A FEW days since a pleasure boat left the river Mersey for a cruise along the coast. The occupants were two males, one married, with a family of five children; the other, single, employed in a large bank, and in receipt of a good salary, but they both, I fear, were strangers to God and His great salvation, living for this life only. They did not like to think of death. Their thoughts were engaged on the jolly time they were expecting to have on their pleasure trip. They arrived safe at their destination, but, owing to the weather setting in rough, they left their boat behind, and returned by land.
A few days after they went to bring the boat back again, but had to return without her; so the Saturday following, the one that was married and his son started again, in company with the brother of the young man engaged in the bank to fetch the boat. They left R— about ten p.m. all well. Soon the wind freshened, the waves arose and overpowered them, and the boat was capsized. The father was swept away almost immediately; the son was kept up by the other for some time, who bravely struggled towards the shore, but he could not hold on, and the son was drowned, leaving the only survivor to battle with the waves, as he struck out for the shore. He reached the shore much exhausted, and scarcely able to walk to the lifeboat station.
I have this morning (July 9th, 1880) received the above news from the parent of the one who is saved.
If this should meet the eyes of those who are living without Christ, who know not my Saviour as the gift of a Holy God to a lost world, I would draw their attention to the uncertainty of things here, and the certainty of things hereafter. I have often written to the young man employed in the bank, warning him of the consequences of living for this world only. Having the means to enjoy himself as he thinks, he goes on heedless, unconcerned. Oh! may this sad affair awake him to ask himself the question, Why was I spared? Oh! the poor miserable worldlings who are led on by the devil, that great enemy of souls, lulling them into a false security. What an awful end awaits those who are living for time, and chancing eternity.
A few fleeting years of fancied pleasures, then eternity. But where? In the regions of the lost, with those who had their fill at the polluted streams of this world's fountain; who are now where they thirst, but cannot have one drop of wale? to quench that thirst, and they are there forever.
Oh, dear friend, while there is yet time to escape, I pray you flee to the shelter of that cross, which cruel hands raised more than 1800 years ago. There see God making Christ sin for us—He who knew no sin—that poor sinners through faith in Him might be made the righteousness of God. Oh! if this should meet the eye of any one, especially those who are related to the above, I pray them to consider these things. God has once again spoken; take heed He loth not take thee away, then a great ransom cannot deliver thee. The survivor tried hard to save the son, but he could not do it. Jesus has done what poor man could not. He saves at the cost of His own spotless life, all that will come unto Him.
W. H.