The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-08-13

arms. The mother and the baby never
came up. Yet that man said hardly q
| word. While he suffered, he suffered
| in Silen e. But to hear some people
| complain about their little troubles
you would suppose that their finite
worries were the greatest troubles in
all the world. All, my brother, when
you go around and advertise your
| grief l am sure about one thing-the
trouble which you have does not
amount to much. If you had been on
| the sinking Columbia and heard the
awful explosion when the cold waters
| touched the hot boilers and If you had
| had your wife and children swept
| away then you would have had Il
| grief too great to parade before your
| fellow men. Then when you Suf
| fered you would suffer III silence, in
! complete silence, in sacred silence.
| And l sometimes fear that if we per
sist in complaining about our little
| troubles God may soon send us Il
| truly great trouble in order to stop
| our continual complaint
| But there was another fact that I'M
| pressed me about the CHASTITY catas-
| trophe Of the fatal Goth day of July |
| felt that we might be very near to
| those who are in trouble and vet not
| hear their cries of anguish or see their
reckoning calls or be part in their
physical mental, moral, spiritual and
eternal rescue. We may be so near
that we can almost speak to them, so
| near that we are almost treading upon
them, and yet as far as we are con
cerned they may be thousand miles
| aye, ten thousand miles-away.
The San Pedro struck the Columbia
about 12:15 Il. IN. At 1880 the Column
bia sank, and her passengers and crew
were struggling in the water. Two or
three of the survivors showed me their
watches filled with water. They had
stopped about 1890 a. H. For five
long hours In the cold and the darkness
the survivors tioated in boats and on
RATS, waiting for the day. The fog
was still blindingly heavy. About 5
O'Clock in the morning the passengers
in the distance. 1t was only Il few
hundred yards away. THANK Godr'
they cried I'VE are saved. We are
saved" But instead of stopping its
engines it moved steadily On and disap-
peared. The survivors were frantic
They called, they shouted, they scream
ed. But the Waterman on the bridge
10 ..rJ
swiftly on and was gone Then the
fog bank closed down and 10 human
voice answered their cries Women
tainted and men groaned, and despair
was everywhere. NO hope they
cried. NO hope. No hope, We shall
all be lost in this impenetrable fog"
Now, the sailors and passengers of
that passing ship may have been as
true hearted people as those who were
aboard the Elder. But they were not
looking for any shipwrecked crews.
Otherwise they might have acted diff
ferently. II that ship had known that
any one was in trouble in that sea its
captain would probably have done as
good Captain Jessen of the Elder did
He would have tarried there until the
fog lifted After he had picked up all
the occupants of the boats and RATS
he would have sailed around among
the wreckage until he was sure that
not one man, woman or child was
struggling in those waters. Then the
passengers Of that passing boat would
have done just as our" passengers did.
They would have helped the survivors
to their own staterooms and placed
them in berths and given them clothes
| do not believe there was q man or
woman Oh the Elder who did not divide
spare clothing with those survivors
who came to us almost naked from the
seas And l do not believe there was
a strong. healthy man who did not give
up his berth to some sick man or some
woman or child. When | slept upon
the open deck IN, order that woman
might have my berth | did just what
scores of other men did and no more
than every other man of that passing
ship would have done had he known
that his sufferin: fellow men We're
struggling in the midst of that sea.
But the trouble was that the watch
man of that passing ship did not see
those little boats and RATS floating in
the fog. And the great reason why
we do not help those who are strug-
Cling by our side in the fog of life is
because we do not see or hear them.
Is II Our Fault?
Yet as l stood and looked at some of
those poor survivors of the Columbia
kept saying to myself, rs it our fault
if we do not see those who are in trou-
BILE by our side in the fogs and mists of
life?' Why should / give up part of
my clothing and my berth to the ship
wrecked at sea and yet refuse to help
clothe the naked who are living in my
own town by my side? Why not think
Of the poor, the lame, the blind, by our
own Preside? "Oh," some one answers,
''the reason we do not feed those Iiy-
ing under the shadow of our own doors
is because we think they ought to be
able to make living as we have to
do" Your answer, my friend, is right