Neither Chaos Nor Cold

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

John 15:13

The Reverend John Harper was on his way to America to preach in the famed Moody Church in Chicago. A widower, Harper was accompanied by his six-year-old daughter, Nina, and his niece. Standing at the railing of the great ocean liner Titanic on the night of April 14, 1912, he said, “It will be beautiful in the morning.” It was a morning he didn’t live to see.

When the Titanic began to sink, it is said that Harper added “and the unsaved” to the familiar cry of “Women and children to the lifeboats.” After making sure his daughter and niece were safe in a lifeboat, Harper preached the gospel to whomever would listen until he was forced to abandon ship—one of 1,498 who went into the freezing North Atlantic. Four years after the tragedy, a young man testified how Harper swam about in the waters before he succumbed, urging people to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.” The young man, one of six people rescued from the waters, was one who believed after first refusing Harper’s pleas.

Neither chaos nor cold could keep John Harper from laying down his life so that others might live in time and for eternity.

God will be our compensation for every sacrifice we have made.

F. B. MEYER