MAN is given many warnings as to the uncertainty of human life, and among the most solemn and striking of them stands the fatal wreck of the Elbe.
This steamship left Bremen on Tuesday morning for New York, via Southampton, with four hundred people on board. But early on the following morning she was run into by the steamer Craithie, and went down with three hundred and eighty men, women, and children, who were thus launched into eternity within twenty-four hours of embarking.
Little did they think, as they put their trust in the noble vessel and its skillful captain, that but twenty minutes next day would suffice to lay its power and pride twenty-one fathoms down on the floor of the German Ocean, all the puny might of man being powerless to save.
What a warning this should be to lead man to consider his end, and the measure of his days, what it is, that he may know how frail he is (Psa. 39:4); for his days are as grass, as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth (Isa. 40:8). Man lives and dies, customs come and go, empires rise and fall; but in the midst of all that is perishing, passing, and changing there is something that always abides. Like an immovable granite rock in the midst of a restless, chafing sea, “the word of the Lord endureth forever” (1 Peter 1:25). And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus [Jesus as Lord], and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:8, 9).
It is by faith in the risen glorified Saviour at God’s right hand that we pass out of our natural condition as children of men; and, being redeemed by His blood and justified by God’s grace, it is the privilege of everyone that believeth in Jesus to stand in the glorious liberty of the children of God, forgiven and free. “For ye are all the children of God by faith, in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26).
Among the passengers on board the Elbe there were rich and poor, old and young, many varieties and distinctions; but in the sight of God, then as now, they belong to two classes only—the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and the children of men who have died with their sins still upon them.
Of the former were a missionary and his wife, who, refusing to be parted, were drowned together, the stormy waters only serving as the means of a swift entry into the everlasting light and gladness of their Father’s presence.
Of the latter were two thieves, who, after a course of deceit and lying, were making their escape with pockets filled with stolen gold. Who can tell their hopeless agonies as they thus passed away into the darkness!
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7); and “He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1).
Death may be lying just ahead of the reader; many a frail bark has gone down in life’s sea with very little if any warning. A sudden illness may come and, like a storm, swamp you; or a sudden accident, like a collision, may run you down. If either of these happened to you, how would it stand with your soul, my reader?
Pause on your way, and listen to the voice that still pursues— “Turn ye, turn ye... why will ye die?” (Ezek. 33:11); “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” (Jer. 22:29); “Hear, and your soul shall live” (Isa. 55:3).
L. J. M.