Lured to Death | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 16, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 33.

Lured to Death.

The San Francisco Examiner tells a sad story of a party of seventeen, who left Kotzebue Sound, in 1898, for a prospecting trip to the interior. Four stayed with the boat; thirteen started for the interior. They found simply "colors," but no gold. Several died of scurvy, were buried, and the others, sick and weak, pressed forward, hoping to find gold further on. As the sole survivor said, "Desire for gold overrode judgment." On they pressed, till all had died save one, a woman—Mrs. Bens, the wife of the leader of the party; who had left his home, in Michigan, staking all his hard earnings on this venture—and she was rescued, as she had fallen exhausted in her last step, after a nine-mile trip from her dead husband, left unburied. The men buried her husband, and nursed her back to life, and carried her to civilization, where she learned that the four left on board the vessel died of scurvy. For all these efforts there are graves in Arctic snows, widows and orphans. If such effort were put forth for eternal life, it would never be in vain. See Prov. 2:1-9.