Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · May 9, 1912

Editorial

By Editor

The Disaster on the Deep

WHEREVER civilized human beings live, human hearts have ached since the day when there was flashed around the world the fearful intelligence that the mightiest ship that ever sailed had gone down with her freight of human lives. The details of the terrible tragedy have been reiterated in every city and village in the civilized world, and we can not add to them, nor would we harrow the minds and souls of our readers by picturing these horrors over again. It is the greatest tragedy the annals of the sea record. Perhaps no single disaster has ever smitten the heart of man with so stunning a blow, and so stirred the compassion and the sympathy of the world. It has made the souls of millions a storage-battery of condemnation against those who are responsible for the foundering of the ship and the loss of those who went down with her.

The "Titanic" was well named. She measured 882 feet in length. She was capable of accommodating the inhabitants of a small city, and was designed to be the mistress of the seas. Her builders had declared her unsinkable; and having such faith in her ability to ride the stormiest seas in safety, they considered life-boats and other life-saving apparatus as useless impedimenta. In fact, it was declared by her builders that the "Titanic" was herself considered a life-boat. She was on her maiden voyage. Her owners were anxious that she should make a striking speed record on this her first trip, not merely for the honor of the record, but for the increased patronage that her speed and her luxurious accommodations would bring them. She had on board one who held the position of chairman of the board of directors of the line to which she belonged. Her captain was proud of the honor which came to him with the command of this majestic palace of the seas, and which made him the associate of the greatest and wealthiest of earth, who traveled as the guests of his company. All that money could buy or the lust of luxury suggest was provided on that ship; but for the saving of lives there was little thought. There was pleasure in plenty; but life—ah, how that lack of its consideration typifies the age in which we live!

Thus equipped, and with 2,208 souls on board, she slipped from her moorings, strong as man could build her, majestic in every line, graceful as a swan, and riding the waves in seeming disdain of the very sea that buoyed her up. "She can not sink," they said; and as she plowed her way out into the billows of the blue deep, her mighty propellers thrusting her mammoth hulk through the waves at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour, a miniature volcano deep down in her hull was sending up a cloud of smoke that trailed away over the waves like an emblem of defiance to the sea itself. Some had said, "She is the last word in ship-building," and they felt she had conquered the sea.

But ages ago the Word of God came to man with this admonition: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God: who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." Ps. 146: 3-6. Too much have men come to trust in themselves. With every increase in the size of their ships there has come an increase of confidence in the safety of sea travel and in their ability to insure that safety by the mere size and strength of the vessels.

Apparently forgetful of the unmeasurable power of the forces of nature, this "last word in ship-building," this unsinkable ship, this fortress of overconfidence, this challenge to the Almighty, this gigantic instrument of commercialism for reaping a harvest of gold, drives on into the rolling sea and into the night. Her captain hears through the pulsating ether that there is danger ahead. The wireless telegraph warns him again and again of the silent, ghostly ships of ice, launched by unseen hands from the ports of the frozen north, which are steering a chartless course toward the southern seas. The captain tells the director, and then both sit down to a banquet and toast the great unsinkable ship while she drives on toward her trysting-place with the unnamed leviathan of the polar seas.

There is mirth and music, feasting and drinking, and all is "merry as a wedding-bell." Suddenly there appears just ahead a misty apparition, now shapeless, now almost invisible, now like a blur of mist or a filmy mountain of vapor. Ah, it is not mist nor vapor! It is the terror of the northern seas. Quick flies the order to port the helm and reverse the port propeller; but it is too late. The speed and the weight of the mighty ship are against her. The crash comes. She rises on a spur of the iceberg and slides back into the sea, her frame racked and strained, her very vitals pierced and the cold sea pouring into her hold. She settles lower and lower, but the great monster that answered her challenge sails away unshaken and uninjured. The cyclone and the flood on land and the iceberg and tidal wave at sea are thundering in the ears of man from year to year the admonition of the Almighty: "Put not your trust . . . in man, in whom there is no help."

Every calamity such as this divides the company concerned quickly into two classes, the heroes and the cowards, the men who will willingly sacrifice their own lives that others may live, and the men who will sacrifice the lives of others that they themselves may live. Both classes were here. Instance the conduct of that grand old Jew, declaring, "I will not set my foot into a life-boat so long as there is a woman on board unprovided for." He went down with the ship, his wife with him, because she would not seek safety while he was in peril. And a common sailor, when asked why he did not have on a life-belt, replied, "I don't think there are enough to go around, mum." On the other hand, we hear of a passenger attempting to strip a life-belt from another to provide for himself. Thus we see self-sacrifice and self-service in every avenue of life.

We do not wish to attempt the impossible and harrowing task of describing the horrors of that night, when 1,595 human beings floating upon life-belts were slowly perishing in the icy sea, while the wives and children of many of them were in the life-boats, unable to lend them aid or to close their ears to the death-cries of their loved ones. Such fearful disasters cause the child of hope to yearn with deeper longing for that land where none of these fruits of the curse can ever come.

With the light of day came the rescue ship, imperiling her own passengers and crew to aid their fellows in distress, her work a faint likeness of the work which our Saviour did in our behalf. She was not able to help all to safety who cried for help in that bitter night; but he who has given himself for us is able to bring to the haven of eternal safety all who call upon him.

Who was to blame for this fearful catastrophe? It is impossible to place the blame upon any individual or company of individuals. The whole world is to blame. This age in which we live is to blame. It is an age of speed and luxury. The mass of the people who travel are speed-mad, and give more thought to luxury than to life and what it means. The managers of the great steamship lines know that the more perfectly they can cater to these whims of the age, the more patronage they can secure, and the more rapidly they can pile up their riches. The love of luxury, the love of speed, and the love of money form the tyrannical triumvirate that made such a catastrophe possible. Some would call it a direct judgment from the Almighty. It is rather a direct consequence of man's forgetting God and pandering to his own inclinations and desires. Nevertheless, it is a sign of the times which we should not disregard. The world will witness more painful scenes than this before the end of time, and God will permit them to come that men may learn to trust less in themselves and more in him who alone can save.

C. M. S.