ON the edge of one of the Yorkshire moors is a beautiful spot called Glaisdale. This little town is close to a river, and the river is crossed by an old bridge, which bears the above name.
A romantic story is told about the bridge. It seems that about three hundred years ago a young farm lad became attached to a squire's daughter. The lad saw the squire, and explained matters. The father became very indignant, and called the lad a "beggar.”
However, finding the young people were both firmly of one mind, he decided not to forbid the courtship, but to insist that nothing further should be done until the youth could prove his worthiness, and his ability to provide for a future wife.
The young people did not quite see matters in the light the father viewed them, and many a time the young man had to swim the river at night in order to gain interviews with his loved one. This was such an ordeal that he promised himself that if ever he possessed the means, he would build a bridge over the river, that no lovers need be separated by storms or the swollen river in future.
This he eventually was able to carry out, after he had married the lady for whom he ventured so much, and the bridge bears the name he gave it.
Surely this romantic tale may teach us a lesson. Sin has separated us from God. There is nothing we can do that will remove the separation. None are able by their own efforts to pass across the awful chasm that sin has brought in between God and man.
But God was not willing that any should perish, and therefore He devised a way whereby the separation might be removed. He has "bridged" it over by His precious Son, who died that sinners might live. "There is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).
If you, my reader, realize that you have nothing that is spiritually good of your own, then you are spiritually poor, you are possessed of nothing that God can accept. What, then, must you do? Why, beg for mercy at the throne of grace in the name of the Lord Jesus. If you beg, then you are a "beggar" for God's great gift, and God's great gift is the Lord Jesus, the "Way" back to Him. What you have to do is to believe His word, and therefore call on Him, whom He bath sent. God is freely offering to whosoever will all the blessings of the Gospel.
What you could not do, the Lord Jesus has done. He has freely opened the way of access to the Father, and you may come without fear to God in His Name, and truly coming you shall not be turned away, for He says, "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37.) P. I. B.