If some of the little ones who read this paper do not understand the verse just given, perhaps the following incident will help to explain it.
Along the shores of large rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water, wherever ships and steamers are accustomed to stop, long, platforms extend out some distance over the water. These platforms are called wharfs, or piers.
At the end of the wharf the water is quite deep, so that the steamer can approach and stop there without being stranded.
Passengers then get off and walk along the wharf to the land.
Those of you who live near a large body of water, know all about these wharfs, but many children have never seen them and perhaps never heard of them.
Some years ago one of God’s servants, a minister of the gospel, was standing at the end of one of these wharfs, preaching about Jesus and how. He came to save poor lost sinners.
Among the people who were listening, were some wicked men. One of these men was going to push another one against the minister and make him fall into the water.
But the minister saw what the men were going to do, and just as one pushed the other, he stepped to one side, and the wicked man himself went right over the end of the wharf into the water.
This man wanted to cause a righteous man to go astray in an evil way, that is, he wanted to get the minister into trouble by pushing him into the water. But instead, he himself went over into the water, and so fell, “into his own pit.”
Perhaps some of my readers can remember times when they had unkind feelings, and in trying to harm others, got into trouble themselves. Such things often happen.
I hope you will all think of the verse you have been reading and never try to get any one into trouble.
Remember that Jesus says,
ML 06/21/1903