SINKING OF THE TITANIC AND GREAT SEA DISASTERS

Pre-Frontispiece Caption: THE TITANIC

The largest and finest steamship in the world; on her maiden voyage,
loaded with a human freight of over 2,300 souls, she collided with a
huge iceberg 600 miles southeast of Halifax, at 11.40 P.M. Sunday April
14, 1912, and sank two and a half hours later, carrying over 1,600 of
her passengers and crew with her.



Frontispiece Caption: CAPTAIN E. J. SMITH

Of the ill-fated giant of the sea; a brave and seasoned commander who
was carried to his death with his last and greatest ship.



Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters

A Detailed and Accurate Account of the Most Awful Marine Disaster in
History, Constructed from the Real Facts as Obtained from Those on Board
Who Survived..........

ONLY AUTHORITATIVE BOOK

INCLUDING Records of Previous Great Disasters of the Sea, Descriptions
of the Developments of Safety and Life-saving Appliances, a Plain
Statement of the Causes of Such Catastrophes and How to Avoid Them, the
Marvelous Development of Shipbuilding, etc.

With a Message of Spiritual Consolation by REV. HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D.

EDITED BY LOGAN MARSHALL

Author of "Life of Theodore Roosevelt," etc.

ILLUSTRATED With Numerous Authentic Photographs and Drawings



Dedication

To the 1635 souls who were lost with the ill-fated Titanic, and
especially to those heroic men, who, instead of trying to save
themselves, stood aside that women and children might have their chance;
of each of them let it be written, as it was written of a Greater
One--"He Died that Others might Live"


"I stood in unimaginable trance And agony that cannot be
remembered."--COLERIDGE


Dr. Van Dyke's Spiritual Consolation to the Survivors of the Titanic


The Titanic, greatest of ships, has gone to her ocean grave. What has
she left behind her? Think clearly.

She has left debts. Vast sums of money have been lost. Some of them are
covered by insurance which will be paid. The rest is gone. All wealth is
insecure.

She has left lessons. The risk of running the northern course when it
is menaced by icebergs is revealed. The cruelty of sending a ship to
sea without enough life-boats and life-rafts to hold her company is
exhibited and underlined in black.

She has left sorrows. Hundreds of human hearts and homes are in mourning
for the loss of dear companions and friends. The universal sympathy
which is written in every face and heard in every voice proves that man
is more than the beasts that perish. It is an evidence of the divine in
humanity. Why should we care? There is no reason in the world, unless
there is something in us that is different from lime and carbon and
phosphorus, something that makes us mortals able to suffer together--

"For we have all of us an human heart."

But there is more than this harvest of debts, and lessons, and sorrows,
in the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic. There is a great ideal.
It is clearly outlined and set before the mind and heart of the modern
world, to approve and follow, or to despise and reject.

It is, "Women and children first!"

Whatever happened on that dreadful April night among the arctic ice,
certainly that was the order given by the brave and steadfast captain;
certainly that was the law obeyed by the men on the doomed ship. But
why? There is no statute or enactment of any nation to enforce such an
order. There is no trace of such a rule to be found in the history of
ancient civilizations. There is no authority for it among the heathen
races to-day. On a Chinese ship, if we may believe the report of an
official representative, the rule would have been "Men First, children
next, and women last."

There is certainly no argument against this barbaric rule on physical or
material grounds. On the average, a man is stronger than a woman, he is
worth more than a woman, he has a longer prospect of life than a woman.
There is no reason in all the range of physical and economic science,
no reason in all the philosophy of the Superman, why he should give his
place in the life-boat to a woman.

Where, then, does this rule which prevailed in the sinking Titanic come
from? It comes from God, through the faith of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is the ideal of self-sacrifice. It is the rule that "the strong
ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak." It is the divine
revelation which is summed up in the words: "Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."