A GUIDING VOICE
A touching story came to us from Minnesota. A farmer, living on the edge of one of the many lakes of that state, started to cross it in a small sail-boat one evening after dark. The wind changed, and a gust overturned the boat when he was in the middle of the lake. The surface of the water was covered with large masses of floating ice. The farmer was an expert swimmer, and he struck out boldly towards the shore, where he thought his house stood; but he grew confused in the darkness; the ice formed rapidly over the whole lake.
He was in a small, quickly-narrowing circle, in which he beat about wildly, the chill of death creeping over his body. He gave up at last, and was sinking in the freezing water, when he heard a sound.
It was the voice of his little girl calling him: “Father! Father!” He listened. The sound of her voice would tell him which way home lay. It put fresh life into him. He thought: “If she would only call once more! But she will be frightened at the dark and cold. She will go in and shut the door”
But just then came the cry, loud and clear: “Father!” “I turned,” said the man afterward, in telling the story, “and struck out in the opposite direction. I had been going away from home. I fought my way; the ice broke before me. I reached the shore and home at last. But my dear was away from — Wesleyan Methodist.
What a multitude of souls about us, like that poor man, have lost their balance, and let go their grip on the life-boat, and are struggling amid the cold, icy waves of sin — soon to sink to the bottomless pit and be forever lost, unless some one goes as near to them as possible, and calls them in the right direction. Just one word spoken in Jesus’ name may show them the right way, and be the means of their salvation.
Dear brother, the sound of your voice, the words you may speak, the kind action you may do, may show some fallen brother the right way home. O let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. — Editor.
Milo 