Some years ago a ship was wrecked on the coast of Cornwall. All on board were drowned except one sailor boy who was washed ashore nearly dead. He lay for weeks a sick, broken body.
A young 'Christian man visited him at that time and told him the good news of God's salvation.
"When your vessel was breaking in pieces round about you," he said to the lad, "and you felt you were sinking, suppose a plank had floated by you. If you had been able to clutch it, and you felt it would bear your weight, you would have thanked God for that plank, wouldn't you?”
"Yes," said the boy, and by this simple illustration he was led to understand that the "plank" for his sinking soul was "Christ," and that he had only to commit himself to Christ, as in drowning he would to the plank.
Many years afterward, in a distant city, the same Christian man visited a death bed. The dying man was a stranger to him. "Is it well with your soul?" he said as he bent over him.
The dying man turned his head—there was a smile of recognition, a grasp of the hand—and he said, "God bless you, sir; the plank bears, the plank bears!" And he died.
Poor sinking one, do you imagine that the weight of your sin and weariness is too heavy for Jesus? It was heavy, but He bore the awful weight of it in order that you might not sink. Now He lives to present His redeemed ones faultless before the presence of the Father's glory. I pray you to cast yourself upon Christ for "He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.”