the little fellow, who had thus taken upon himself to warn the unwary passers-by of the danger into which he had fallen.
There are many men in the world who have good reasons for giving such a warning as this. The man who has trod the dark and slippery paths of intemperance, as he sees the young learning to take the first glass, or sipping at wine or beer or cider, has good reason to say to them, “Don’t step there, for I stepped there and fell down.” The man who has indulged in gambling and lotteries till he is despised by others and abhorred by himself, has good reason to say to the young when they are entering on the same course, “Don’t step there, for I stepped there and fell down.”
How many there are, today, in prisons and jails, with reputations ruined and lives blasted, who could say to the young man, tempted to enter the paths of dishonesty and wrong-doing, “Don’t step there, for I stepped there and fell down.”
It is well for us to be warned by the sad experiences of others, and it is sometimes duty for those who have fallen by these temptations to lift a warning voice. There are slippery places all around us, and thousands are passing heedlessly along. Let us entreat them to beware; and, as we remember the bitter experiences of our own sinful lives, let us say to those who are just yielding to such temptations, “Don’t step there, for I stepped there and fell down.”
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.”