OFTEN is one asked by an inquiring soul, ― “How do I know I have the right sort of faith?” I will just narrate a short incident to illustrate my point. A large fire broke out in a street in a city. Speedily were the fire engines mind ladders at work, and it was supposed that all had been rescued from the flames. The father of the family discovered that one―a boy of twelve―was still missing, and in breathless suspense he hurried to and fro endeavoring vainly to find him. All at once his eye rested on an object or the uppermost story apparently enveloped it flames. To get at the child was impossible. Every moment increased his danger. The roaring and crackling of the flames, the falling bricks almost made the father despair. If he shouted would the child hear or understand? In an agony of soul, the father, with stentorian voice shouts to the boy to jump, and he will catch him in his arms; not to fear―he will save him. The little fellow recognizes his parent’s voice though the denseness of the crowd collected it the street prevented his seeing his father’s face.
Full well he knows that loving father had never broken his promise, and surely now, in this time of imminent peril, he will not—he cannot. Such are the exercises of this little fellow’s heart, as he takes one tremendous leap into his father’s arms. A leap in the dark it was, but simple trust in his father’s word saved him: had he hesitated, he would infallibly have been swallowed up alive by the raging flames.
Oh! dear unconverted reader, I implore of you, be warned in time! Your situation, though you may not think it, is every bit as perilous as the child’s of whom you have been reading. Satan has you tight in his grasp, and will drag you down to that bottomless pit, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” “Now is the day of salvation.” Tomorrow may never come to you. Oh, flee! escape for your life! Take one look at Jesus―one simple, child-like, confiding gaze at Him―He is both willing and able to save you―and you are saved, saved eternally; ―no longer a child of wrath, under Satan’s power: and you shall know the full force of that word, in its practical application to your own soul, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.”
“And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” And why? Did you ever think why? dear reader. “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”