“Pull for the Shore.” – Dwight Lyman Moody

Look at that man in a boat on Niagara River. He is only about a mile from the rapids. A man on the bank shouts to him, “Young man, young man, the rapids are not far away; you’d better pull for the shore.” “You attend to your own business; I will take care of myself,” he replies. Like a great many people here, and ministers, too, they don’t want any evangelist here—don’t want any help, however great the danger ahead. On he goes, sitting coolly in his boat. Now he has got a little nearer, and a man from the bank of the river sees his danger, and shouts: “Stranger, you’d better pull for the shore; if you go further, you’ll be lost. You can be saved now if you pull in.” “Mind your business, and you’ll have enough to do; I’ll take care of myself.” Like a good many men, they are asleep to the danger that’s hanging over them while they are in the current. And I say, drinking young man, don’t you think you are standing still. You are in the current, and if you don’t pull for a rock of safety you will go over the precipice. On he goes. I can see him in the boat laughing at the danger. A man on the bank is looking at him, and he lifts up his voice and cries, “Stranger, stranger, pull for the shore; if you don’t you’ll lose your life”; and the young man laughs at him—mocks him. That is the way with hundreds in Chicago. If you go to them and point out their danger, they will jest and joke at you. By and by he says: “I think I hear the rapids—yes, I hear them roar;” and he seizes his oars and pulls with all his strength, but the current is too great, and nearer and nearer he is drawn on to that abyss, until he gives one unearthly scream, and over he goes. Ah, my friends, this is the case with hundreds in this city. They are in the current of riches of pleasure, of drink, that will take them to the whirlpool.