Years ago a steamer out on Lake Erie caught fire, and headed at once for the nearest land. All was wild confusion, as men and women struggled for means of escape. In the crowd was a returning California gold-miner. He fastened the belt containing his gold securely about his waist and was preparing to try to swim ashore. Just then a little sweet-faced girl in the crowd touched his hand, and looked up beseechingly into his face, and said, "Won't you please save me? I have no papa here to save me. Won't you, please?"
What would he do? He gave the belt of gold, that meant such a hard struggle, one swift glance. But that soft child-touch on his hand, and that face and voice strangely affected him. He couldn't save both;--which?
The quick-as-flash thoughts came all in a heap. Then he dropped the gold, and took the child, made the plunge, and by and by reached land, utterly exhausted, and lay unconscious. As his eyes opened the child he had saved was standing over him with the tears of gratitude flooding her eyes. And a human life never seemed quite so precious. He had lost his gold, and his years of toil, but he had saved a life, and in saving it had found a new life springing up within himself.
As we close our talk together will you listen very softly. Listen: out of the distance comes a murmur of voices, like a low, long heart-cry. It comes from near-by, where you live. It comes most from far-away lands. Its words are pathetically distinct: "Will you save me? I have no one to save me. Won't you?" And we can do it. But the gold and the life must go. Shall we do it, hand in hand with Jesus, the only Saviour? Shall we not do it?
Footnotes
[1] Acts 13:18, American Revision.
[2] John 3:17.
[3] Matthew 13:38.
[4] John 12:20-33.
[5] Matthew 24:14.
[6] Revelation 20:7-8.
[7] Matthew 24:14.
[8] Acts 15:13-18.
[9] Matthew 13:38.
[10] Christina Rossetti, in The Outlook, slightly altered.
[11] Matthew 25 40, 45.
[12] Revelation 2:5
[13] Matthew 24 14.
[14] Revelation 1:5, 6.
[15] Revelation 4:8.
[16] Revelation 4:9-11.
[17] Revelation 5:11-12.
[18] Revelation 7:9-12.
[19] Revelation 14:1-5
[20] Revelation 15:2-4
[21] Revelation 19:1-8.
[22] Thessalonians 1:8. II Corinthians 1:1 l.c.
[23] Romans 1:8.
[24] John, chapters 14-16.
[25] John 20:19-23.
[26] Susan Coolidge.
[27] John 7:38.
[28] Revelation 8:3-5.
[29] Frances Ridley Havergal.
[30] Matthew 6:19-21
[31] Luke 12:33,34
[32] Matthew 19:16-29. Mark 10:17-31. Luke 18:18-30
[33] Luke 12:13-21.
[34] Romans 1:14
[35] Romans 13:8
[36] James 5:2, 3
[37] Arthur Peirce Vaughn
[38] John 12:24-26.