02.31. In a Quicksand
Chapter 31 IN A QUICKSAND. A quicksand is a body of matter different in several respects from the pebbly creek-bed or shifting desert. Instead of being a solid resisting substance upon which we can safely walk, it has a treacherous yielding, sinking, sucking-in power which can easily and completely swallow up man, animal and vehicle. The very first syllable, "quick," reveals this trap of Nature under the figure of something that possesses a kind of life. It is indeed like a monster lying with its brown skin and quiet-looking, inviting appearance under the bright sunshine, and actually tempting one to step upon and walk over its surface.
He that goes any distance on its area is hopelessly doomed. The deceitful particles seem to open for the reception of the victim; the yellow hands reach up from beneath to pull the horror-stricken wretch down; tawny arms begin to close with tightening, suffocating clasp around the panting, heaving breast; while the saffron face drawing nearer and nearer to the despairing eyes of the doomed creature, blows its own yellow life into the strangling throat, and shakes its yellow hair in triumph over the human head that has just sunk out of sight, forever. In the Bride of Lammermoor. Walter Scott gives a most thrilling and pathetic description of the death of the Master of Ravenswood in a quicksand. Both horse and rider went down a after a fearful struggle for life. By the time the faithful old attendant of the castle reached the place, the tragedy was over, and the murderous Spot or Thing had resumed its smiling calm. As the servant stood in anguish on the border of the marsh, an ostrich plume that had been dislodged from the hat of the struggling victim, and that was too light to sink, and driven by the breeze, came rolling over the sand to the feet of the butler, who picked it up, and placed it in his breast with bitter sobs and tears. It was all that the treacherous moor and left of the master of Ravenswood.
We remember once to have read a description of a similar catastrophe which threw a spell of gloom over the mind for hours and days. The article said that a man was strolling on the seashore where long, flat stretches of mud and shells abounded. In picking his way here and there he suddenly discovered from the rapid sinking of his feet that he was in a quicksand. Forgetting where he had entered, his efforts to reach solid ground carried him deeper into the marsh and exhausted his strength at the same time. A human being looking through a glass, from a hill two miles away, saw the dreadful, gradual but certain end. The victim, now to his knees and making violent struggles to extricate his limbs, simply sank all the deeper. When he had gone down to his loins, he realized that his strength was exhausted, and that every effort was futile, even if he had any physical power left. He screamed and waved his hands, but the village was a mile and a half away, and not a soul but himself seemed to be on the shore. Several fishing vessels, with their white sails, were a mile or more out on the bay, but they did not notice him, and had they done so could not have reached him in time.
He had sunk to the shoulders and tried laying his arms on the surface of the sand to buoy up the body; but he saw with horror that he still sank. He gave a wild glance about him, saw the distant town, the scattered homes on the sunny hillside, the vessels lazily sailing seaward, the white clouds floating in the blue sky near the horizon, and then, as if the sight of these things and his lonely dying in their presence gave him a burst of strength, he screamed again, and waved his arms. In another moment the sand filled his mouth and covered his eyes. There was a flitting gleam of the white forehead. That disappeared; and then the curly locks of his hair fluttered a moment in the wind, and all was gone. Another instant and a hand appeared above the sand, tried to wave, clutched at the air, and then sank steadily out of view! The sun shone on, the ships sailed seaward, the morning breeze broke the blue waves into white caps, and the quicksand resumed its quiet, harmless looking appearance; but a living being had been sucked into its depths, and an earthly life ended by it forever!
Sin is a vast quicksand that is engulfing and destroying not only multitudes but nations.
Different sins are bogs pulling individuals down to ruin. Habits founded on appetites and passions are the same treacherous, slippery, enfolding, sucking, deadly conditions that bring about the present and everlasting undoing of men and women. The similarity of these things in certain particulars to this trap of nature is not only startling, but horrible. The man is first led into the evil from ignorance of the deceitfulness and deadliness of sin. He is sure he can get through to the other side; and any way return from where he started if he finds cause for alarm. In this judgment the victim overlooks the growing power of a wrong indulgence, the abnormal craving that comes upon normal desire, the weakening of the whole moral nature by frequent transgression, the deadening of conscience together with the stifling of the voice of the Holy Spirit. He has failed to calculate upon the awful power of habit. And he has forgotten the dreadful indescribable spell, which is called infatuation, and that can be flung by one individual over another.
Men can go so far in sin that they cannot get back, because they do not want to come back.
They can go so far, and sink so deep, that all faith and hope leave them, and a dreadful, stony despair settles upon the heart and broods visibly upon the face and life.
It is a fearful thing to see a man being sucked down to hell by some kind of iniquity. To view him steadily sinking deeper, and going lower as the months roll by. It is dreadful to mark him floundering in his impotent human efforts to escape from the folds, layers and bonds that are increasing and multiplying upon him. It is still more horrible to recognize the look of hopelessness on his face, and then behold him go down into the grave, and into hell before our very eyes.
What thoughts fill a man who feels that he is lost and that the devil has him, we may imagine, but none except such an unhappy being can know. All the anguish, desperation and final despair which swept over the heart of the victim in the quick-sand, as he beheld the distant town, the sunny hill-side homes, the ships sailing in the offing, and the sea gulls winging their free, glad flight in the bright morning air! All this agony and more a thousand fold, fills the soul of the being who hopeless, helpless, and in the sight of Bibles, churches, and worshipping congregations realizes that the scarlet arms of Sin are about him strangling him to death, and that the black hands of the devil are pulling him surely and steadily down to the depths of "The Bottomless Abyss. An individual in great agony, in speaking to another about the sin of his life, said: When I am in the presence of the object of my temptation I am like a man flung into a river of chloroform. I become benumbed, deadened and all but helpless. In my fight against the sin, I climb out on the bank toward duty and salvation, weak and trembling, as I have seen a dog pulled shaking and exhausted from a flood of water! I see my only hope is in Christ! Call on Him for me and beg him to have mercy upon and save me!" This was a frightful portrayal, but not overdrawn in many instances who walk our streets and sit by our sides in the home and in the church. The reader will see that while the figure of description is different, yet the idea presented in this chapter is still there. A man sinking in a chloroform sin river is as surely pulled down and destroyed as one engulfed by the yielding substance of that strange, awful bog of Nature, called a quicksand.
There is this thought, however, without which every man in transgression would be in despair the instant he realized that he was going down into ruin; and that is, some One is looking at him from the Hills of Heaven who is Almighty to save, willing to save, and able to save unto the uttermost.
He who made the sea birds, can fly to our help faster than they, and easily bear the poor, struggling one upon the broad wings of his deliverance. He who walked with ease on Lake Galilee can likewise tread with safety upon the treacherous fatal moor. He who drew Peter out of the waves can pull the worst men out of the soundless bogs of evil. An additional thought of joy is, that unlike the man in the quicksand our cries and signals for help are not in vain. He who said that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the pitiful notice of God, will most surely behold the sinking of an immortal soul as it struggles with the toils and envelopments of appetite, evil habit and blackest iniquity. His eye is upon every such being, and so the instant the hand is raised, the voice lifted and the face is turned to Christ for relief, behold! that moment help, pardon, peace, deliverance and salvation will surely and abundantly come!
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