HOW rough the waves look in our picture! The little pilot boat has been sent out to help the people in the big ship; there is great danger of the vessel being wrecked, and the poor people being drowned.
There was a vessel dashed against a rock, some years ago, and the little pilot boat did not get to the people in time—no help came, and the life-boats were driven about by the furious waves, till most everyone was drowned. There were two men on this fated ship that I want to tell you about. They had struggled about in the water until they found themselves both holding on, and clinging for dear life to the slender mast. It was a frail support, too frail to bear their weight, and, as it sank beneath his grasp, one of the drowning men began to curse and swear.
The bitter words reached the ears of his companion, who grasped the other end of the mast, and in a moment resolved to do something. “We cannot both be saved,” he said, as a sudden wave bore him nearer to his friend; “this poor mast will only float one of us, and if you sink as you are, you must be lost forever.” Then, with one last look upon the face of his friend, he let go his hold and drifted away. No help was near, so he soon sank, to rise no more, within the sight of him for whom he had given his life. But a short time passed before help did come to the young man, who still held to the drifting mast, and he was saved.
Day after day, the picture of his friend sinking beneath the waves was ever before his eyes, and all the voices of this world’s mirth could not drown those last solemn words of warning to him, “as you are, you must be lost forever.”
It was not until the rescued man was himself brought to God, that he began to understand how much he owed his friend. Then it was that he found heart to tell the story of the Christ-like death of his friend. Then he realized that his friend had saved him not only from the death which threatened them both as they drifted on the sea, but from the unspeakable woe of that endless death, which must have been his portion had he died in his sins. Do you love the One who died to put away your sins? Can you say, “who loved me, and gave Himself for me”? (Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20).)
Messages of God’s Love 11/9/1913