Some are in the cave of morality. It seems a strange thing to have a
word to say against it, only when we remember that he that offends in
one point is guilty of all, and when we remember God's word as he has
declared, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the things
written in the Book of the law to do them."
Then the question for the moralist is this, "Have you ever offended in
one point?"
A splendid steamer was launched on Lake Champlain. She made her way
safely across the lake and started back, when a storm came upon her,
the engines were disabled and she drifted to the rocks. "Out with the
anchor," said the captain, and the command was obeyed, but still she
drifted, and although the anchor was down she crashed against the rocks
with an awful force, and all because the anchor chain was three feet
too short. Your morality so far as it goes may be a good tiling, but
it does not reach the standard of God, nor can it until you are safely
united to Christ; and if you have put him out of your life and stand
alone in the midst of the rising floods, then how wilt thou do in the
swelling of Jordan?
Sin is a terrible thing. It not only blights our hopes and prospects
for the future, but it wrecks the strongest characters. One has only
to open his eyes to see, if he will but look abroad, what dreadful
havoc this awful evil hath wrought in the world, and yet the wonderful
thing is that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have
everlasting life," and no matter how dreadful the wreck or how awful
the ruin, Jesus Christ comes seeking to save that which was lost.
Major Whittle used to tell the story of the aged Quaker named Hartmann
whose son had enlisted in the army. There came the news of a dreadful
battle, and this old father, in fear and trembling, started to the
scene of conflict that he might learn something concerning his boy.
The officer of the day told him that he had not answered to his name,
and that there was every reason to believe that he was dead. This did
not satisfy the father, so, leaving headquarters, he started across the
battlefield, looking for the one who was dearer to him than life. He
would stoop down and turn over the face of this one and then the face
of another, but without success. The night came on, and then with a
lantern he continued his search, all to no purpose. Suddenly the wind,
which was blowing a gale, extinguished his lantern, and he stood there
in the darkness hardly knowing what to do until his fatherly ingenuity,
strength and affection prompted him to call out his son's name, and so
he stood and shouted, "John Hartmann, thy father calleth thee." All
about him he would hear the groans of the dying and some one saying,
"Oh, if that were only my father." He continued his cry with more
pathos and power until at last in the distance he heard his boy's voice
crying tremblingly, "Here, father." The old man made his way across
the field shouting out, "Thank God! Thank God!" Taking him in his
arms, he bore him to headquarters, nursed him back to health and
strength, and he lives to-day. Over the battlefield of the slain this
day walks Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crying out to all who are
wrecked by this awful power, "Thy Father calleth thee," and if there
should be but the faintest response to his cry he would take the lost
in his arms and bear them home to heaven. Will you not come while he
calls to-day?