Some time ago a vessel had been off on a whaling voyage, and had been
gone about three years. The father of one of the sailors had charge of
the light-house, and he was expecting his boy to come home. It was
time for the whaling-vessel to return. One night there came up a
terrible gale. This father fell asleep, and while he slept his light
went out. When he awoke he looked toward the shore and saw a vessel
had been wrecked. He at once went to see if he could not yet save some
one who might be still alive. The first body that came floating toward
the shore was, to his great grief and surprise, the body of his own
boy! He had been watching for that boy for many days. Now the boy had
at last come in sight of home, and had perished because his father had
let his light go out!
I thought, what an illustration of fathers and mothers to-day that
have let their lights go out! You are not training your children for
God and eternity. You do not live as though there were anything beyond
this life at all. You keep your affections set upon things on the
earth instead of on things above, and the result is that the children
do not believe there is anything in Christianity. Perhaps the very
next step they take may take them into eternity; the next day they
may die without God and without hope.