IS THE BRIDGE-GUARD AWAKE?
By Edison Driver
“Frightful Wreck. Agreeable Stranger Gives Guard Drugged Wine. Tears up Bridge Rails. The Northbound Passenger Plunges to Destruction. An inhuman wretch, for mere personal grudge against the P. & R. R. Co. sacrifices twenty innocent lives.” These headlines tell truly a terrible story. How our indignation rises against the man who could be led to drink while at the post of duty. We condemn and despise his weakness. The gratification of his own appetite cost the most precious thing in the world—life. The guard on the bridge, the stranger insane in his anger, and the drugged wine are all tangible things to us, and we grasp them with clearness. But there is more than one bridge-guard, more than one stranger, and more than one bottle of wine. We know that there is a power in the earth that has an insane grudge against God; we know that there are millions of men and women making the journey of life; we know that there are bridges across a thousand chasms; but do we know that God has stationed us as bridge-guards, one and all, saying, “Be sober, be watchful”? And do we know that anything which makes prayer distasteful, or God’s Word insipid, is drugged wine? Do we?