FOR many years I have made it a rule never to spend a half-hour with any person without finding out if that person was a Christian, and if not, trying to preach Christ to him."
This in substance is what the minister said in the little church at the quiet summer resort by the river side, where Edith Manton was staying. "For," continued the speaker, "it may be my last opportunity to speak for Christ, or it may be some one's last chance of hearing the truth."
Edith was thinking of these words that morning when she went out in Jerry's boat after lilies. Jerry knew where the flowers were thickest and fairest, and too he was counted as the best oarsman on the river. Edith often went out with Jerry, and that morning she was thinking, "I have had more than one opportunity to present Christ to Jerry. But I do not even know whether or not he belongs to Christ. If I had only spoken to him before! I don't know how to begin now." Presently she began singing,
Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore.
Jerry listened and when she ended he said:
"That's a good one, Miss."
"Yes; but, Jerry, are you pulling for the other shore?"
"Well, I don't know much about them things," replied Jerry. "Reckon as how when one has no oars to pull with he must just drift. And maybe he will drift to the shore, and maybe he won't."
"But why shouldn't you have the oars?" asked Edith.