‘Well, there is no need for me to listen,’ I said to myself; ’I will plan out a new picture, and no one will know where my thoughts are.’

But, in spite of my resolution to the contrary, from the moment that Jack’s father began to speak, my attention was riveted, and I could not choose but listen.

‘The Tug of War is our subject to-day, dear friends,’ he began, ’and a very suitable subject, I think, after what we have witnessed on this green during the past week.  We have seen, have we not, a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, as yon heavy crab boat was dragged up from the beach?  How well she came, what progress she made! with each yoddel we brought her farther from the sea.  We all of us gave a helping hand; fishermen, wives, visitors, friends, all laid hold, and all pulled, and the work, hard as it seemed, was soon accomplished.  Why?  Because we were all united.  It was a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together.

’And now let me bring back to your memory another event during this past week.  The place is the same, our village green, the same rope is used, and those who pull are the very same men, strong, brawny, powerful fishermen.  Yes, you pulled your very hardest; if possible you put forth more strength than when the crab boat was drawn up, and yet, strange to say, there was no result, the rope did not move an inch.  What were you pulling?  What was the mighty weight that you had to move?  What was it that, for such a long time, baffled the strength of the strongest among you?  The weight you could not move was not a heavy boat, but a light handkerchief!

’Why was there this difference?  Why was the handkerchief harder to move than the boat?  The answer to that question was to be found at the other end of the green.  There were other pullers at the rope that day, pulling with all their might in an exactly opposite direction.  It was not a united pull, and therefore for a long time there was no result, and we watched on, until at length one side was proved the strongest, and the handkerchief was drawn by them triumphantly across the line.

’To-day, dear friends, I speak to you of yet another tug of war.  The place is the same, Runswick Bay and our village green, but the weight to be drawn is not a boat, not a handkerchief; the weight is a human soul. It is your soul, my friend, your immortal soul; you are the one who is being drawn.

’And who are the pullers?  Oh, how many they are!  I myself have my hands on the rope.  God only knows how hard I am pulling, striving with all my might, if possible to draw you, my friend, to Christ.  But there are other hands on the rope besides mine.  Your conscience pulls, your good old mother pulls, your little child pulls, your Christian mate pulls; each sermon you hear, each Bible class you attend, each hymn you sing, each prayer uttered in your presence, each striving of the Spirit, each God-given yearning after better things, each storm you come through, each danger you escape, each sickness in your family, each death in your home, each deliverance granted you, gives you a pull God-ward, Christ-ward, heaven-ward.