53. Salvation for All
Salvation for All
BEAUFORT’S LAMENT.—”Wherefore should I die, being so rich?” said Cardinal Beaufort. “If the whole realm would save my life, I am able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it. Will not death be bribed? Will money do nothing?”
LUTHER AND MONEY.—The enemies of Luther were no strangers to his contempt for gold. When one of the Popes asked a certain cardinal why they did not stop that man’s mouth with silver and gold, his enemies replied, That German beast regards not money! NOT A MERCHANT, BUT A KING.—A poor woman greatly desired a bunch of grapes from the King’s conservatory for her sick child. She took half a crown, and went to the King’s gardener, and tried to purchase the grapes, but was rudely repulsed. A second effort, with more money, met like results. It happened that the King’s daughter heard the angry words of the gardener, and the crying of the woman, and inquired into the matter. When the woman had told her story, the princess said, “My dear woman, yon were mistaken. My father is not a merchant, but a King; his business is not to sell, but to give,” whereupon she plucked the grapes from the vine, and gently dropped them into the woman’s apron.
RICHARD’S WHOSOEVER.—A man said; “I thank God for that word ‘whosoever.’ If God had said there was mercy for Richard, I am so vile a sinner that I would have thought He meant some other Richard; but, when He says whosoever, I know that includes me, the worst of all.” If I could come to you from the upper sanctuary, with a letter of invitation with your name and address on it, you would not doubt your warrant to accept it. Well, here is the Bible,—your invitation to come to Christ. It does not bear your name and address; but it says, “Whosoever;” that takes you in. It says, “All;” that takes you in. It says, “If any;” that takes you in. What can be surer and freer than that?
COME THIS WAY, FATHER.—A pleasure-party started for an excursion off the New Hampshire coast. A short distance out, a young lady and a little boy of the party desired to be left on an island till the others returned; which was done. Fog and darkness came on before the boat returned; and the company knew not which way to go. After some hours’ search for the island, the father shouted out the name of his boy. Shortly the answer came through the fog, “Come this way, father! steer straight for me! I’m waiting for you.” The island was reached and the boy and lady were taken off, but in two short weeks both were laid in the grave. The father says, “I seem to hear the voice of my boy calling from the bright shore, ‘Come this way, father! steer straight for me.’“
MOTHER’S BURNED HAND.—”Mamma,” said a child to her mother when she was being put to bed, “what makes your hand so scarred and twisted, and unlike other people’s hands?” “Well,” said the mother, “when you were younger than you are now, years ago, one night, after I had put you to bed, I heard a cry upstairs. I came up, and found the bed was on fire, and you were on fire; and I took hold of you, and I tore off the burning garments, and while I was tearing them off and trying to get you away I burned my hand, and it has been scarred and twisted ever since, and hardly looks any more like a hand; but I got that, my child, trying to save you.”