First Accounts
One of the recurring fascinations that I have is in the sinking of the Titanic. When I allow myself to return to reading about that Lord's Day in April of 1912 and the morning hours after, I find that I can go on for days without getting those last fateful moments completely out of my mind. By all reports it was the clearest of clear evenings, and the waters in the midst of this great expanse were calm without even a ripple. A stargazer would surely have been amazed looking into the heavens with the many shooting stars.
They were more than half way into their journey. There was enormous 'money' on board if you know what I mean, and no shortage of important people enjoying the luxuries of the White Star liner. Many of the readers to these posts have been on one of the modern day cruise ships where the atriums alone would be a sight to behold even in any American metropolitan city. The movement of these great ships cannot be felt, nor the noise of its engine room heard. They are ocean liners without a steerage class, as a janitor can by lot sit and dine at the same table as a bank president.
A small ensemble was giving a concert on the Titanic only a few short hours before it sideswiped the stationary ice castle that may have towered above it. The liner SS Californian, itself sunk by a torpedo in World War I, sat motionless and deaf through the providence of God not far away. The courage and the order and the discipline of the crew and many of the passengers in the remaining hours of the Titanic would point forward to both England's finest hour decades later and the greatest generation here in America.
The stern of the Titanic, somehow in the physics of weights and measures of a broken ship, rose to almost a perpendicular position with the sea and seemed to stay there for a few moments before it slid into the depths as gracefully as an Olympic diver in the calm waters of the pool. Many of the remaining passengers and crew had moved to the stern as the bow was well below the water. They must have tumbled in those final moments. Some submerged with the ship only to miraculously make their way to the surface and survive.
Both the American and British governments held inquiries and as many as possible eyewitness accounts were sought after. One recurring theme haunted not only the survivors but many of us who seriously contemplate their accounts. The ship was gone in a few moments....all was quiet....until the cries of hundreds in the water pierced the cold evening. These cries lasted for maybe twenty minutes according to some testimonies until all was perfectly quiet once again.
At least one witness claimed that the very last song the band played after dutifully keeping the passengers calm with light and lively music right up to the end was the hymn Nearer My God To Thee.
The sinking of the Titanic was a message to mankind....I do believe that....as was probably the Challenger disaster.....and 9/11....not an omen but a message to anyone with a concern to where mankind is going. I say this, not because of the loss of life involved, but because of the indelible imprints left on our minds.
I'll give two testimonies from Titanic, First Accounts, edited by Tim Maltin...in the first the survivor was Elizabeth Weed Shutes....a governess to one of the wealthy passengers. She wrote this...."In years past a tendency to live more simply away from pomp and display led to the founding of our American nation. Now what are we demanding to-day? Those same needless luxuries. If they were not demanded they would not be supplied. Gymnasiums, swimming pools, tea rooms, had better give way to make space for the necessary number of lifeboats; lifeboats for the crew, also, who help pilot the good ship across the sea."
If the loss of the Titanic was not a message, this women surely gave her own to us today. We had better 'make space' for the lifeboats....for I have felt the shivering of our ship of state as a mortal gash has opened up our nation to the sea. The night is clear...the stars are out...and the sea is calm...but the morning will bring the winds and the sea will stir. Clouds will hide what little light the stars give at night.
Jesus Christ alone will keep the lifeboats afloat in the tempest. The others will take on water and sink to the bottom. There is room for everyone in these boats but one must take hold of the ropes and step in. The call for all hands on deck has been out for many years. Hold on to your Bible...for it is impossible that it should sink. Your Captain directs you into these lifeboats....you may remain on board, thinking the ship is safer and will surely not flounder, but the davits will lower the lifeboats in due time.
The second testimony is by Lawrence Beesley who wrote a book only weeks after the Carpathia picked him up, and in the book he tackled the question apparently many had been asking...who was at fault? Mr. Beesley proceeded to give a list of the obvious possibilities and was generous to all. He then turned to one last person who he "purposely" left for last for emphasis. He identified him as "you and I." Assuming that this identification would include us today, it is anyone and everyone who demands more speed. He implied far more here than nautical knots per hour. Today we are guilty of permitting Facebook becoming what it is, along with the unknown potential that it has for disaster for all of us. We are guilty of not putting limits on artificial intelligence and medical experimentation. We are letting robots take jobs. We know what we want and refuse to investigate any negative implications, while our defense on any and all of the above can be summed up in the 140 character tweet; whereas the testimonies of these witnesses were well thought out and often beautifully constructed and pleasant to the ear of the reader.
Mr. Beesley's grandson wrote the afterword to Titanic, First Accounts and offered these thoughts....."The Titanic keeps resurfacing to haunt our memories because its loss was a perfect monument to human folly. The great ship was being driven at high speed through an iceberg field without adequate technology to spot icebergs or enough lifeboats for all its passengers." His thoughts are an indictment to all of us today.
One of the recurring fascinations that I have is in the sinking of the Titanic. When I allow myself to return to reading about that Lord's Day in April of 1912 and the morning hours after, I find that I can go on for days without getting those last fateful moments completely out of my mind. By all reports it was the clearest of clear evenings, and the waters in the midst of this great expanse were calm without even a ripple. A stargazer would surely have been amazed looking into the heavens with the many shooting stars.
They were more than half way into their journey. There was enormous 'money' on board if you know what I mean, and no shortage of important people enjoying the luxuries of the White Star liner. Many of the readers to these posts have been on one of the modern day cruise ships where the atriums alone would be a sight to behold even in any American metropolitan city. The movement of these great ships cannot be felt, nor the noise of its engine room heard. They are ocean liners without a steerage class, as a janitor can by lot sit and dine at the same table as a bank president.
A small ensemble was giving a concert on the Titanic only a few short hours before it sideswiped the stationary ice castle that may have towered above it. The liner SS Californian, itself sunk by a torpedo in World War I, sat motionless and deaf through the providence of God not far away. The courage and the order and the discipline of the crew and many of the passengers in the remaining hours of the Titanic would point forward to both England's finest hour decades later and the greatest generation here in America.
The stern of the Titanic, somehow in the physics of weights and measures of a broken ship, rose to almost a perpendicular position with the sea and seemed to stay there for a few moments before it slid into the depths as gracefully as an Olympic diver in the calm waters of the pool. Many of the remaining passengers and crew had moved to the stern as the bow was well below the water. They must have tumbled in those final moments. Some submerged with the ship only to miraculously make their way to the surface and survive.
Both the American and British governments held inquiries and as many as possible eyewitness accounts were sought after. One recurring theme haunted not only the survivors but many of us who seriously contemplate their accounts. The ship was gone in a few moments....all was quiet....until the cries of hundreds in the water pierced the cold evening. These cries lasted for maybe twenty minutes according to some testimonies until all was perfectly quiet once again.
At least one witness claimed that the very last song the band played after dutifully keeping the passengers calm with light and lively music right up to the end was the hymn Nearer My God To Thee.
The sinking of the Titanic was a message to mankind....I do believe that....as was probably the Challenger disaster.....and 9/11....not an omen but a message to anyone with a concern to where mankind is going. I say this, not because of the loss of life involved, but because of the indelible imprints left on our minds.
I'll give two testimonies from Titanic, First Accounts, edited by Tim Maltin...in the first the survivor was Elizabeth Weed Shutes....a governess to one of the wealthy passengers. She wrote this...."In years past a tendency to live more simply away from pomp and display led to the founding of our American nation. Now what are we demanding to-day? Those same needless luxuries. If they were not demanded they would not be supplied. Gymnasiums, swimming pools, tea rooms, had better give way to make space for the necessary number of lifeboats; lifeboats for the crew, also, who help pilot the good ship across the sea."
If the loss of the Titanic was not a message, this women surely gave her own to us today. We had better 'make space' for the lifeboats....for I have felt the shivering of our ship of state as a mortal gash has opened up our nation to the sea. The night is clear...the stars are out...and the sea is calm...but the morning will bring the winds and the sea will stir. Clouds will hide what little light the stars give at night.
Jesus Christ alone will keep the lifeboats afloat in the tempest. The others will take on water and sink to the bottom. There is room for everyone in these boats but one must take hold of the ropes and step in. The call for all hands on deck has been out for many years. Hold on to your Bible...for it is impossible that it should sink. Your Captain directs you into these lifeboats....you may remain on board, thinking the ship is safer and will surely not flounder, but the davits will lower the lifeboats in due time.
The second testimony is by Lawrence Beesley who wrote a book only weeks after the Carpathia picked him up, and in the book he tackled the question apparently many had been asking...who was at fault? Mr. Beesley proceeded to give a list of the obvious possibilities and was generous to all. He then turned to one last person who he "purposely" left for last for emphasis. He identified him as "you and I." Assuming that this identification would include us today, it is anyone and everyone who demands more speed. He implied far more here than nautical knots per hour. Today we are guilty of permitting Facebook becoming what it is, along with the unknown potential that it has for disaster for all of us. We are guilty of not putting limits on artificial intelligence and medical experimentation. We are letting robots take jobs. We know what we want and refuse to investigate any negative implications, while our defense on any and all of the above can be summed up in the 140 character tweet; whereas the testimonies of these witnesses were well thought out and often beautifully constructed and pleasant to the ear of the reader.
Mr. Beesley's grandson wrote the afterword to Titanic, First Accounts and offered these thoughts....."The Titanic keeps resurfacing to haunt our memories because its loss was a perfect monument to human folly. The great ship was being driven at high speed through an iceberg field without adequate technology to spot icebergs or enough lifeboats for all its passengers." His thoughts are an indictment to all of us today.
