THE BRIDGE IS GONE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 1, 1869

THE BRIDGE IS GONE.

On a dark, wild night, many years ago, a train of cars under rapid motion was approaching the steep bank of the Connecticut river, where the stream was deep and swollen, and many rods in width. Will they cross it? The tempest swept over the track and went shuddering and wailing by. Suddenly, when within a mile of the river bank, a quick cry of alarm from a human voice at the roadside sounded in the ears of the engineer, who immediately gave the signal to put on all the brakes and stop the train. Hundreds of startled men and women were awakened from their dream of fancied security, and springing from their seats breathlessly inquired, “What is the matter?” And their hearts leaped into their throats, and the blood ran chill, when they were told by the excited conductor that the wind had in its might lifted the long railroad bridge across the stream from its piers and fastenings, and carried it away off on the surging river, and that a few minutes more, and the noble train with all its living, precious freight would, but for that sudden, earnest cry, “The bridge is gone!” have been dragged over the precipitous bank into the black, deep, swift waters! Words were too feeble to express the thanks of those eager and tearful travelers as they crowded about the side of him who had proved their deliverer. And was not he, too, happy?

Years afterwards, when the saved and scattered company that were on board that train sat by their quiet firesides to tell the story of that fearful night, and the almost miraculous escape from instant death, their hearts would throb with gratitude toward God and that solitary watcher, who, when death threatened them with swift destruction, heeded not the storm, but ran quickly to their rescue, and rang out his friendly warning voice on the midnight air—“The bridge is gone!”

Just so the innumerable multitudes that throng the highway of human life, heedless of peril and staying themselves in seeming safety, are rushing on with hot haste, amid the darkness of nature and time’s waning night, toward the precipitous banks of the terrible Jordan of Judgment, in the vague expectation that all is well, and that the bridge that “Vain Hope” hath builded to span the awful waters is all right for them, and will bear them in safety over to another and better shore; forgetful of the stern fact that none will ever cross into the Canaan of immortality and glory, save those whose sins are washed away in the atoning blood of the Lamb. The whirlwinds to which they have sown have carried their bridge away, and they know it not. Divine mercy, that bridged for Noah the watery chasm which rolled between the world that perished and the world that now is, has for the good alone constructed a safe passage-way over the fiery vortex that lies between this world and that which is to come. All others, like Pharaoh and his hosts, will perish in the avenging flood. And he whose bark goes down then, will never rise again. That is the “Last night; the long, dark, dark, dark night, That has no morn beyond it, and no star.”

How, then, should we who are enlightened, and who stand but a little way from that awful river, and see the trains of human souls go careering by, cry like the faithful watcher quick, loud and long, in their drowsy ears, “The bridge is gone!” And shall we not be culpable, if we can by our feeble voice save even one, and failing to do so, that one through our neglect go down in the blackness of eternal night at last! And if once and forever saved, how will we both sing for joy amid the happy circles of the eternal home, when we remember the earnest note of alarm that stayed the sinner’s wild and wayward career.

O watcher on the walls! brave the darkness and the storm, and cry again in the ears of the perishing thousands who rush madly toward ruin, “The bridge is gone!” and if they heed thee not, then fling out the lurid signal of danger, and once more lift thy voice louder yet on the midnight blast, and cry as one that would wake the dead, “The bridge is gone.”—World’s Crisis.