NOTHING pleased us as children more than gathering round our dear father’s knee, and getting him to tell us something that had happened when he was a boy.
I can distinctly recall one of the stories our dear father told us of what happened to him in his young days.
I do not suppose any of you ever saw a will-o’-the-wisp, such as my father saw, when he was a boy, on the night he told us of, and was walking, as he often did, with his father very late at night from a village about four miles distant to the village in which their home was situated. They had started as usual on their homeward journey; the night was pitchy dark; a fog hung about the valley, and clung to the trees, and spread itself over the river Trent, near which their road lay. It was not a pleasant night to be out in, and the surrounding gloom made the bright fire and brighter welcome they were anticipating all the pleasanter in prospect.
Now the best thing to do on such a night is to walk on as quickly and bravely as possible. This our two travelers did, and had traveled more than half of the way home, when all at once my dear father cried out, “Look, father, there is a man with a lantern! Let us follow him, and he will light us through this dark place.”
Well was it for him, dear children, that his father was wise enough to be his protector at that moment, and to say, “No, my boy; that is no man with a lantern, but a will-o’-the-wisp. If we followed that light it might lead us into the river, and would most surely lead us into danger.” So they kept steadily on their road, and soon reached home in safety, and I have no doubt his father explained to the boy, as they walked on, that this light, which seemed to move before them, was caused by a luminous mist, rising from the damp, marshy ground, and that it would dance for a time about the bog, and then suddenly disappear, leaving the traveler, who might have turned cut of his way to follow the momentary flickering gleam, in greater darkness than before, and in danger of plunging into the hidden depths of the deceitful morass.
This was my father’s story, dear children; and now I want to ask you what light you are following as you pass through the dangerous paths of this world? Satan has many a false light which he can make dance before you, lighting up all around with its deceitful glare, but his lights will lead those who follow them to a far more terrible place than the treacherous banks of the swiftly-flowing river Trent.
But you may ask, “What are Satan’s false lights?” Anything, no matter how fair it may seem, which leads you away from Christ is a false light, and, like the will-o’-the-wisp, will lead you astray.
Ask yourselves whether you are following the Lord Jesus, who is the Way—the One who ever speaks to you, saying, “Come unto Me!” —or some deceitful gleam which hovers over the miry places of this world, only leading away from Him who is the Lover of your souls.
A. W. A.