ONE fine summer morning a waterman had been training to row for a coat and badge to be contended for the next day, 1St August, 1862, by six London watermen, of whom he was one. He had just brought his boat to the shore, where a great number of people had collected to witness the last row previous to the match the following morning, and many hands were readily put forth to help him out of the boat, some persons going up to their very knees in water to do so. The reader will understand the reason of the anxiety of these professed friends, when informed that most of them were betting-men, anxious to ascertain which was the best man on whom to wager their money; and the fact of this man’s name having been announced in Bell’s Life newspaper, “first favorite for the race,” excited their special interest. He had no sooner left the boat and got fairly into the dressing room, than he heard the cry of “A boy overboard!” Coming to the door and seeing people running from various directions to the steam-boat pier, he hastened with them to the spot, and was astonished to see the consternation depicted on every countenance. All eyes were strained to the place where the boy had gone in, but no boy was to be seen. They looked and looked in vain, nothing was visible but a steamer which had just come up, the engines of which had been stopped, leaving the water comparatively still. Looking carefully around, the waterman noticed bubbles coming up to the surface close by the steamer, and in a moment the thought flashed across his mind, “the boy must be there!” There was no time to lose, those bubbles were perhaps the last breath of the drowning boy. Plunging instantly into the water, the rescuer went down beneath its dark surface. The crowd waited in breathless suspense upon the shore. Down, down, he went some two fathoms deep, and found and seized the body of the boy with one hand, while with the other he rose to the surface with his prize. A simultaneous shout burst from the spectators as the poor child’s face was seen above the deep waters; a boat was quickly sent out, and the boy, taken into it, was carried to the shore, and conveyed to the nearest public-house. Everything needed for his restoration was obtained, and no effort was spared to affect his recovery; but many who were standing by, anxiously watching the result, had given up all hope of his life. Just at that moment his mother appeared, and endeavored to press through the crowd which filled the room. Some, out of compassion, tried to keep her back, and just as she locked her hands and was about to utter a shriek of despair, the boy opened his eyes and sat up. Looking around like one bewildered, lie exclaimed, “Where am I? Where have I been? “His poor mother now pushed through the crowd, and rushing to her child clasped him to her bosom in unutterable thankfulness.
There had been bills posted in the neighborhood forbidding persons to bathe in the Thames; but the lad, heedless of the caution, and thoroughly occupied with his own thoughts and pleasures, ventured into the water. Suddenly a steamer on its way to the pier approached the spot where he was bathing; the water, drawn with great force by the paddles, sucked him under, and he disappeared beneath the surface.
Fellow sinner, are you not so occupied with your circumstances, as altogether to forget God, and the value of your never-dying soul?
“Time with rapid wing is flying,
You are hastening to the tomb;
Every moment you are dying,
Hurrying to receive your doom.”
Think of this poor boy, now no longer occupied with trifles, but thoroughly awakened to a sense of his terrible danger, struggling for life and ready to give the world if he possessed it for something to lay hold of; yet the more he struggles the deeper he sinks, until at last hope dies out, his struggles cease, and he sinks helplessly to the bottom. It is thus, with sinners when once brought, through mercy, to see their real condition before God. The first thought is, “What can I do to be saved?” Remember, reader, you have to deal with God, and so must submit to his way of salvation as revealed in his word.
The boy struggled to save himself, but his struggles were in vain till help came from another. “Now to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his FAITH is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:55But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)). When the child’s struggles had ceased, and he attempted no longer to save himself, then the deliverance came. A strong arm was extended, and in this he lay a helpless creature, but no less surely saved. Now, dear reader, are you in the condition of this lost one? are you awakened to a sense of your danger? Have you struggled to extricate yourself from the web of sin which is woven within and around you, and found it all in vain? If so, there is deliverance at hand. Not an arm of flesh, but an arm Almighty to save; an arm that never failed to secure the poor helpless sinner who trusted in it; One able to “save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him.”