Some years ago a poor woman, one of a number who earned a scanty living by washing at the riverside near Glasgow, and whose only possession was the tub in which her daily task was performed, had the misfortune to fall into the Clyde, and as the river was deep and the current strong, her case seemed hopeless, as no help was apparently at hand. Suddenly a man who was a renowned swimmer and had saved many lives, plunged into the stream; but only by extreme exertion, and well-nigh at the cost of his own life, did he succeed in rescuing the object of his solicitude. The old woman herself had been so long submerged that animation was suspended, and no little effort was required before consciousness returned.
And now, dear reader, what do you think were the first words which issuing from her lips manifested to those around that she had really come back, as it were, from death to life? Some expression of anxiety as to her home, her family, her friends? Some disclosure of her feelings while in the jaws of death, or on her discovery that she had been rescued? No, nothing, nothing of this! but words that should be a touching lesson for us who have been further gone than she toward a far more terrible fatality, and who have been rescued, not at the almost, but at the actual cost of another's life. Her words were, "Oh, how I want to see the man who saved me!" Beautiful exclamation from the mouth of one who had nearly perished, but whose unselfish gratitude led her to concern herself about him whose self-sacrificing work had brought her back from death. The man came at her word. Again she spoke. "O sir," she said, "you've saved me, and I've naught in the world save you tub; but, oh! if you'll take it, you're welcome, with all my heart!" The man no less astonished than gratified, made no reply, but taking his hat in his hand, went around collecting from the assembled crowd, and speedily coming back poured all he had received into her lap, enriching her as she had never in her life either experienced or expected.
Is it not thus, though in an infinitely higher and more blessed way, that God, having given us eternal life in Christ, with Him also freely gives us all things? Have we, like the poor woman, experienced deep longings of heart to see the One who has saved us, and when we have made His acquaintance laid all we possess with all our heart at His feet? If so, surely we shall have found that inasmuch as it is more blessed to give than to receive, He will be no man's debtor; but taking to Himself the higher blessedness which is His due, He will pour into our lap all that He has received, to share with us the spoils of His own victory, the guerdon of His own work! And thus to us shall belong the double and lasting indebtedness which our narrative illustrates. May we who have been so wondrously blessed, and who sometimes sing of Him, "And gave us all that love could give," be led of the Holy Ghost into personal acquaintance with the Man in glory whom grace has made our satisfying portion forever. And may the taste we thus acquire for what we more and more find only in Himself, intensify, as it surely will, the longing desire of our hearts to see Him face to face when the day dawns and the shadows flee away!