The Anchor Holds

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 7
 
SOME time ago a gale was raging furiously around the coast, and many vessels were driven ashore and wrecked. The evening before, I had watched a schooner glide into the bay, and then cast anchor preparatory to discharging her cargo. As I watched the vessel for some moments, her great strength and solidity, and also the size of the cables attached to the anchors, struck me very forcibly, little thinking when I left the shore what the morning would reveal!
During the night the gale arose. The fishermen and coastguardsmen on the first warning had hurried down to shore to put all they could in safety. Small yachts and boats were hauled up above high-water mark before the storm reached its worst, but all their efforts could not move the noble schooner art inch—she had to be left to her fate.
When the gray light of morning dawned it showed all along the coast one wild, white line of gigantic breakers dashing on the beach, and the vessel tossed like a cork on the waves. One by one the anchors dragged; the great cables, which, in the calm of the previous evening, appeared to me so immensely strong, snapped like twine, and the poor schooner seemed at the mercy of the remorseless sea as she was driven some distance along the coast. At last she ran ashore, and there in the morning I saw her, as the gale confirmed and the tide came in with resistless force.
Still the vessel was not destroyed. Why was this? The crew had by tremendous effort got one of their large anchor cables firmly lashed to the ship; they buried an anchor ashore high up on land above high-water mark, and then, as the tide rolled in and surrounded the vessel, lifting her up and dashing her from side to side as though she were only a feather's weight, they watched to see the result of their novel anchorage. But it is all right, "the anchor holds," and though the timbers of the good ship are loosened, and spar after spar gives way, and the masts are fallen, the ship braves the tide, for the anchor holds.
There arises another storm—it will come on suddenly. No sea-buried anchor will hold the storm-tossed vessel then. No, nothing but the "anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast," will avail us in that storm. That anchor enters into the glory itself, above all the wild 'leavings and storms of life's sea. Have we, like the crew of that schooner, made firm hold to the anchor which is above? If not, we shall be wrecked. That poor mother, whom I know so well, with her large family of hungry little ones, has not a penny in the house, and yet she can say, "The Lord never has failed me yet, can I doubt Him now?" and so she can calmly leave all her cares with Him. What is the secret? Why, "the anchor holds." The young widowed heart, left to fight life's battle without the manly strength she once so trusted in, yet able to say, "Christ is more to me than even my dear one was," can she have that peace from earth? No; there, again, it is only explained by "the anchor holds.”
Ah! dear reader, there is such a thing as perfect peace; there is such a thing even in this world of storm, and trial, and daily cares as gladness and joy, great enough to make one happy in the wildest storm. And it all flows from this—having the soul anchored in God Himself—so that, forgiven, cleansed, and at peace, we can find all joy there. Dear friend, can you rejoice in this? Ah! if so, "tell others the story." If not, oh, seek it before it is too late. God is waiting to hear your first desire for it. Go to Him for it, and the Lord Jesus Christ has promised He will never cast you out. L. T.