The Wreck of the "Ville du Havre"
“In perils of waters.” — 2 Corinthians xi., 26.
IT required courage either to be a sailor or a voyager in olden times, the ships were so small, so clumsy, so unmanageable — the islands, the rocks, the shores so poorly defined; no weather “probabilities,” no signals hoisted, no light-houses. It was almost impossible to hail a vessel if in distress, because ships were seldom seen! Sailors might have cried, “Ship ahoy!” “Haul down the flying-jib 1” or “Brace her cross-jack yards sharp aback!” Nobody would have noticed it. Only here and there a vessel traversing the deep; and a vessel might go on for days and weeks, and not hail a single sail. Yet I am not certain but there are as great perils now on the sea as there were then, notwithstanding our perfect seacharts and our light-houses and our sextants and our iron-clads, and the fact that there are flags flying all along the coast telling sailors, “Beware, for the storm is coming.” The danger arises now from the multiplicity of crafts. The captain in mid- Atlantic puts the sea-glass to his eye and sweeps the horizon, and perhaps in the distance sees a full-rigged brig, bark, ship, or steamer of the Cunard, White Star, In man, and National lines. It is a fact that in one year in this country there were built over fifty sea-going steamers. Every year there are fishing-smacks along the Banks of Newfoundland run down
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in the fog; and the only report of it is that John and George come not back to their home, and the women weep, and the children starve. Last summer, in the thick night, I heard the fog-horns of the fishermen off Newfoundland within twenty yards of where our leviathan ship ran by. If Paul in his day, because of the imperfect sea equipment, could talk of “perils of waters,” certainly we may in this day, because of the multiplicity of crafts and the danger of collision.
Only a few days ago the Loch Earn a vessel of one thousand two hundred tons, bowsprit steel-plated, weighed anchor in English waters. Only a few days ago the Yille du Havre was ready to sail from New York. The usual warning was given on deck, “All ashore that’s going!” Then the gangways were cleared and the planks hauled in, and the usual flirewell waving, and, as though foreboding evil, a young man stands on deck and waves to his friends ashore, crying, “Good-bye; you will never see me again on this side the water!” It seemed almost impossible that two vessels starting from such distant ports should even hail each other on the sea. Nevertheless, they came on through day and night, and darkness and storm, and fog and sunshine, approximating, as though they had appointed a place and a time for meeting. The Loch Earn sometimes took a different tack, and the Ville du Havre changed sometimes its course, but nevertheless approximating all the while, the hour for their meeting coming very soon. It is twelve o’clock at night. The bells have sounded. It is one o’clock in the mornino:. It is two o’clock in the morning. Lights hung in the rigging. The helmsman at the wheel. The fireman down at the furnace. The watch
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pacing the lookout. The passengers asleep in the berths and cabins; when crash! came the Loch Earn midships the Villa da Havre. They who were around the gangway rushed to the decks, and mariners and passengers ran wild, and some stark mad, and there was a rush for the life-boats, and a cry to God and man for help. No time to put on life-preservers. No time to sound the minute-gun of distress across the sea. Here they kneel in prayer; yonder leap into the wave; there they stand white with horror. The thought of home and loved ones far away comes over them, and they feel as if they can not, must not die. But already the steamer has begun to sink. Pull away there in the life-boats, lest you be sucked down in the awful ingulfment! Pull away there in the life-boats! The mizzen mast crashes upon some of the life-boats and they are gone, and the steamer sinks. As it goes down toward the bottom of the sea, down lower, until the deck is even with the wave, the combined, the unearthly, the stupendous shriek of two hundred and twelve passengers rends the air of earth and heaven with the catastrophe.
I can not, as a minister of Christ and as a lover of humanity, let this solemn occurrence pass without learning for myself and teaching you three or four lessons.
And first I learn the responsibility of those who hold the lives, or the proyoerty, or the souls of men in keeping. I will leave to the marine authorities to say who were guilty; but it is certain that there is wickedness somewhere. No fog, no storm, clear starlight; and yet five hundred, perhaps one thousand families, in this country and in Europe, are whelmed in bereavement to-day. I will not say who is to blame, I do not know who is to blame; but the two continents have been impaneled as coroner’s jury, and have rendered the verdict, “Appalling guilt somewhere!” The commanders of steamships, the engineers of locomotives, the conductors of rail-trains, the architects of buildings, the pilots of steamboats, have in their hands and on their shoulders very great responsibility. God will hold them to account for what they do with the lives and with the souls of men. It may have seemed a very insignificant thing connected with this disaster that there were thirty-four thousand bushels of wheat that went to the bottom of the sea; but I do not think it was at all insignificant when there are so many starving for bread. The world could not afford to waste thirty-four thousand bushels of wheat. The responsibility must rest somewhere. Pastors of churches, private Christians who hold in their hands the souls of people, had better look out what they do with them — all the time having a light hung out, keeping the helm up, ringing the bells of warning, standing on the lookout, obeying the injunction, watch!
I tell you plainly that I would rather have been Captain Williams running the Atlantic last spring on Mars Head Rock until five hundred people dropped into the wave, than be a “Christian” minister, yet by preaching a wrong theology conduct an audience of hundreds and thousands of immortal men and women into an eternal catastrophe. “When I say to the wicked, ‘Thou shalt surely die,’ and thou givest him no warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wickedness — that same man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hands.”
“‘Tis not a cause of small import,
The pastor’s care demands;
But what might fill an angel’s heart — It filled a Saviour’s hand.”
Oh, men who have under your charge the bodies, the property, the souls of immortal men, look out how you discharge your responsibility!
Again, I learn from this disaster at sea that, lolien ive part from our friends reunion is uncertain. A voyage to Europe is so common, a journey to any part of our country so common, that when we part from our friends we expect certainly to see them again. My counsel to you is that if you have any duty to peiform toward your friends in regard to their eternal interests, you had better perform that duty before they take steamer or rail car. If there were any impenitent persons who perished in that wreck of the Ville du Havre how do you suppose their unfaithful Christian friends feel about it now? They are saying this very day, “Oh, if on the 15th of November, when I stood on the steamer’s deck or stood on the wharf, before that vessel sailed, I had just asked them to come to Christ and make preparations for eternity! But that was my last chance — it was my last chance!” If your friends have already gone from you on a voyage or journey, write to them to-mori-ow morning by the first mail, lest they die on their way back, and you have a harrowing of the soul for them because you did not do your duty toward them. I believe that there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of souls out of Christ to-day simply because Christian friends do not do their duty. Did you notice that one strangely thrilling telegram that came last week? A husband and father sent
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out a wife and daughter on their excursion. They took the Yille du Havre. The wife went down in the wreck; the daughter was rescued, and she telegraphed to her father in New York, “I am saved! AloneP^ Oh, will that be the history of any family in this house to-day? Will you at last reach heaven, and the rest be lost? Having so many opportunities of bringing your friends and your families into the kingdom of God, will it be announced at the last that you are” saved! Aloner’’
I further learn from this disaster at sea that elegant surrounding is no security. The most of people could not afford to take that line of steamers. The fare is higher on that line of steamers than on any that sail the sea. It was a vessel of five thousand four hundred tons. It had cost, in its building and in its repair, one million five hundred thousand dollars. The saloons were upholstered with crimson and gold; but iceberg and storm and darkness and collision can see no difference between magnificent mail steamship, and Nantucket whaler, with rusty bolts and greasy deck. The plush, the tapestry, the paintings, the cut glass, the statuary, went down with the passengers. Oh, my hearer, do not think that brilliant surroundings will keep off the last foe! Belshazzar, in the banqueting-hall; Napoleon III., in t’he mansion at Chiselhurst; the Prince of Wales, in Windsor Castle; the German emperor, now wheeled every day from table to bed, and from bed to table, in his serious illness; the passengers of the Yille du Havre in gilded cabin and amidst brilliant companionship, are summoned away. The armed sentinel stands at the gate of the king’s palace. A man comes up. However great he may be, the sentinel cries “Halt!” and the man has to halt. But Death comes to the gate and captures both gate and sentinel. If those people on this fated steamer could have exchanged their money for life, would not they have given it? Oh yes. One would have cried out, “Here are twenty thousand dollars for one day.” Another would have cried out, “I’ll give you one hundred thousand dollars for one hour.” Another would have said, “Two hundred thousand dollars for five minutes more.” Ah, Death can not be bribed! He comes with muddy feet, from walking amidst the upturned earth of new-made graves, and blunders over the finest carpets, and sets his spade against the head-board of rose-wood bedstead. “They that boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him, that he should not see corruption: the wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person, and leave their wealth to others.” Do not think that brilliant companionship and gorgeous surrounding will defend you against the last foe.
Again, I learn from this accident at sea that there are some Christians nearer to glory than they think. To many of the passengers on that ship death was translation. They arrived at a better port than France could have afforded them. They did not know, when they went to sleep that night, that they were so near the jasper sea, so near the throne of Christ, so near reunion with the friends gone before, so near to the end of all pain, and struggle, and trial. If they had had any appreciation of the coming joy, they could not have slept a wink that night. They would have said, “In one hour I shall be with Christ in glory.” Heaven was a surprise to them. I suppose, for the past few days they had been thinking about how their friends would look when they came down the gangway, as they arrived in port. Perhaps they were thinking how the mementoes would look that were packed away in their trunks — mementoes of American travel. But God had a better reunion for them, and a better gladness.
Some of them were ministers of the Grospel. I suppose that the same Jesus they had preached in Madrid, and Paris, and Geneva, stood by them on the parting deck. I suppose that when the Loch Earn crashed in on the one side, the Lord Jesus Christ walked the water on the other side. Some of those men of God worshiped with us in this buikling only a few Sabbaths ago. One of them sat in that very box. I sent word to a member of my family to stand, and to give the brother a seat. I did not know he was so near to glory, so near to the mansions of the skies, so near heaven. I did not realize it. It was ray only opportunity of showing him any courtesy. I never came any nearer to him than that. Oh! my friends, those men of God on the sea did not know that they were going from one Evangelical Alliance to another. But the one here was nothing compared to that great one beyond, made up of the one hundred and forty and four thousand, “of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tonoues.” It was two o’clock in the morninsr — two o’clock. Sabbath morning — when those men went up to God — a good morning In which to go to heaven.
The Sabbath is a good day in which to live or to die. Day of resurrection. Day of jubilee. Day of ascension to their soul. Yet how strange it did seem that, fifteen minutes before, those men down in the cabins heard not the trumpets before the throne, heard not the rush of the chariots of salvation, heard not the hallelujah of the redeemed! Oh, wake up, ye men of God, down in the cabins, within fifteen minutes of glory I The gates are opening, the hospitalities of heaven are preparing, the kings and queens of God are coming down to the gate to greet you. Wake up! men of God, down in the cabins of the Ville du Havre.
Some of you are nearer heaven than you believe. Some of you are spending your last Sabbath, singing your last song, giving your last salutations. There is a Loch Earn somewhere that is making toward you, and ere you are aware you will open your eyes on raptures eternal. I congratulate you. Your friends in heaven have been saying to Jesus, “Why not let our friends come up from earth? Why not let them come now, O Jesus? We await their coming. Let them come now.” And Jesus, to please them, and to please you, will say to his angels, “Bring them home.” And the clusters are already on the table, and the beakers are filled, and there is an excitement as of expected arrival, and you will soon be gone.
“Be with me when iny feet
Ave slipping over the brink,
Tor I may be nearer home,
Nearer now than I think.”
Again, I learn from this disaster at sea that the world has not yet been persuaded of the nonseue of prayer. suppose those people on that ship had all read, in English, or French, or in Spanish, or in German, that prayer is unscientific and entirely useless. Had they been persuaded? Oh no. The report comes to us that they all prayed; and there was one woman who seemed to be the chief apostle of the scene, who prayed aloud until, it was said, her words sounded like inspiration. I do not suppose that she had ever been ordained by conference or by presbytery; but we all feel that that woman had a right to pray in that public assemblage. How soothing her words must have been in that awful anguish! How strong it makes one feel to hear a woman pray! A wife praying for her husband. A sister praying for her wayward brother. A mother praying for her children. A shipwrecked woman praying for two hundred drowning! Oh! women of Christ, can you pray aloud? Can you pray aloud? You may never have to officiate as priestess of God, as that woman did, on the deck of a foundering ship, but there will be times when there will be dying souls who will want from you not so much silent prayer as audible supplication. Can you pray aloud? Are you ashamed to have your children hear you pray aloud? I have heard doctors of divinity pray, and I have heard learned bishops pray, but against all the prayers that I ever heard, I put, for tenderness and power, the uneducated prayer of my mother, now eleven years in glory. She did not have to go to an English hospital to have the “prayer test.” She had it in her own home when she prayed that all her children might be brought to God; and they all were brought to God, five of them already with her in the land where God wipes away all tears from the eyes.
Had Tyndall been there, and all the skeptics and philosophers of the world, they would have praj-ed too; though I fear not with the calmness, and power, and unction of that woman who officiated on the deck. Have you been persuaded of the uselessness of prayer? I have not. Katber, I say, Oh, the omnipotence of prayer! Had you not better try it, ye who have sins to be pardoned, ye who have diseases to be healed, ye who have burdens to cany?
*’ Restraining prayer, we cease to fiht;
Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright;
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
“Were half the breath that’s vainly spent
To heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful song would oftener be:
‘Hear what the Lord has done for me.’”
I learn, also, from this disaster, the importance ofalioays being ready for transition. What an awful thing it must have been, at two o’clock in the morning, on that ship for those not ready! The longest time spoken of, between the collision and the plunge, was twelve minutes. Alas! for the impenitent people on board that vessel! Only twelve minutes to do the whole work of a lifetime, and make preparation for countless ages of eternity. Twelve minutes! Twelve minutes! I think they took ten of them in hoping that they could get off into the life -boats or on the Loch Earn climbing down the mast. I think that ten minutes were taken in that way, hoping to get off. Then, there were only two minutes left; but even these two minutes must be split up; one minute to look over a wasted life, and the other minute to look forward to the great eternity. What a short time that is, you say, what a short time for preparation! But do you not realize the fact, my dear brother, that you may not be so fortunate as that? “Ob!” you say, “I will never venture on the sea.” Perhaps you may never step on shipboard, but do you not know that men go out of life without twelve minutes warning, without one minute? When the Avondale explosion took place, how long did those men have time to prepare for eternity? Not half a second! Witness our railway disasters, how, in an instant, they hurl men and women into an unending eternity. “In such a day and in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.” You have had friends leave the world — did they go at the time you expected, at the time they expected? Is it not almost always a surprise? It has been so with my friends. None of them went away at the time I thought they would. Though their sickness may have been long, though they may have been sick for three months, yet death was a surprise at the last. So it will be with you, in all probability, and so with me. “In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”
I can not realize that that steamer is gone. Did you ever see her? She was a beautiful vessel. I was on her deck one day (she was lying at the wharf) examining the marvels of her structure and the beauty of her cabins. She was the most beautiful steamer I ever saw; and now at the bottom of the Atlantic is that dead steamer. The furnaces all out. The pulsating machinery still. Passengers still in their berths, sleeping their last sleep! No hand on the helm. No foot pacing the lookout. Sea-monsters floating in and out the gashed side of the steamer. Along the gangway, on the stairs, and in the cabins, the bodies of men, and fair maidens, and beautiful children waiting for the resurrection. Oh! the dead steamer, buried in coffin of coral, under garlands of sea-weed, in the cemetery of dead ships, beside the Arctic and the Pacific and the Cambria, and the President, and the Ciiy of Boston. Toll all the cathedral bells of Madrid, and Paris, and Geneva, and New York. But all those shipwrecked ones must come up. “The sea shall give up its dead,” and all the cemeteries on the land must yield their trophies. What a time there will be in Greenwood, and in Laurel Hill, and in the village grave-yard! Oh, what a time! The Bible declares it: “They shall come forth, some to the resurrection of life, and some to the resurrection of damnation.” Day of joy. Day of sorrow. Day of light. Day of darkness. Day of victory. Day of defeat. Day of resurrection. O God! prepare me for that day. Are we ready? There comes a voice from the dead steamer that overpowers all other voices as it says: “What thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might, for there is neither wisdom, nor device, nor knowledge in the grave whither we are all hastening.”