ITS WEAKEST LINK | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 12.

ITS WEAKEST LINK.

If a chain can be made up of a thousand links, and nine hundred and ninety-nine are strong, but one is weak, the chain will be in danger of breaking at that one weak link. We may be strong in a thousand excellences, and yet have one weakness which endangers us. That is the reason that we sometimes see men distinguished for a whole round of virtues collapse and go down. The weak link in the otherwise stout chain gave way under the pressure.

The first chain bridge was built in Scotland. Walter Scott tells how the French imitated it in a bridge across the river Seine. But there was one weak point in that chain bridge. There was a middle bolt that was of poor material, but they did not know how much depended on that middle bolt of the chain bridge. On the opening day a procession started, led on by the builder of the bridge; and, when the mighty weight of the procession was fairly on it, the bridge broke and precipitated the multitudes. The bridge was all right except in that middle bolt. So the bridge of character may be made up of mighty links strong enough to hold a mountain, but if there be one weak spot, that one point unlooked after may be the destruction of everything. And what multitudes have gone down for all time and all eternity because in the chain bridge of their character there was lacking a strong middle bolt!—Selected.