The Broken Rope | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 13, 1875

The Broken Rope.

A COMPANY of travelers, in Switzerland, with guides, went up some very steep places, places which but few travelers attempted to go up. They were, as all travelers are there, fastened together with cords at the waist, so that if one slipped the rope would hold him—the rope fastened to the others. Passing along the most dangerous point, one of the guides slipped, and they all started down the precipice; but after awhile, one more muscular than the rest struck his heels into the ice and stopped; but the rope broke, and down, hundreds and thousands of feet, the rest went.

And so I see whole families bound together by ties of affection, and in many places walking on slippery places of worldliness and sin. The father knows it, and the mother knows it, and they are bound all together. After awhile they begin to slide down, steeper and steeper, and the father becomes alarmed and he stops, planting his feet on the “Rock of Ages.” He stops, but the rope breaks, and those who were tied to him by moral and spiritual influences once, go over the precipice.

Better that the rope break than that all be lost; but oh! there is such a thing as coming to Christ soon enough to save others. How many parents wake up in the latter part of life to find out the mistake! The parent says, “I have been too lenient,” or, “I have been too severe in the discipline of my children. If I had the little ones around me again, how different would I do!” You will never have them again. The work is done, the bent of the character is given, the eternity is decided. Have the family altar to-night. How do you suppose that father felt as he leaned over the couch of his dying child, and the expiring son said to him: Father, you have been very good to me. You have given me a fine education, and you have placed me in a fine social position; you have done everything for me in a worldly sense; but, father, you never told me how to die. Now I am dying, and I am lost. —Sel.