HARD WORK | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 31, 1878

HARD WORK.

Two drunken sailors had to cross a Scotch firth at night. They leaped into the boat and pulled away at the oars with all their might; they pulled and pulled, and wondered they did not reach the shore. In their maudlin state they thought the tide was set against them, and so, in a wild fashion, they took spells of pulling, but no shore did they reach. Great was their astonishment, for the firth was narrow, and a quarter of an hour should have seen them at the opposite beach. “Surely,” they said, “the boat is bewitched, or we are.” The night wore on, and the morning light explained the mystery to their more sober eyes. “Why, Sandy, man, we never pulled up the anchor!” Just so; and thus, tug as they might, they labored in vain.

Many a sinner has been in like case. He has tried to believe, always a strange thing to do, but he has spent his strength for naught. Meanwhile the real cause of the soul’s long delay has been unnoticed; the heart has never really loosed its hold of its self-righteous hopes, never fairly pulled up the anchor and trusted itself to Jesus.

Reader, how is it with you? Have you heaved the anchor?—Sel.