ONE Sunday evening just after Christmas in 1879, two children cowered beside the fire in one of the upper rooms of a big old house near the Fife coast, listening fearfully to a mighty wind, which blew as, surely, in their short lives they had never heard wind blow before. Now and again a blinding puff of smoke and flame from the grate would cause them to draw hastily back. Soot, and the acrid smell of smoke, pervaded the air, and clung to every object in the room. Without, the trees tossed wildly in the storm. What a night! What a blast! The eeriness of it lingers in the memory.
Away in Dundee, the gale raged with appalling fury. The few people abroad crouched on hands and knees lest they should be blown away bodily. From the waters of the estuary, spray was flung up to a height of a hundred feet and more. And what of the bridge which spanned it—that beautiful Tay Bridge whose opening, little over a year before, had been hailed with such wonder and delight? Approximately two miles in length, it consisted of eighty-five spans of varying width, the widest measuring 245 feet. At the shores it stood some ninety feet above the level of the estuary, rising to 130 feet above high-water mark at the center; a platform on the top of the bridge, fifteen feet in width, carried a single line of rails. At once so long and so lofty, so light and so graceful, it charmed the eyes of all beholders. Nevertheless, its slenderness had awakened misgivings in the minds of some—of engineers, and even of a few non-experts. Grave doubts had been uttered, but these were drowned amid the general admiration. An official statement, affirming the bridge’s thorough stability, was made through the Press.
During that tempestuous Sunday, Dundee folk had expected that traffic would be stopped from crossing the bridge. Yet, to their surprise, as evening wore on, trains were still seen passing over, although the guard of one, which crossed at about ten minutes to six, admitted that: the fury of the gale had actually lifted and jammed the, carriages. Earlier, Captain Scott of H. M. S. Mars, stationed a few hundred yards below the bridge watched with the deepest apprehension its oscillations, and passengers described their sickening sense of alarm when the structure “swayed like a pendulum” beneath them at that dizzy height above the black, storm-tossed waters of the estuary. About seven, when the tempest was at its wildest, the slow train from Edinburgh drew to a stand-still at St. Fort—the last station before the bridge on the Fifeshire side—and some of the passengers asked the ticket-collector, in joking fashion, whether he thought the bridge would hold, up on such a night. Alas! that questions like this are not asked in seriousness, and that questioners do not act upon their fears, as did the wife of one intending passenger whose alarm prompted her deliberately to cause her husband to miss the train. Now it moved slowly onward with its living freight, of whom none was seen again alive.
“Thank God, no friends of ours have to cross tonight,” said a man solemnly to his wife as, from a window above the Dundee esplanade, they saw the lights of the train approaching the southern bridge-head. And his wife echoed the thanksgiving! Their children had no such fears. “There she comes!” they cried delightedly, seeing the string of tiny fairy-lights creep out over the dark chasm. They clapped hands as the train entered the high girders, and its illuminated windows began to wink and scintillate through the trellis-work. For a few moments the family watched in silence. Then, with awful suddenness, the thing happened. They saw (what the man in the north-side signal-box also saw) a shower of sparks which seemed to leap abruptly out from the bridge and plunge downwards to the river like a fiery cataract. Through the din of the elements no sound reached the signalman’s ears. Just that sudden cascade of fire—then blank darkness! The bridge had given way. The train was lost.
On such a night—the night of trial—of death—will the bridge hold up? Once, in Westminster Abbey, I heard Dr. Handley Moule preach. He spoke on the nature of faith, showing that its value depends, not on anything of its own, but on the trustworthiness of its object of trust. You exercise faith when you step on to a bridge. But then, not the amount of your faith, but the stability of the bridge ensures your safety.
Let us, therefore, not overmuch focus our attention on ourselves, to see whether our faith be great or small. But let us, by prayerful study of the Scriptures, acquaint ourselves with our wonderful Saviour, of Whom it is written that He is “mighty to save”; as we step out on His Word our faith will grow. But let us trust in Him alone, for He only is the Way—none cometh unto the Father but by Him. He alone has bridged the awful chasm which separates the sinner from God. Others have professed to discover bridges which, they say, are very beautiful—spiritualism, Christian science, and the like. They will not hold up. “There is none other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved,” beside the Name of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12.)