A FEW years ago, on a bright summer morning, a young girl was bathing with her companions in the sea. She was a tolerably good swimmer, and therefore felt under no restraint as to the distance she might go. Now there happened to be a strong current at that time towards the open sea, about which all the bathers had been warned. But as she was floating along lazily on her back, she suddenly drifted into it, and was carried out to sea with great speed.
Her friends cried out to her in violent excitement, but the motion was so delicious that the young girl could not resist the enjoyment a little longer, promising herself plenty of time to swim back. Suddenly, on looking round, she was startled to find herself at a very great distance from the shore, and immediately began to swim back with all her might. But oh, horror! she had miscalculated her strength.
After several minutes of despairing effort she found herself only losing ground. Already she was nearly exhausted with the struggle, and at last, with a cry of hopeless agony, abandoned herself to certain death. And the cruel wave hurried her along in its relentless arms.
But suddenly, when life was nearly extinct, a strong arm seized her, and dragged her into a boat, in which she was taken to the shore, and there restored to life.
You know what I am going to say; but do not stop reading with a smile. Many people can tell you the way to heaven who will never get there themselves. Does that take anything away from its reality and truth?
How many young men and women go out into the world with many a solemn warning ringing in their ears; and yet, just because certain places on the chart have been marked as dangerous, they are led by a fatal curiosity only just to go and have one peep at them. They go, and bitterly do they repent of the knowledge thus gained. What would they not give to unlearn that, the knowledge of which is consuming body and brain, and destroying the immortal soul? Oh! take my advice before it be too late; fly from the fatal current of vice. Do not be allured by the opening sweets of sin; each rose conceals a poisonous thorn, which will rankle deeply in your bosom. And yet how many have fallen into this fatal current, only to find that our own efforts to escape are vain, and to turn at last in helpless shame and misery to Jesus Christ.
Perhaps, dear reader, you are just entering into the world. The pure associations of home life, the merry schooldays, have passed away forever. Life is before you with all its pitfalls; many of them hidden in the dark. Yes, there is only one clue to guide your feet in safety, one golden clue, that is — Jesus Christ. Oh, come to Him at once! Bring Him all the fire and energy of youth. Flee from the very appearance of evil. And you who are old, you who have left the paths of virtue, you who are haunted by the ghosts of misspent years, you who have sunk to the deepest depths of degradation, come to the loving Saviour while there is still time. He is waiting to deliver and to forgive you. “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.” “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”