“ ‘Saved in the cleft in the rock?’ I know what that means. I was saved that way once, and I can never forget it.”
“How did it happen? Tell me about it.”
“You remember when the railroad first came through our town. It was a single track. You know where it runs in that long curve at the foot of the hill, how little space there is between the rocks on the one side and the deep water on the other?”
“Yes, I have often thought what an awful accident it would have been if the train had run off the track there. Just enough space for a train to pass without striking the rocks on the side of the hill.”
“And no place for a person to stand on the other side if a train should come while he was there. It’s an awful place, or it was once, before the second track was laid and the roadbed widened. I shudder whenever I think of what might have happened to me there.
“It was when we were just children. My sister and I were coming home from school, and we thought it would be shorter and easier to try the railroad instead of the long walk over the hill path. We knew that it was after the time for the express and that no other train was due, so we felt safe enough. We hardly thought of danger anyway. She was older than I, and I left everything to her.
“We were going along slowly. I was throwing rocks into the water and she looking on, when suddenly she screamed as she caught my hand, ‘Run! The express is coming!’
“I heard its roar, and then the whistle as it came near the curve, but I could not see it yet. I knew that it was the express by the sound. My heart seemed to stop! Had my sister not dragged me on, I might have been powerless to run. We ran as fast as possible, but what are the feet of children in a race with an express train, and that train behind time and trying to make it up?
“Had we gone back we should have been safe, for we had only just started on the narrow and dangerous stretch when we heard the train. All that long run was ahead before we could reach a spot wide enough to let a train go safely by, and not far behind came that express. It was a cloudy day in early winter, so that it seemed quite dark, specially on that side of the hill. Perhaps it was the darkness, perhaps the curve, that prevented the engineer’s seeing us.
“Oh! the terror of that minute, for it was only a minute! We felt that each moment must be our last. We could hear the roar of the train coming nearer and nearer, and we did not know but that it was almost upon us, yet we dared not waste a second to look back, lest we should lose time. We could not even speak. Tightly holding each other’s hands, we ran on.
“Suddenly the whistle blew! The engineer had seen us, but too late to stop the train. Whether or not the whistle made my sister notice, I don’t know, but just then we reached a place where a large piece had been blasted out of the rock by the side of the track. It looked as if the rock had been parted and a wedge taken out. Before I had time to think, my sister let go of my hand and pushed me into that cleft in the rock. Then she threw herself in after me.
“The train rushed by!
“We were safe in the cleft in the rock—saved by a moment only. Had we gone ten steps farther, the train would have caught us, and—well, I would not be here to tell about it.”
“That was a narrow escape!”
“Yes, and I never think of it without shivering. We were saved by that cleft in the rock. If ever children were thankful for anything, we were for that cleft in the rock. I often think, What if it had not been there?”
“But what has all that to do with the sermon of the minister yesterday? I don’t see why that should have such an effect on you. Of course, it was a good sermon, but you and I are good, honest people and we needn’t be concerned about God’s punishing sinners. I believe He will punish some folks, but not people like us.”
“I’ll tell you why it concerns me, and maybe you too. We are in the way of danger, and, unless we are careful, in the way of death. Destruction’s express train is coming along; it will soon overtake us. Then what? That sermon meant me! I cannot forget that Rock that the minister said was cleft for us. It is the cleft in the rock that is on my mind all the time. I know what it means.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Had you been saved, as I once was, ‘in the cleft in a rock,’ you would understand. We are both on the wrong track and in the way of destruction. It is coming, too, and not far behind. Running away will not do; we must find some place to hide. Right alongside of where we are is a cleft Rock, and in that is the place to hide. That Rock is Christ, and that is what the minister meant when he said that we must ‘hide in the Rock, Christ.’ That is what is meant by the hymn:
‘Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!’
“I have made up my mind to hide in that Rock; I know what it means now!”
“Well, it does have more of a meaning to me now than it ever had before.”
Is the Lord Jesus Christ the Rock in which you are hiding?
“That rock was Christ.”