Pleasure, pain, and joy and woe,
Repeat the words in accents slow,
Stop and think!”
The celebrated Hugh Miller, when a boy, was in the habit of scaling giddy precipices, either in search of some peculiar specimen of rock, or some unknown species of bird.
On one occasion he saw a raven’s nest far above the ground, snugly fixed on a very high cliff, which had never been scaled by the foot of man. From below it was a matter of impossibility to reach it, for it was more than a hundred feet above the level of the sea. He therefore determined to make an attempt from above. Creeping carefully along, now holding by some protruding rock, now clinging to some slender shrub, he at last found himself within six or eight feet of the desired prize. There he stopped and hesitated. Beneath, the raging surf roamed and boiled. One misstep would launch him into eternity.
His foot was stretched out to take the first step, when he observed, as the sun burst suddenly from behind a cloud, the light glisten on a smooth surface of chlorite, slippery as glass. He at once saw the consequences of such an attempt, retraced his steps, and was, in God’s providence, spared to exert an influence for good, the extent of which will never be fully known.
Reader, have you ever attempted to perform some act which no one else was able to accomplish, and been on the very brink of destruction, when the Sun of Righteousness shone on your pathway and revealed to your darkened understanding the imminent danger of your position?
Young man, you that are anxious to write your name high above that of your fellow-man, beware how you step. The ocean of a never-ending eternity is roaring beneath you. You, perhaps, do not see your danger, yet it is there. If you are seeking only the riches of this world, which perish with their using, and endeavoring to do what no one else has done, pray that God will show you the peril of your position, retrace your steps, and remember the sad end of him “who layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12: 21.
The sequel to this little sketch is very, very heart-rending.
Not long after the above occurrence a youth named Mackay made a similar attempt; paused even for a longer time; then trusting himself to the treacherous chlorite, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong over the precipice. His head striking violently against a projecting rock, his brains were scattered over a space of ten or twelve square yards in extent.