Danger Stimulating Exertion

       In the homeward voyage of the Atlantic fleet, on its cruise around the world, a historian of its experiences tells of a rescue of one of the sailors in a great storm that arose. The storm was at its height and there ran through the fleet a report that the Minnesota had lost a man overboard. The signal, indicating that fact, went up to the foremast and the fleet stopt.

      Could they save the man? It was noticed that the Minnesota swung around a little, as if to afford a lee, and the Vermont following held true. A life-buoy had been thrown to the struggling man, and he, being a good swimmer, caught it, and drifted down toward the Vermont. Those on the Vermont saw him and ran their bow up close to him, turned it a little so as to afford shelter, and were preparing to lower a boat for him. A life-line was thrown overboard, and, to the astonishment of those on the Vermont, the man left the life-buoy and swam for the line. Those on board shouted to him not to do it; but he took the chance, swam to the life-line and wrapt it around his wrist and was drawn on board the Vermont. The next day we heard that there was a similar rescue by the Kentucky of a man lost from the Kearsarge.

      The imminent danger caused strenuous exertion. Similarly the man in moral peril can only keep out of danger by exerting all his powers.

• Our Lifeline
• Prayer: Our Lifeline To God
• Prayer: Our Lifeline To God

Tim Hughes sings "My Jesus, My Lifeline"

Night For Rest

Night For Rest

Between the days, the weary days,
He drops the darkness and the dew;
Over tired eyes his hands he lays.
And strength and hope and life renews.
Thank God for rest between the days! 

Else who could bear the battle stress,
Or who withstand the tempest's shocks,
Who tread the dreary wilderness
Among the pitfalls and the rocks;
Came not the night with folded flocks?

The white light scorches and the plain
Stretches before us, parched with the heat;
But, by and by, the fierce beams wane;
And lo! the nightfall, cool and sweet.
With dews to bathe our aching feet!

For he remembereth our frame!
Even for this I render praise.
O, tender Master, slow to blame
The falterer on life's stormy ways,
Abide with us - between the days!

Openness Of Mind

       The Mediterranean is practically a tideless sea, and yet the visitor to its waters is puzzled at the discovery of what appears to be a tide. But the explanation is that there is a connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, so that what seems to be a tide at Gibraltar is simply the rolling waves from the tide of the mighty Atlantic into the sea that washes the shores of southern Europe and northern Africa. As long as the channel at the Straits of Gibraltar is open, so long will there be this rolling in, and so there will be a constant influx of blessing while communication with God is unhindered.

Christ Our Captain

       "Among the old war pictures I remember one of a captain of artillery bringing his battery into action. His whole soul was in the effort to rally his men and guns on the line. You could hear the thunderous roll of the wheels, crushing over all unevenness and hindrance, the frantic straining of the horses, the fearless, intense resolution of the men, and above all, the captain waving his sword, shouting his commands - but shot dead just as the guns wheel into line. Our Captain died rallying us, but He rose again, and He still has His dying enthusiasm of love for each one of us." - Franklin Noble, "Sermons in Illustration."

• The Storms of Life by J. Mike Minnix

Deep Things

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. Isaiah 55:8

       It is folly to think that only those things are of value to us which we can intellectually understand. Is the vast deep of the ocean nothing to me, since I can not move about freely and closely examine its depths? And if I must confess that 'way down are untold mysteries which human eye has never seen, what matters it? Can not I rejoice in the roar of the waves, in the ebb and flow of the tides, and in the flight of the clouds? Why will men insist, their poor, finite reasoning, on fathoming the deep things of God, instead of drinking to the full from the inexhaustible source of assurance and consolation? -- E. F. Stroter, "The Glory of the Body of Christ."

Death Not To Be Feared

The following lines by Maltbie D. Babcock were read by him just before sailing abroad on the voyage from which he never returned:

Why be afraid of death as tho your life were

breath?

Death but anoints your eyes with clay. O,

glad surprise!

Why should you be forlorn? Death only

husks the corn.

Why should you fear to meet the Thresher

of the wheat?

Is sleep a thing to dread? Yet sleeping you

are dead

Till you awake and rise, here, or beyond

the skies.

Why should it be a wrench to leave your

wooden bench?

Why not with happy shout run home when

school is out?

The dear ones left behind--O foolish one 

and blind.

A day, and you will meet-- a night, and you

will greet.

This is the death of death, to breathe away

a breath

And know the end of strife, and taste the 

deathless life,

And joy without a fear, and smile without

a tear,

And work, nor care to rest, and find the last

the best.

Fernando Ortega sings "This is my father's world" by 
clergyman,  Maltbie D. Babcock

Gage of Ability

" I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13 (KJV)

       Mr. Edmund Driggs, of Brooklyn, gives a motto that came into his life like an influence, and greatly helped him toward success. At the age of fifteen he left home to engage with an older brother in the freighting business on the Hudson River. The first duty he performed on the vessel was to go aloft to reef the pennant-halyards through the truck of the topmast, which was forty feet above the top of the mainmast, without any rigging attached thereto. When the sailing-master had arranged the halyards over his shoulder, with a running bowline under his right arm, he ordered him aloft. The new sailor looked at the sailing-master and then aloft, and then asked the question, "Did anybody ever do that?" "Yes, you fool," was the answer. "Do you suppose that I would order you to do a thing that was never done before?" The young sailor replied, "If anybody ever did it, I can do it." He did it. That maxim has been his watchword through life. Though he is now over seventy years of age, he is still engaged in active business life, and whatever enterprise he undertakes the watchword still is, "If anybody ever did it, I can do it."(Text.) - Wilbur F. Crafts, "Successful Men of To-day."