A speaker at one of Evan Roberts’ remarkable revival services
in Wales, was telling of a “vision” he had had, and of a voice
which exhorted him to “Throw out the life-line,” when instantly
the listeners sang the whole hymn together.
Mr. Ufford, the author of the lines, once sang them at a
watch-service in California, and there he told how the _Elsie
Smith_ was lost on Cape Cod in 1902, showing the very
life-line that saved sixteen lives from the sea, and by chance
one of the number was present at the service.
From a room, in a building hired for religious services in
a Pennsylvania city, and where a series of revival meetings
was being held, rang out, one night, the hymn, “Throw out
the life-line,” in the hearing, next door, of a convivial
card-party. It was a sweet female voice, followed in the
chorus by other and louder voices chiming in. The result was
the merriment ceased as one of the members of the card-party
remarked: “If what they’re saying is right, then we’re wrong,”
and the revelers broke up. An ex-member of that party is now an
editor of a great city daily, and his fellows are all filling
positions of responsibility. The life-line pulled them ashore.
In a Massachusetts city, twenty years ago, this hymn won to
Christ a man who is now a prosperous manufacturer.
At a special service held at Gibraltar for the survivors of an
emigrant ship that went ashore there during a storm, this hymn
was sung with telling effect.
The story of that life-line is long enough and strong enough to
tie up a large bundle of results wrought by it.
(1801)
=Life-material=--See MATERIAL FOR A GREAT LIFE.