The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-19


 and to kick and to snort? The hard sur
 face of this earth is only as the shell
 of an egg is to the inside of the egg. The
 internal fires of the earth may burst
 forth at any time. The tornadoes and cy
 clones are ready to beat us down from
 above. There needs but little shifting
 of the earth's surface and great tidal
 waves would submerge our coast cities.
 Dangers, dangers. dangers are every
 where! Thank God that He has cared
 for us and protected us from physical
 destruction or, what is worse, from phys
 ical mutilation and agony! Every day
 and hour of our lives we have been sur
 rounded by perils from the forces of na-
 ture. We, like Paul and his fellow vcy- agers on the AleXandrian corn ship, nave escaped safe to land"
 But there is still another fact to
 which I want to draw your attention in
 reference to this text. I want you to focus your eyes upon that little word all" Luke does not here say, And
 Paul escaped safe to land" He does
 not say, And Paul and myself escaped
 safe to land" But he does say, And
 so it came to pass that they escaped all
 safe to land" That meant that if there were families upon that ship the father and mother as well as the broth CTS and sisters or the children escaped. All--yes, all-escaped safe to land. Have you ever stopepd to think how much you are indebted morally and | spiritually to the fact that your godly father and mother were preserved to train your youthful steps in life?
 , A Narrow Escape.
 | Of course we all know that spiritual l life comes from Jesus Christ alone. He l is the vine, and we are the branches. But we also know that Christ works | by human agency. He sends certain | disciples to us to lead us to the living waters In many cases these disciples are our parents. If we had not been led to the cross by Christian father l or mother, many of us would never 1 have knelt there at all. And yet do 1 you not remember when as a little boy l in the most critical time of your life l you almost lost that mother of yours. | who was to be your best spiritual | guide? Do you not remember the aw l full sickness she had when you were about ten years of age? Once, twice. 1 sometimes three or four times day the | doctor came to the house. You remem- 1 Der how the doorbell was muffled and l perhaps the sawdust was thrown in l the street to stop the noise of the rum bling carriage wheels. The younger l children were sent away to a neigh
 bor's. You were kept at home in order l to run errands when the medicines l were needed. You can still remember l the solemn faces about you. You did l not understand what it all meant at l that time, but you do now. You re- l member that midnight hour when ev- l erything was in excitement and they 1 said she would never come out of that l sinking spell, but the doctor got there l just in time. An, it was an awful night! You remember how you went i to your father and said, Papa, can
 go in and kiss mamma tonight?" and he ] said: Flush, Charley Hushi Your mother is very sick. Let me undress 1 you and hear you say your prayers.''
 Then you remember as he kissed you l good night he left a tear on your lips
 You remember during that night you did not sleep wink. Aye, she had an aw-
 fully close call! If she had died, where
 would you be mentally spiritually and l physically today? Yes, your Christian
 mothers life hung on the balance that 1 night; it was spared to you by the nar-
 rowest of margins. Have you been thank
 ful for that escape? Today we should
 not only thank God for saving our own
 lives, but also for saving the lives of
 those upon whom our early mental and l spiritual development was dependent. And they escaped all safe to. land"
 l The Right Fraternity.
 But, after we left the old homestead l and started out to make our own way l in the world, then again we had narrow
 moral and spiritual escapes. As we look 1 back at those escapes today we shudder ] in horror. As we weigh carefully the l conditions then we know that we es- 1 capped our spiritual deaths, as 1t were. l by the narrowest margin. Oh, how close | we were to being wrecked on the rocks I of temptation and sin. We were as close l as were the inmates of the Alexandrian | corn ship on the day she went to pieces i on the shoals. Perhaps that narrow moral and spiritual escape occurred on i the day you left home for college. The l goodbyes had been said. You were out l of your mothers sight and beyond the 1 sound of your fathers voice for the first l time. You had to choose your associates i This and that college fraternity were open 1 to you. The classes were pretty clearly l defined. One fraternity was composed of | drinking, absolute young men. Another l was composed of steady, studioas, moral | students. With which would you asso- 1 ciate yourself? While you were hesitat- | ing some old school friend came to you l and warned you against the fast set and l persuaded you to unite with the godly | men. As you look back upon your past l life. before God you can say that next 1 to vour mothers prayers that advice of 1 your old school friend was the most inn 1 portant talk of your life. Your whole l spiritual future was affected by the de- 1 cision you made on that night when un- 1 der his influence you decided the 1rater- | nifty fellowship question.
 Or perhaps your moral and spiritual | escape was like that of the man who some years ago was addressing great religious meeting in the city of Boston. ..It was a dark night" said the speak CT. "when three young men were pass ing down the street of an eastern city. Their steps quickened as they came near to a house of evil resort. When the doorbell was rung one of these young men hesitated. He turned and said; Boys, I am not going in. I am going back Scared, are you?' said his two companions. Yes answered the young man, I am scared The two companions tried to persuade the fal- tering one to go in. He almost yielded. |, He went even to the threshold; then he turned and broke away and ran back to his boarding house and threw
 himself on his knees and thanked God
 for saving him from falling" Then the speaker, addressing his audience, said:
 rFriends, two of these young men en-
 tered the house of evil resort that
 night. Those two young mems bodies
 now lie in dish onored drunkards'
 graves. The third young man, who
 almost entered that evil house and
 turned and ran away that night gave
 his heart to God and entered the gospel
 ministry and is now addressing you. Oh ye men and women. have your mor-
 al and spiritual escapes been so narrow
 as that? Thank God today that. like