The record-union., 1894-02-10
SEVEN DUTCH SAILORS - SEVEN
HEROES.

Who are the heroes7 Not those alone
who unsheathe the sword for country. or
at the call Of official authority engage in
perilous enterprise, or do battle on fields
of carnage or in everyday life for those
dependent upon them. There are those
IN plenty in humble life whose heroism
is the output of manly impulse, without
the prod of command, and whose self
sacrifice is the nobler because their lot is
the lowlier.
The other day the steamship Amster-
dam, when in mid-Atlantic Ocean,
sighted fishing schooner in sad distress,
in q tempestuous sea. with its crew
lashed to the rigging and in the very
jaws of death. The Captain Of the steamer
had no power to compel his men to go to
the rescue; he had no authority to COM
mand the act. He called for volunteers,
though hesitating to invite them to such
peril, however, and instantly seven stall
Wart young men of Holland stepped for
ward. They ranged from 25 to 35 years
of age. Six of the seven had wives and
children in their far-off homes; the
poor creatures battling with death in the
waves and wreckage were not of their
race or country; they had no other claim
than that of common humanity upon
these men safe on board steamship-but
that was enough.
To these seven intrepid Dutch sailors.
heroes whose impulse and spirit in this
act were as pure and lofty as any that
ever prompted men to noble deeds, set
out to rescue the strangers in the seas,
knowing full well that there was but a
slender chance to effect it and that they
bore their own lives in the hollow of their
hands, as the shaken leaf bears the rain
drop when the storm is on.
The imperiled men were reached but
the lifeboat went down, and only one of
that little band of natures noblemen
came up out of the depths and clung to
wreckage until rescued by the steamer.
Yet in the face of this awful catastrophe,
with the fate of their comrades before
them, and having all to live for, loves and
friends and homes and children, a second
crew stepped forward and offered to
make another attempt to take off the
fourteen men in the rigging of the sink
ing schooner.
But the Captain of the steamer felt that
the men of his ship had done enough;
that while he might have defended him
self easily had he refused to call for vol
unteers in the first instance, he never
could reply if he permitted second de-
tachment of brave men TO go out into the
raging sea upon q hopeless errand OF
nercv. And so the new heroes were re-
fused. and the steamer lay by until the
pitiless sea at last washed the fourteen
men from their lashings and into its
depths. while heads were ba1ed in the
storm. and down the bronzed and fur
roved cheeks of the onlookers flowed the
tears of pity and mourning for the strang-
ers.
There back in Holland are six humble
homes, six young Dutch wives and
group of orphaned children, to whom nc
more forever will come the loved ones,
who, but a week before had gone out
upon the deep, so full of buoyant life and
honest though humble hope. No one
would have picked out these men from
their lowly cots as heroes. AS their lives
were humble, their homes poor, theil
daily habits commonplace, their thought
and communion simple, who would have
selected them in hope to find beneath
their wooden jackets the hearts of true
heroes. whose deed of mercy and sacri.
fee deserves to be recorded high upon
the loftiest tablets Of fame?
But when the hour came when there
ros a call for true manliness, demand
for such chivalry as makes angels en-
v;ous. and such heroism as is eternal II
Its record, up from out these simple piod'
ding Dutch lives there sprang nerolS
souls, who for suffering man put aside al
that they loved on earth.
It was more than bravery; 1t was tne