WHERE AM I GOING?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 20, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 34.

“WHERE AM I GOING?”

ONE fine summer evening, as the sun was going down, a man was seen trying to make his way through the lanes and cross-roads that led to his village home. His unsteady, staggering way of walking showed that he had been drinking; and tho he had lived in that village more than thirty years, he was now so drunk that it was impossible for him to find his way home.

Quite unable to tell where he was, at last he uttered a dreadful oath, and said to a person going by, “I’ve lost my way. Where am I going?”

The man thus addressed was an earnest Christian. He knew the poor drunkard very well, and pitied him greatly. When he heard the inquiry, “Where am I going?” in a quiet, sad, solemn way, he answered—

“To ruin!”

The poor staggering man stared at him wildly for a moment, and then murmured, with a groan, “That’s so.”

“Come with me,” said the other kindly, “and I’ll take you home.”

The next day came. The effect of the drink had passed away, but those two little words, tenderly and lovingly spoken to him, did not pass away. “To ruin! to ruin!” he kept whispering to himself, “It’s true, I am going to ruin! O God, help me, and save me!”

Thus he was stopped on his way to ruin. By earnest prayer to God he sought the grace which made him a true Christian. His feet were established on the Rock. It was a Rock broad enough to reach that poor, miserable drunkard, and it lifted him up from his wretchedness, and made a useful, happy man of him.—Selected.