The Rescue of an Australian Lad

It was in the town of Goulbourne, New South Wales, Australia, that I began my career in life. Until I reached the age of four years, a prosperous father provided the comforts of a good home, but a great change took place upon my suddenly being left fatherless. A few months later found me in a little town on the St. Lawrence River, in the Providence of Ontario, Canada. I had accompanied my mother to this place, but she soon placed me with a strange family and went to a distant city.

As I was now separated from every family tie, life began in real earnest. It was also the beginning of a record of many interesting and often sad experiences extending over a number of years. In my wanderings in different parts of Canada and in many localities of the United States, the incidents varied all the way from being rescued from drowning to landing in jail as a vagrant. Space forbids a detailed account of my experience, which to me affords material for interesting and often regretful recollection. It may, however, all be summed up and described as analogous with the casting of an innocent infant into the mighty Niagara River to be swept along at the mercy of the onrushing and maddening current, which knows no relenting, but bears its victim to an untimely end over the brink of the mighty falls. There, destruction on the ragged rocks below awaits it unless an unseen hand should miraculously dip into the water and save that form for life and service.

Thank God, in His tender mercy He stretched forth His hand to rescue my poor, lost, helpless soul from the turbulent rapids of sin when I was seventeen years of age. He set me on the solid rock of His truth and gave me the Holy Spirit as an eternal guide and propelling power. He has proved to be a comforter in whom I can safely put my trust when stemming the rising tide of unbelief and doubt.

It is with thanksgiving that I can at the present time recount the divine care of which I have been the object, so far in my pilgrimage through life. I rejoice to be a partaker of the Father’s love, which is pure, warm, and changeless. There is an abiding assurance of safety so long as I walk in the path of obedience to His will and trust implicitly in His mighty power to keep my feet while I take steps toward the threshold of heaven. I am grateful, also, for a soul-conviction that the most worthy, most desirable and glorious life is the one that finds its outlet in the glad service of love to God and discovers complete happiness in serving others. A soul without Christ is like an idle straw driven at the mercy of the wind, but the soul redeemed through the blood of Jesus will experience a sweet essence that turns the unfruitful life into a garden of unspeakable delights.