A Illustration of Horror

A SINGLE THREAD
From the November issue of the 1858
Primitive Methodist Magazine
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I recollect, in my childhood, a story I somewhere read, making on me a very deep impression. To this day I have not lost it. It was the story of a venturous lad, who followed the dangerous craft of gathering birds' eggs from the cliffs on the wild west shores of Ireland. Some of those cliffs rise sheer from the water's edge, many hundred feet in height, and to look even from their margin down on the white hovering sea-birds that haunt them in flocks, and on the surfy waves far beneath, is enough to till the eye and brain with terror. Picture, then, what it must be to be lowered down mid-way over their face, in a sort of wicker basket, attached by a single rope, as is the custom with many of the natives, who (make a kind of livelihood by taking the eggs of the wild fowl from the shelves and crannies of the rocks!
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In the case of which I wish to tell you, a pair of very large and fierce eagles had made their nest on a jutting point, that was seen hanging far out above the abyss. It was a point the boldest climber had never set foot upon, and for long in their eyry the eagles made their home, and reared their young undisturbed. At last, a young man formed the daring resolve that he would rob the nest. The basket was prepared, its rope was fastened in the usual way, by a party who were to wait his signals on the top of the cliff, and, armed only with a large knife or hanger, the youth, in his frail cage-like apparatus, began to descend. Slowly but safely he reached the giddy platform. A couple of young eagles lay huddled in the nest, but the parent birds were absent.
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It was an opportunity not to be lost; so, joyfully seizing the unfledged birds, he was about to give the signal that he should be hoisted up, when suddenly the air above him became darkened, and looking upward, he beheld the two parent eagles casting a fearful shadow, and, with a fell swoop and wild screams, hovering just above his head. They were so near, that he could see the fiery glare of their eyes, and the huge talons that were spread out as if to rend him in pieces. Presence of mind failed him, and, instead of giving the signal, as he should have done, to be raised, with his drawn knife he made a stroke at one of the eagles, as it swept so near as to fan his face with the edge of its wing. Horrible to relate, instead of striking the bird, the knife struck the rope by which the basket hung. Yet it was a side stroke, and the rope was not severed quite through. It was parted all but a single thread.
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What a moment of stricken horror! The great foaming abyss below, that made the head now whirl to look down—and all that saved him from it only this single thread! And where the gash had been made, too, was just so high up as to be beyond the reach of his hand to grasp over it. For a minute he dared not stir. His eye was wild and his face blanched— the next breath of air might carry him into the hideous depth. Yet, for dear life, he made one great venture—he sprang clear of the basket, catching, as he did so, desperately at the rope above its divided threads; the effort was successful, although no more than barely so; just over the single thread his hand seized the cord, with a grasp of iron, those on the cliff's felt the strain, and fearing some peril had befallen him, they began to raise it by a quick and timely effort. In a few minutes the young man was brought safely to the solid ground above, but, as the story tells, by the horror of that brief but awful period, his hair was bleached white as the locks of age.
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Whether, dear readers, the single thread of this story be a fiction or no, I cannot say; but I am quite sure that, in the lives of those who are not safe in Jesus, it is an awfully true thing. They hang over a gulf. Oh, how dark, deep, and full of terror! The life God gives in this world is the cord by which they hang, but then it is a cord so slim and fragile that any moment it may snap. And what then? Nay, so bad is the case of some, that with their own hands they blindly and rashly cut it almost in twain. Every sin is just a cutting of the soul in this way off from God—it is a severing of the cord well-nigh through, even till but a single thread remains. How long and patiently the Lord bears with sinners, waiting yet in mercy, not willing that any should perish.
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When awakened to a sense of their danger, how desperate often does the case seem? The single thread—the stroke given that cannot be recalled—the gulf below! Yet one great effort, if the heart but make it, may save the soul, after all, alive. Above the thread, He stands who is mighty to save. The instant He feels the anguished grasp, and hears the heart's deep and stricken cry, that instant He makes haste to help. Lay hold of Jesus, He is sure to rescue—though so as by fire, it may be in the case of many, yet He is sure to rescue. Reader, put the Friend of sinners to the test in this way—try his strong arm, cast yourself on the Atonement made by Him for a guilty world, and abiding there, you will no longer be suspended by a single thread over the bottomless pit, but you will be saved out of all dangers that beset your path, and ultimately landed in the haven of eternal repose. Anonymous
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