Call to Arouse
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drifts he had thought he could never succeed in getting through alone.
And when he had borne his fellow traveler to a place of safety, the
truth flashed home to him that in saving his neighbor he had saved
himself also. His earnest efforts to save another quickened the blood
which was freezing in his own veins, and created a healthful warmth in
the extremities of the body. These lessons must be forced upon young
believers continually, not only be precept, but by example, that in their
Christian experience they may realize similar results.—
Testimonies
for the Church 4:319, 320
.
You are not to shut yourselves up to yourselves, and be content
because you have been blessed with a knowledge of the truth. Who
brought the truth to you? Who showed the light of the Word of God
to you? God has not given you His light to be placed under a bushel.
I have read of an expedition that was sent out in search of Sir John
Franklin. Brave men left their homes, and wandered about in the North
Seas, suffering privation, hunger, cold, and distress. And what was it
all for?—Merely for the honor of discovering the dead bodies of the
explorers, or, if possible, to rescue some of the party from the terrible
death that must surely come upon them, unless help should reach them
in time. If they could but save one man from perishing, they would
count their suffering well paid for. This was done at the sacrifice of all
their comfort and happiness.
Think of this, and then consider how little we are willing to sacrifice
for the salvation of the precious souls around us. We are not compelled
to go away from home, on a long and tedious journey, to save the life of
a perishing mortal. At our very doors, all about us, on every side, there
are souls to be saved, souls perishing,—men and women dying without
hope, without God,—and yet we feel unconcerned, virtually saying by
our actions, if not by our words, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” These
men who lost their lives in trying to save others are eulogized by the
world as heroes and martyrs. How should we who have the prospect
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of eternal life before us feel, if we do not make the little sacrifices
that God requires of us, for the salvation of the souls of men?—
The
Review and Herald, August 14, 1888
.
In a town in New England a well was being dug. When the work
was nearly finished, while one man was still at the bottom, the earth
caved in and buried him. Instantly the alarm was sent out, and mechan-
ics, farmers, merchants, lawyers, hurried breathlessly to the rescue.