IT is said that some years ago a lady and gentleman were standing on Table Rock—that huge broad shelf on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. As they gazed fearfully out upon the awful depth before them, they felt awe-stricken by the deafening roar which came up from the wild rush of the waters below. They looked downward, and saw that the angry stream had been gnawing out a vast hollow beneath them, and felt certain that someday that delicately poised rock must fall into the whirlpool below.
Startled by these thoughts, they quickly hurried from so dangerous a position. They had not gone far before a deafening noise, like the thunder of an earthquake, burst on them with a long, loud roar, and the ground shook beneath their feet.
Table Rock had fallen! Had they delayed but two minutes they must have found a grave in the surging billows of that mighty river.
For ages that rock had stood, and men had rested on it in safety. Presumption might have said: It will not fall today; but it fell! There came to it a last day, a last moment, and then a crash―and those two persons were scarcely saved.
If this may teach us the uncertainty of life, how in a moment death may overtake any one of us it also reminds us forcibly of that Rock of safety provided for us all, a Rock to which we may cling, confident that it can never fail us.
The coming of the Lord is near to each one of us; or at any hour, at any moment, death may come, and we may be hurried into eternity. It behooves each one of us to ask himself, “Am I ready?” “Are my hopes for the next world resting on no better foundation than that Table Rock, which gave way at last? or am I clinging to the Lord Jesus
Christ―that Rock of Ages―Who will keep in safety all who give themselves to Him?” Are you now saved?
“Oh, safe to the Rock that is higher than I,
My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly;
So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine would I be:
Thou blest ‘Rock of Ages,’ I’m hiding in Thee.”