Throw out the Life-line!
Some one is sinking today.
One evening, in the midst of their hilarity at their card-tables, a convivial club in one of the large Pennsylvania cities heard a sweet, clear female voice singing this solo hymn, followed by a chime of mingled voices in the chorus. A room in the building had been hired for religious meetings, and tonight was the first of the series. A strange coolness dampened the merriment in the club-room, 430 / 376 as the singing went on, and the gradual silence became a hush, till finally one member threw down his cards and declared, “If what they're saying is right, then we're wrong.”
Others followed his example, then another, and another.
There is a brother whom some one should save.
Quietly the revellers left their cards, cigars and half-emptied glasses and went home.
Said the ex-member who told the story years after to Mr. Ufford, “‘Throw Out the Life-line’ broke up that club.”
He is today one of the responsible editors of a great city daily—and his old club-mates are all holding positions of trust.
A Christian man, a prosperous manufacturer in a city of Eastern Massachusetts, dates his first religious impressions from hearing this hymn when sung in public for the first time, twenty years ago.
Visiting California recently, Mr. Ufford sang his hymn at a watch-meeting and told the story of the loss of the Elsie Smith on Cape Cod in 1902, exhibiting also the very life-line that had saved sixteen lives from the wreck. By chance one of those sixteen was in the audience.