pose. I once saw
a very large one, a great deal larger than any you ever saw in the
brook. It was in the North Sea. This whirlpool does mischief
sometimes. When vessels happen to get on the edge of it, they begin
to go round and round, all the time coming near the middle of the
whirlpool. When the captain of the vessel knows that he is in the
whirlpool, he can get his vessel out, if it has just begun to go
round. But after it has been in a while, he cannot get out. The vessel
keeps going round and round. The people on board hear the roar of the
whirlpool. It is too late to get away. By and by, the water draws the
vessel down. It is dashed to pieces, and all who were in it are lost!

I have known little boys and girls get into a whirlpool, too; a
different kind of a whirlpool, to be sure, but a great deal worse than
this one in the North Sea. I mean the whirlpool of _sin_. When they
first began to be wicked--when they first began to go round in the
whirlpool--they went round very slowly. They could very easily have
got out then, if they had tried, and if they had prayed to God to help
them. But they did not try. So they kept growing worse and worse. They
went round swifter and swifter. By and by, they got so far into the
whirlpool that they could not get out. It was too late. They were
lost--dashed to pieces on the rocks, in the whirlpool of sin!

Little boy! little girl! take care that you do not venture even to the
edge of this whirlpool. Give your heart to God, while you are young,
and pray to him to keep you from sin, and to lead you to heaven.

End of Project Gutenberg's Jack Mason, The Old Sailor, by Theodore Thinker

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