Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters

THE ANCIENT SACRIFICE

And still our work must go on. It is the business of men and women neither to give way to unavailing grief nor to yield to the crushing incubus of despair, but to find hope that is at the bottom of everything, even at the bottom of the sea where that glorious virgin of the ocean is dying. “And when she took unto herself a mate

She must espouse the everlasting sea.”

Even so, for any progress of the race, there must be the ancient sacrifice of man’s own stubborn heart, and all his pride. He must forever “lay in dust life’s glory dead.” He cannot rise to the height it was intended he should reach till he has plumbed the depths, till he has devoured the bread of the bitterest affliction, till he has known the ache of hopes deferred, of anxious expectation disappointed, of dreams that are not to be fulfilled this side of the river that waters the meads of Paradise. There still must be a reason why it is not an unhappy thing to be taken from “the world we know to one a wonder still,” and so that we go bravely, what does it matter, the mode of our going? It was not only those who stood back, who let the women and children go to the boats, that died. There died among us on the shore something of the fierce greed of bitterness, something of the sharp hatred of passion, something of the mad lust of revenge and of knife-edge competition. Though we are not aware of it, perhaps, we are not quite the people that we were before out of the mystery an awful hand was laid upon us all, and what we had thought the colossal power of wealth was in a twinkling shown to be no more than the strength of an infant’s little finger, or the twining tendril of a plant.

“Lest we forget; lest we forget!”

{'illustration', really “music” Lyrics =

God of mercy and compassion, Look with pity on my pain; Hear a mournful, broken spirit Prostrate at Thy feet complain; Many are my foes and mighty; Strength to conquer I have none; Nothing can uphold my goings But they blessed Self alone. AMEN

{2nd Stanza} Saviour, look on Thy beloved, Triumph over all my foes, Turn to heavenly joy my mourning, Turn to gladness all my woes; Live or die, or work or suffer Let my weary soul abide, In all changes whatsoever, Sure and steadfast by Thy side:

{3rd Stanza} When temptations fierce assault me, When my enemies I find, Sin and guilt, and death and Satan, All against my soul combined, Hold me up in mighty waters, Keep my eyes on things above—Rightousness, {sic} divine atonement Peace and everlasting love,}

{illust. caption = LATITUDE 41.46 NORTH, LONGITUDE 50.14 WEST WHERE MANHOOD PERISHED NOT}

{illust. caption = LOWERING OF THE LIFE-BOATS FROM THE TITANIC

It is easy to understand why…}

{illust. caption = PASSENGERS LEAVING THE TITANIC IN THE LIFE-BOATS

The agony and despair which possessed the occupants of these boats as they were carried away from the doomed giant, leaving husbands and brothers behind, is almost beyond description. It is little wonder that the strain of these moments, with the physical and mental suffering which followed during the early morning hours, left many of the women still hysterical when they reached New York.}

WHERE MANHOOD PERISHED NOT

Where cross the lines of forty north
And fifty-fourteen west
There rolls a wild and greedy sea
With death upon its crest.
No stone or wreath from human hands
Will ever mark the spot
Where fifteen hundred men went down,
But Manhood perished not.

Old Ocean takes but little heed
Of human tears or woe.
No shafts adorn the ocean graves,
Nor weeping willows grow.
Nor is there need of marble slab
To keep in mind the spot
Where noble men went down to death,
But manhood perished not!

Those men who looked on death and smiled,
And trod the crumbling deck,
Have saved much more than precious lives
From out that awful wreck.
Though countless joys and hopes and fears
Were shattered at a breath,
’Tis something that the name of Man
Did not go down to death.

’Tis not an easy thing to die,
E’en in the open air,
Twelve hundred miles from home and friends,
In a shroud of black despair.
A wreath to crown the brow of man,
And hide a former blot
Will ever blossom o’er the waves
Where Manhood perished not.

HARVEY P. THEW

{spelling uncertain due to poor printing}

CHAPTER VIII. THE CALL FOR HELP HEARD

THE VALUE OF THE WIRELESS—OTHER SHIPS ALTER THEIR COURSE—RESCUERS ON THE WAY