Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-10-26

many Or lew am going TO spend my time
III recommending the lifeboat which fetched
me here, poor sinner saved by grace, and
in swinging the cutlasses TO sever the ropes
of my unsafe lifeboat and let her fall off.
My nearer, without asking any questions,
get into the gospel lifeboat. Room! and
yet there is room! The biggest boat on
earth is the gospel lifeboat. You must
remember the proportion of things, and
that the shipwrecked craft is the whole
earth, and the lifebont must be in proper
ton You talk about your Campanias,
and your Lucanias, and your Majestics, and
your City of New Yorks, but all of them
put together are smaller than an Indians
canoe on Schroon lake compared with this
gospel lifeboat, that is large enough to
take in all nations Room for one and
room for all. Get inl How? How"
you ask.
Well, | know how you feel, for summer
before last, on the sea of Finland, / had
the same experience. The ship in which
we sailed could not venture nearer than
mile from shore, where stood the Russian
palace of Pctcrhof, and we had to get into
a small boat and be rowed ashore. The
water was rough, and rs we went down the
ladder ut the side of the ship we held firm
ly on to the railing. but in order to get into
the boat we had at last to let 90. How did
! Know that the boat was good and that
the olrsmcn were sufficient? How did |
know that the Finland sea would not swal-
low uS with one opening of it's crystal
iaws'
We had to trust, and we did trust, and
our trust was well rewarded. In the same
way get into this gospel lifcboat Let 90!
AS long as You hold ON to any other hope
you are Imperfect and you got no advan-
taSc from the lifeboat. Let go! Does some
one here say, II guess ! will hold on II little
to my good works, orto piOus parentage,or
tosomething can do in the way Of achieving
my own salvation. No, no, let go! Trust
the Captain, who would not put you into "A
rickcty or uncertain craft
THE ONLY SURE RESOURCE.
For the sake of your present and ever
lasting welfare, with all the urgency of an
immortal addressing immortals, | cry from
the depths of my soul and at the top of my
voice, Let Ro" Last summer the life say
ing crew at East Hampton invited me to
come up to the life station and see the crew
practice, for twice a week they are drilled
i'll the important work assigned them by
the United states government, and they 20
through all the routine of saving the ship
wrecked. But that would give little idea
of what they would have to do if some mid
night next winter the wind driving beach
ward, vessel should get in the grasp of a
hurricane.
See the lights flare from the ship in the
breakers, and then responding lights far
ing from the beach. and hear the rockets
buzz as they rise, and the lifeboat runbles
out and the gun booms, and the lifeline
rises and falls across the splintered decks.
and the bawsor tightens, and the life car
goes to and fro, carrying the exhausted
mariners, and the ocean, as if augered by
the snatching of the human prey from the
white teeth of its surf and the stroke of
its bllowing paw, rises with increased fury
to assail tho land. So now am engaged in
no light drill, prGcticing for what NAV
come over some of your souls. 1t is with
some of you wintry midnight and your
hopes for this world and the next are
wrecked
But see! Sec! The lights kindled on the
beach. throw or the life line Haul in,
hand over hand, All, there is Il lifcboat in
the surf which al the wrath of earth and
hell cannot swamp, and its Captain with
SCARED hand puts the trumpet to his lips
as he cries, "Oh, Israel, thou hast DESTROYED
myself, but i'll Inc is thy help" But what
is the use of all this if you decline to get
into it, You might as well have been a
sailor on board that laundering ship of the
Mediterranean when the mariners cut the
ropes OF the boat and let her fall off.