The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-11-03
wrecked but this life-boat that COM

boats, it is Interchangeable, self-right-
ing and self battling. All along our
rocky American coast things were
left to chance for centuries, and
the shipwrecked crawled up on
the beach to die unless some one hap
pened to walk along or some fisher
mans hut might be near. But after
the ship Ayrshire was wrecked at
Squan Beach, and the Powhatan left
her 800 dead strewn along our coast,
and another vessel went on the rocks,
400 lives perishing, the United States
government woke up and made an APP
preparation of 5000, 900 for life-saving
stations, and life-lines from faking-box
are shot over the wild surf, and haws-
sers are stretched from wreck to shore,
and what with Lyle's gun and six-oared
surfboat, with cork at the sides to make
it unsuitable, and patrolmen all night
long walking the beach until they
meet each other and exchange metal
tickets, so as to show the entire beach
has been traversed, and the Coston
light flashes hope from shore to suffer.
er, and surfmen. encased in Merriman
life-saving dress, and life-car rolling
on the ropes, there are many proba-
bilities of rescue for the unfortunate
of the sea. But the government of the
United Heavens has made better pro-
vision for the rescue of our souls. So
close by that this moment we can put
our hand on its top and swing into it,
is this gospel life-boat. 1t will not take
you more than a second &c get into it.
But while in my text we stand watch
ing the marines with their cutlasses,
preparing to sever the ropes of the
life-boat and let her fall off, notice the
poor equipment Only one life-boat.
Two hundred and seventy-siX passen-
gers. as Paul counted them, and only
one life-boat My text uses the singu
lar and not the plural. cut off the
ropes of the boat" | do not suppose
it would have held more than thirty
people. though loaded to the waters
edge. | think by marine law all our
modern vessels haye enough life-boats
to hold all the crew and all the pas
sengers in case of emergency. but the
the only boat, and that a small boat,
and yet 2T6 passengers. But what
thrills me through and through is the
fact that though we are wrecked by
sin and trouble, and there is only one
life boat, that boat is large enough to
hold all who are willing to get into it.
The gospel hymn expresses it:
All may come. whoever will.
This Man receives poor sinners still
But | must haul in that statement a
little. loom for all in that life-boat,
with just one exception. Not you;
do not mean you, but there is one eX-
ception. There have been cases where
ships were in trouble and the captain
got all the passengers and crew into
the life-boat, but there was not room
for the captain. He, through the sea-
trumpet, shouted: "Shove off now and
pull for the beach. Good-by," and then
the captain, with pathetic and sublime
went down with the ship.
So the Captain of our Salvation, Christ
the Lord, launches the gospel life-boat
and tells us all to get in, but he per-
ishes. 1T behooved Christ to suffer"
My nearer, without asking any ques-
lions, get into the Gospel life-boat.
Room! and yet there is room. The
biggest boat on earth is the Gospel life
boat. You must remem Der the proper
ton of things, and that the ship
wrecked craft is the whole earth, and
the life-boat must be in proportion.
You talk about your Companies, and
your Lucanias, and your Majestics, and
your City of New Yorl1s, but all of them
put together are smaller than an In
dams canoe on Schroon lake compared
with this Gospel life-boat, that is large
enough to take in all nations. Room
for one and room for all. Get ini
How? Howe" you ask. Well, l 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 a
mile from shore, where stood the Rus
sian palace of Peterhof, and we
had to get into small boat and be
rowed ashore. The water was rough
and as we went down the ladder at the
side of the ship we held firmly onto the
railing, but in order to get into the
boat we had at last to let go. How did
| know that the boat was good and
that the oarsmen were sufficient? How
did | know that the Finland sea would
not swallow us with one opening of its
crystal jaws? We had to trust, and we
did trust, and our trust was well re-
warded In the same way get into
this Gospel life-boat. Let go! AS long
as you hold on to any other hope you
are imperiled and you get no advantage
from the life-boGt. Let go, Does
some one here say: Il guess ] will hold
on n little to my good works, or to a
pious parentage, or to something | can
vation." No, no. let go! Trust the
Captain, who would not put you into a
rickety or uncertain craft
Last summer the life-saving crew
at East Hampton invited me to come
up to the life station and see the crew
practice, for twice n week they are
drilled il the important work assigned
them 10y the United States govern
ment, and they go through all the rou-
tine of saving the shipwrecked. But
that would give little idea of what they
would have to do If some midnight
next winter, the wind driving beach
ward, a vessel should get in the
grasp of hurricane. See the
lights flare from the ship in the break
ers, and then responding lights flaring
from the beach, and hear the rockets
buzz as they rise. and the life-boat
rumbles out, and the gun booms, and
the lifeline rises and falls across the
splintered decks, and the hawser
tightens. and the life-car goes to and
fro, carrying the exhausted mariners,
md the ocean as If anrarad nv the