“If I could only see my mother!” Again and again was that yearning cry repeated― “If I could only see my mother!” The vessel rocked, and the waters, chased by a fresh wind, played musically against the side of the ship. The sailor, a second mate, quite youthful, lay in his narrow bed, his eyes glazing, his limbs stiffening, his breath failing. It was not pleasant to die thus in this shaking, plunging ship, but he seemed not to mind his bodily comfort; his eyes looked far away, and ever and anon broke forth that grieving cry: “If I could only see my mother!”
An old sailor sat by, the Bible in his hand, from which he had been reading. He bent above the young man, and asked him why he was so anxious to see the mother he had willfully left.
“Oh, that’s the reason!” he cried, in anguish; “I’ve nearly broken her heart, and I can’t die in peace. She was a good mother to me, oh! so good a mother; she bore everything from her wild boy, and once she said, ‘My son, when you come to die you will remember all this.’ Oh, if I could only see my mother!”
He never saw his mother. He died with the yearning cry upon his lips as many a one has died who slighted the one who loved him. The waves roll over him, and his bones whiten at the bottom of the sea; and that dread cry has gone before God, there to be registered forever.
Dear reader, it was too late for the dying sailor to see his mother, but it is not too late for you to be saved. Jesus bids you come. He loved sinners and died on Calvary; there He shed His precious blood, and now He bids you come. Remember, too, that now is the time to come; “now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.”