It was the lifeboat, which sheered alongside and took them on board one by one.
“Some there were,” said the lame man impressively, “who hung back, and some who at first did not believe in the lifeboat, and refused to leave the doomed ship. There was no hope for those who refused—none whatever; but they gave in at last. God put it into their hearts to trust the lifeboat, and so the whole were rescued and brought in safety to the land.”
“Well done!” burst from the hulking man with the broken nose, and a deep sigh of relief escaped from many of the women; but there was instant silence again, for the speaker’s hand was up, his eyes were glittering, and his lips compressed. Every one knew that more was coming, and they bent forward.
Then, in a low soft voice, he began to tell of a dark but quiet night, and a slumbering city; of a little spark, which like sin in a child, was scarcely visible at first, but soon grew fierce and spread, until it burst out in all the fury of an unquenchable fire. He told of the alarm, the shouts of “Fire!” the rushing to the rescue, and the arrival of the engines and the fire-escape. Then he described the horror of a young woman in the burning house, who, awaking almost too late, found herself on the very edge of destruction, with the black smoke circling round and the impassable gulf of flame below. Just then the head of the fire-escape approached her, and a man with extended arms was seen a few feet below her, calling out, “Come!”
Like some of those in the shipwreck, she did not at first believe in the fire-escape. She could not trust. She would not leap. While in that condition there was no hope for her, but God put it into her heart to trust. She leaped, and was saved!
The speaker stopped. Again there was a sigh of relief and a tendency to cheer on the part of the hulking man, but once more the sparkling eyes and compressed lips riveted the people and tied their tongues. In another moment the missionary had them on a battlefield, which he described with thrilling power, passing rapidly from the first bugle call through all the fight, until the foe was finally put to flight amid the shouts of “Victory!”
“Men and women,” he said in conclusion, “I am painting no fancy pictures. The things I have told to you did really happen, and four dear brothers of my own were chief actors in the scenes described. They helped to rescue the perishing from the sea and from the fire, and joined in the shout of Victory! on the battlefield. Now, friends, you are in a worse case than any I have yet described. The tempest of sin is roaring round and in you. This world is sinking beneath you, but Jesus Christ, our Lifeboat, is alongside. Will you come? The fire is burning under your very feet; there is no deliverance from the flames of God’s wrath, except by the Great Escape. Jesus is at hand to save. Will you come? The battle is raging. Don’t you know it? Do you forget that awful combat with the tempter when you fought your way past the gin-shop, but were beaten and turned back? Or that terrible assault, when passion after a deadly struggle laid you helpless on your back? Oh! may God’s Holy Spirit open your eyes to see Jesus—the Captain of your Salvation—at your elbow this moment, waiting at the door of your heart and knocking till you will open and let Him in to lead you on to—Victory!”
Here the speaker dropped his voice again, and spoke tenderly of the love of Jesus to the chief of sinners, and as he spoke, tears were seen trickling down many a dirty face, and sobs broke the solemn stillness.
As the lame man was going home that night, a young girl ran after him and seized his arm. Her eyes were swollen with weeping.
“Oh, sir,” she cried in a low voice that trembled with emotion, “can—will—Jesus save the like of me?”