Too Late

Have you never heard of the Indian in his boat upon one of the great rivers of America? Somehow his moorings had broken and his canoe was in the power of the current. He was asleep, while his canoe was being swept rapidly along by the stream. He was sound asleep, and yet had good need to have been awake, for there was a tremendous waterfall not far ahead. Persons on shore saw the canoe—saw that there was a man in it asleep; but their vigilance was of no use to the sleeper: it needed that he himself should be aware of his peril. The canoe quickened its pace, for the waters of the river grew more rapid as they approached the falls; persons on shore began to cry out, and raise alarm on all sides, and at last the Indian was aroused. He started up, and began to use his paddle, but his strength was altogether insufficient for the struggle with the gigantic force of the waters around him. He was seen to spring upright in the boat and disappear—himself and the boat—in the fall. He had perished, for he woke too late! Some persons on their dying beds just wake up in time to see their danger, but not escape from it; they are carried right over the precipice of judgment and wrath.
—C. H. Spurgeon