THE STORY I have to tell you today is a perfectly true one, but it is very sad. As I stood near to the place where it had happened, not so very long before, and heard all the particulars from an eye witness, I felt as if I had rarely heard anything more sorrowful. It was a beautiful spot; a large bay close to one of our sea port towns. When the tide was full, the water rushed up into the bay, filling it on stormy days with huge ocean waves; when the tide was out, the bay was empty, just a bed of glistening sand, with a fresh water stream running through the middle of it. On one side of this bay was a large factory, and a broad strong breakwater had been built on this side to prevent the water from running up into the street and houses on stormy days. When the breakwater was built, the owner of the factory bought a life buoy, in case of accidents, and at the suggestion of an experienced sailor, 500 feet of rope was attached to it.
“The life buoy is useless without rope,” the sailor had remarked; “it may support a man in the water, but it cannot bring him to land.”
One particularly stormy day in October, the men who worked in the factory were returning from their dinner, when a sudden cry fell upon their ears, “A boy in the water!” Sure enough, the little lad had been amusing himself by throwing sticks into the water, and the wind being too strong for him, had blown him into the bay. Amongst the men at this moment, on the breakwater, was one strong active young fellow, of perhaps twenty years old. He had practiced swimming from a child, and was as much at home in the water as on land. On seeing the child’s danger, he did not hesitate an instant, but throwing off his coat, sprang into the raging waves, and almost immediately seized the little boy. But now a fresh difficulty arose. How was he to land, on that breakwater, with the waves rising mountains high around him, and the wild wind dashing him every moment farther from it? “The life buoy!” shouted the lookers on, and many willing hands were ready to throw it over. But alas! when the coil of rope attached was unrolled, it was found to have diminished to less than one hundred feet, and as the life buoy was thrown into the water, the rope being too short went with it. It was the last chance for the brave lad and the little child he still had held tightly with one arm. He succeeded in reaching the buoy and putting it on. It held him up in the water, but as the old sailor had said, it could not land him. A boat was launched, but was instantly broken to pieces by the angry waves beating it against the strong wall of the breakwater. Time passed on, the poor young fellow had exhausted his strength trying to reach the land on the further side of the bay. The little boy slipped from his weary arms, and he himself sank for the last time in the raging sea. He had given his life in his endeavor to save another, and his fellow citizens were not slow to admire his courage and self-sacrifice. A beautiful monument was raised in one of the public parks, and on one side was carved the figure of the brave boy, with the child in one arm, vainly trying to reach the land; and on the other side this verse was carved: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:1313Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13).) Did you ever hear of greater love? Yes, you have heard of One who laid down His life, not for His friends, but for His enemies. What wonderful love His must have been, and little bay or little girl, it was for you! Perhaps you say, “I am not His enemy.” Ah! you do not know. If you have not yet accepted Jesus as your Saviour, you are a child of wrath, a sinner, an enemy of God. Is that a hard thing to say? it may seem so to you, but it is true, for God’s word says so. And it has another side to it, too; a very joyful, happy side, for if you are a sinner, you are the very one Jesus died for. Are you not glad of that? Does it not make your heart rejoice to think that although you are a sinner, Christ died for you? He took the punishment for all those naughty things you have done, and O, what a dreadful punishment it was; not only suffering so terribly upon the cross, but in those hours of darkness, bearing the wrath of God against sin, “All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over Me,” He says, and no man can ever know what that suffering means. And yet we read of it lightly, while our hearts are moved to love and pity as we think of that brave young man who laid down his life for the little boy.
“No man of greater love can boast,
Than for his friend to die;
Thou for Thine enemies wast slain!
What love with Thine can vie?”
ML 09/08/1912