Just a word with you, reader. Are you saved? You are not quite sure, you say, but you hope you will be. Well, then, I will be sure for you. You are not saved, and the sooner you face that terrible fact the better.
But you are doing your best, you say, and you want to be saved. Well, when do you want to be saved, and how eager are you to be saved?
Let me tell you an anecdote related at a prayer-meeting in Boston by a ship captain.
“A few years ago,” said he, “I was sailing by the island of Cuba, when a cry ran through the ship, ‘Man overboard!’ It was impossible to put up the helm of the vessel, but I instantly seized a rope and threw it over the ship’s stern, crying out to the drowning man to lay hold.”
Now tell me, reader, before I proceed, how long would you have waited, had you been he, before you would have taken the rope? Would you have said,
“Tomorrow will do?” or would you have been more polite, saying,
“Thank you, captain; you are very kind, I will not lose sight of the rope; but I prefer doing my best, for I really mean to catch the ship and get on board?”
Man, you are drowning! Seize the rope, or you crlll perish!
“THE SAILOR SEIZED THE ROPE AS IT FELL. I immediately took another rope, and making a slip-noose of it, attached it to the other, directing the poor fellow to pass it over his shoulders and under his arms, and he should then be drawn on board.”
“This he did, and was rescued; but he had grasped the first rope with such vehemence, with such a grip, that it took hours before his hold could be relaxed and his hands separated from it. With such eagerness, indeed, had he clutched the oect that was to save him that the strands of the rope had become imbedded in the flesh of his hands.”
Reader, let this anecdote teach you what it is to be in earnest, and remember that the sailor neither talked nor trifled, but he instantly availed himself of the way of diverance, SEIZING THE ROPE AS IT FELL, and thus he was saved.
ML 02/28/1943