A FEW short weeks ago in the city of Washington, D. C., many people were out enjoying the ice as the people in our picture are doing.
Skating is fine exercise when the ice is, firm and glassy. The children who have been skating and sliding come in, their faces all aglow with a healthy color.
But sometimes people are careless and go where the ice is not safe. Most of these Washington skaters went to a large basin where the waters were still and had frozen hard. There the ice was quite safe.
But a few miles from this basin there was a small lake which had an inlet with a strong current. This current kept the waters so stirred up that they did not freeze out in the center of the lake, but only along the shores where the current did not affect them.
One evening a high, school boy and girl left the girl’s home together for a skate on this small lake. The evening passed. Bedtime came, and the parents in two homes wondered why their children stayed so long. They waited hour after hour, but still no children. In the morning they began a search. At this lake they found a red cap, a black muff and one or two other things that they knew belonged to their children.
Then the lake was dragged and finally the two bodies were found, long cold in death.
The boy, whose father had been dead for years, was his mother’s only child. She had been working hard to support him and get him through high school; and was thinking how soon he would be able to earn something and help her.
In the other home too, there was great sorrow over the loss of a dear daughter and sister.
These young folks started out full of life and happiness, put on their skates when they reached the edge of the lake, and, not knowing the danger, skated from the ice right into, the water. Without a moment’s warning, pleasure was ended and their souls entered eternity.
Dear reader, hundreds and thousands have been cut off just as suddenly, —some to enter the presence of their blessed Saviour,—others to realize that having rejected or neglected that Saviour, they were lost forever.
Are you ready? You may say or think you are safe—that no such sudden call will come to you. O precious soul, be not deceived. God alone knows whether or not YOU will be the next. Mercy’s gate is open. Enter while you may.
ML 04/07/1912