Faith A Death Grip – Charles H Spurgeon

A sea captain related at a prayer-meeting in Boston a short time ago a thrilling incident in his own experience.

‘A few years ago,’ said he, ‘I was sailing by the island Cuba, when the cry ran through the ship, ‘Man overboard!’ It was impossible to put up the helm of the ship, but I instantly seized a rope and threw it over the ship’s stern crying out to the man to seize it as for his life. The sailor caught the rope just as the ship was passing. I immediately took another rope, and making a slip noose of it, attached i to the other, and slid it down to the struggling sailor, an directed him to pass it over his shoulders and under his arms and he would be drawn on board. He was rescued; but h had grasped that rope with such firmness, with such a death grip, that it took hours before his hold relaxed, and his hand could be separated from it. With such eagerness, indeed, had he clutched the object that was to save him, that the strands of the rope became imbedded in the flesh of his hands!

Reader, has not God let down from heaven a rope to every sinner on the earth, is not every strand a precious promise, and ought we not to lay hold on it as for our very life?: The Family Treasury for 1859.