Man Who Gave His Life for His Three Boys

Many years ago, in one of our large Eastern cities, a four-story frame apartment house in a poorer section of the city caught on fire. Trapped on the top floor were a father, and three boys, aged three, five, and seven. The stairways were a mass of flame and smoke. There seemed to be no way of escape. It looked as if all were doomed to a horrible death--to be burned alive. The father ran to a window on the side of the building. There was an open space of a little more than three feet between this burning building and the adjoining structure. He noticed an open window right across in this building on the same level.

Here was a way of escape for his children. He saw that by stretching himself out across the intervening space he could grasp the sill of that open window, and then his boys could crawl over his body into the adjacent building, and be saved. He immediately called the three boys and told them to climb quickly over the bridge he would form with his body between these two buildings. The last little lad had just climbed over his father’s body and reached the opposite apartment house in safety when the father’s strength failed. He fell to the ground and was killed.

This man gave his life to save three. Across the bridge made with his own body his three boys actually passed from death to life.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Saviour of men, has make a bridge out of His body over which you and I can pass from death to a better life that shall know no end.