The Titanic's Last Hero Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  1912 Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chatper 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Titanic’s Last Hero

  A Startling True Story That Can Change Your Life Forever

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  © 2012 by Ambassador International

  All rights reserved

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  Printed in the United States of America

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  ISBN: 978-1-620200-05-6

  eISBN: 978-1-620200-006-3

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  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

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  Cover Design and Page Layout by David Siglin

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  DEDICATED TO BILL GUTHRIE OF GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, a concerned Christian who kept the story of John Harper alive. He collected materials, questioned acquaintances, and even attended the funeral of John Harper’s daughter. Without his research and work, this book would not have been possible. He has rendered a great service to the work of Jesus Christ.

  PREFACE

  JOHN HARPER HAD BEEN DEAD for eighty-five years when he changed my life dramatically. In 1997, I was in the Harper Memorial Baptist Church in Glasgow, which was renamed for their heroic first pastor, John Harper. There I met Bill Guthrie, a member of the church, who has a fantastic knowledge of Harper. Guthrie furnished me with a rare copy of the original book on Harper, church documents, and related accounts from people whose families had known this heroic Scotsman.

  My personal experience with Harper’s story made me determined to pass it on to as many people as possible. This is done with the conviction that the life of John Harper is capable of leaving an indelible imprint upon all who become acquainted with his passionate passage through this world.

  Harper stood as a giant of unselfishness in a world where most men are obsessed with looking out for “number one,” a giant of sacrifice in a world where most men are unwilling to deprive themselves, a giant of passion for souls in a world where few men possess a deep desire for the salvation of their fellow men.

  The testimonies and tributes in this book were printed under the title John Harper: a Man of God. John Climie wrote the 1912 preface, the second chapter, and compiled the comments of acquaintances and converts who knew John Harper. Their writing was done at the request of Pastor George Harper, the brother of John Harper. These original accounts have been edited very little to preserve the 1912 Scottish style.

  Joseph Addison, an English essayist, said, “Unbounded courage and compassion … make the hero and the man complete.” Harper embodied the courage and compassion that made the complete hero.

  —Moody Adams

  A PREFACE TO

  John Harper: a Man of God

  PUBLISHED IN 1912

  THE EDITORSHIP OF THIS VOLUME has been undertaken at the request of Pastor George Harper, who has rendered most valuable assistance and whose tender and loving tribute to the memory of his brother will be read with special interest. As the biography is composed mainly of tributes by various writers, it has been impossible to avoid duplication. But it has been considered proper that the tributes should appear as written, since each contributor writes from his own standpoint.

  The sinking of the Titanic with its living freight has created a wail of sorrow throughout the civilized world. The idea of 1,523 lives being lost through the sinking of one ship is perfectly appalling. Even after the great ship was at the bottom of the sea, the newspapers, not knowing what had taken place, were announcing that the Titanic was “absolutely unsinkable.” But the forces of nature were too much for the mammoth liner. The waters in the polar regions had, under the keen breath of the north wind, massed themselves together, and from that ice zone came floating silently along the huge berg that ripped the steamer’s bottom and sent it to its ocean bed. “By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened” (Job 37:10). The iceberg straitened the Atlantic tract, and the great ship was sent to the bottom of the sea. That Mr. Harper should have been taken away in his prime has perplexed many.

  We had ventured frequently within the past few years to predict for him a great future of usefulness, but

  “We know not what awaits us.

  God kindly veils our eyes.”

  We reverently bow our heads under the shadow of this great calamity that has bereaved us of one who lived not for himself but for the glory of Him who redeemed him with His own precious blood.

  It is hoped that this small memento of a life lived for God and for the good of his fellow men will carry a blessing with it and be a stimulus to many. In this hope it is sent forth.

  —John Climie

  197 St. Andrew’s Road, Glasgow

  Photo of John Harper

  CHAPTER 1

  GOING OUT IN A

  BLAZE OF GLORY

  While the flames of other ambitions

  flickered and died,

  John Harper’s burned even brighter

  as he sank into a watery grave.

  When death forced others to face

  the folly of their life’s pursuits,

  John Harper’s goal of winning men to

  Jesus Christ became more vital as he

  breathed his final breaths.

  AS THE DARK, FRIGID WATERS of the Atlantic crept slowly up the decks of the Titanic, John Harper shouted, “Let the women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats!” Harper gave his life jacket—his last hope of survival—to another man. After the ship had slipped beneath the silent water and left Harper floundering, he was heard urging those around him to put their faith in Jesus Christ.

  It was the night of April 14, 1912, a night for heroes, and John Harper met the challenge. Though the waters swallowing him were bitterly cold and the sea about him was dark, John Harper left this world in a brilliant blaze of glory.

  Harper’s heroics were spontaneous. He had no reason to expect the Titanic to sink nor time to write a script. A trade magazine, The Shipbuilder, labeled the Titanic as “practically unsinkable.” On May 31, 1911, an employee of the White Star Shipbuilding Company said, “Not even God Himself could sink this ship.” The Titanic reflected all the security, luxury, and confidence of the Victorian-Edwardian era. The Associated Press was sold on the ship, declaring that “all that wealth and modern workmanship could produce was embodied in the Titanic, the longest vessel ever built, over four city blocks in length with accommodations for a crew of 860 and a passenger capacity of 3,500, she was built with as much care as is put into the finest chronometers.”

  The Titanic’s lavish extravagance and record-breaking size awed the golden age of shipbuilding. Her 50,000 hp engines that produced the twenty-four knots-per-hour speed were s
ecured in sixteen watertight compartments. Each was protected by steel bulkheads. At the time of her launch, the Titanic was the world’s largest, man-made moveable object. After making its first two passenger and mail stops at Cherbourg and Queenstown, Ireland, passengers gained an increased sense of security. Harper wrote a letter to his friend Charles Livingstone before docking at Queenstown, saying, “Thus far the passage is all that can be desired.”

  At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, an iceberg scraped the ship’s starboard side, showering the decks with ice and ripping open six watertight compartments. The sea poured in. Most passengers remained unconvinced that the Titanic would go down until the crew started shooting flares into the air. Charles Pellegrino, author of Ghosts of the Titanic, imagined that “the water sparked for miles around. Lifeboats could be seen on it…. In that cave of manmade light, minds too were illuminated. Everyone understood the message of the rockets without being told.”

  After the flares, no one had to be persuaded to enter a lifeboat. Then, when the water had crept halfway to the bridge, a sudden crashing sound like a warehouse of fine china being shattered tore through the darkness. As the stern of the Titanic rose high in the sky to begin her descent to the ocean floor, that explosive sound shook the night air. Passengers joined hands and leaped into the water. At 2:20 a.m., the Titanic began her slow glide downward, leaving a mushroom-like cloud of smoke and steam above her watery grave.

  In the icy waters of the North Atlantic, in the dead of night, the most famous ship in the world ended her one and only voyage but gained a nautical mystique second only to Noah’s ark. It happened so fast that Harper could only react. His response left an historic example of courage and faith. “The heroes of mankind,” said English churchman A.P. Stanley, “are the mountains, the highlands of the moral world.” Such a hero was John Harper.

  THE HARDEST PART OF HIS HEROISM

  It is never easy to undertake such heroic actions, and for John Harper, it was exceptionally difficult. After a very brief married life, John Harper had lost his wife early in the year 1906, shortly after the birth of their only child. His little daughter, Annie Jessie “Nan” Harper, and her nanny were traveling with him. Nan was just a few months past her sixth birthday. The tragedy of the Titanic would leave her an orphan. However, the blessing of the Lord would surely rest on the little girl. “A Father of the fatherless … is God in His holy habitation” (Psalm 68:5).

  When the alarm sounded the end of the Titanic, Harper immediately handed Nan to an upper deck captain with instructions to get her into a lifeboat. Then he turned back to help others.

  Knowing that his young daughter would be both motherless and fatherless had to have been heartbreaking for Harper. Once, after he had narrowly escaped drowning at age thirty-two, he had said, “The fear of death did not for one moment disturb me. I believed that sudden death would be sudden glory, but, there was a wee, motherless girl in Glasgow.” He had survived then. He would not survive now.

  (Nan’s life was indeed spared. She was rescued and returned to Scotland. There, she grew up, married a preacher, and dedicated her entire life to the Lord her father had served.)

  THE HERO IN CONTRAST

  This Scotsman’s selfless heroism is accentuated by the contrasting conduct of many fellow passengers on this death voyage. While Harper gave up his life jacket, an American banker managed to get a pet dog into a lifeboat, leaving nearly1,520 humans unaided. Records indicate that two lapdogs were saved that tragic night. There was little of the “go-down-with-the-ship” spirit to be seen in the chaos. Of the 705 or so saved, about 200 were crewmen!

  Colonel John Jacob Astor IV tried to escape with his pregnant wife, Madeleine Force Astor, in a lifeboat. His plan was thwarted when Second Officer Charles Lightoller prevented him from boarding with her. Astor was the richest man in the world, but all his money couldn’t gain him a seat in a lifeboat that night, and he perished. He was forty-seven years old.

  It has been claimed that twenty-one-year-old Daniel Buckley disguised himself as a woman in order to sneak aboard a lifeboat. However, it may have been just a woman’s shawl that was thrown over his head after he got on the boat with a small group of men. When ship’s officers came to the lifeboat and ordered the men to get out, a woman in the boat covered Buckley to prevent him from losing his seat. The shawl was not a disguise, and Buckley was not in a dress. That was his testimony, anyway, in an American inquiry.

  First class passengers on the first lifeboat to be lowered refused to turn back to pick up people who were drowning, though there was space for many others to have been saved. They feared being overturned by people trying to scramble over the sides as well as the chance that they might be pulled into the deep behind the Titanic. Mrs. Rosa Abbott, the only woman to go down with the ship and survive, said a man tried to climb up on her back as they floundered in the water, forcing her down under the water and nearly drowning her.

  Mr. Bruce Ismay, part owner of the Titanic and a managing director of the White Star Company, was the man responsible for not putting enough lifeboats on board the ship. He became the most infamous seaman since Captain Bligh. It was reported that without regard for the hundreds of women waiting on the doomed ship, he crawled into a lifeboat to save himself. However, while he did end up escaping death by securing a seat for himself on a half-filled lifeboat that was being lowered into the water, it was only after he had helped fill several other boats with women, and no other passengers were in the immediate vicinity to fill the remaining empty seats.

  Captain Smith ordered his men to “do your best for the women and children and look out for yourselves.” At the same time, John Harper was ordering men to do their best for the women and children and to look out for others.

  AN UNWAVERING AMBITION

  As the monstrous iceberg ripped the ambitions of others to shreds, Harper demonstrated his unwavering ambition that even death could not affect. He declared Jesus Christ as man’s hope to the end. His character was a stark contrast to others who were forced to face the folly of their ambitions.

  Michel Navratil Sr., the father of Michel Jr. and Edmond, had taken the two little boys aboard the Titanic for a one-way trip to America, leaving behind the wife and mother whom he had discovered was having an affair. Taking on the assumed name of Louis M. Hoffman and calling his sons Lolo and Momon, his only goal had been to abduct his children from their mother and prevent her from finding them. However, facing his own death, he put his sons aboard a lifeboat, knowing that they would be returned to their mother. In fact, according to Michel, who was four years old at the time, his father’s last words to the boys were: “when your mother comes for you …tell her that I loved her dearly and still do.” He was thirty-two years old. (The boys, known as the “Titanic waifs,” were indeed reunited with their mother a month later when she traveled from France to New York to claim them. Mr. Navratil’s body was recovered from the Atlantic and buried in Canada.)

  John “Jack” Phillips, a self-sufficient crew member, told the SS Californian to “shut up” after they radioed their sixth warning of icebergs in the path of the Titanic. (Previous warnings had already been passed along to the captain.) Facing death, his ambitious independence disappeared as he cried out, “God forgive me … God forgive me!” He was twenty-five years old.

  Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic, spent the closing moments of his life in the smoking-room, looking at a mural on the wall. “The New World to Come” was the mural’s caption. The man’s life jacket was laid to one side, signifying the end of what had been a beautiful dream on the part of the designer, the ship’s owners, and the public. He was thirty-nine years old, married, and the father of one child.

  Mrs. Isidor Straus, whose husband owned Macy’s Department Store, did not get into a lifeboat. She said to her husband, “Where you go, I go.” She helped her maid into boat number eight and put her fur coat on her shoulders, telling her, “Keep warm. I won’t be needing it.” The Strauses were in their sixtie
s. (Mr. Straus’ body was recovered, but his wife’s was not.)

  American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet, Victor Giglio, appeared on deck in full evening dress, saying, “We’ve dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” Mr. Guggenheim is reported to have dictated a message for his wife that said, “If anything should happen to me, tell my wife in New York that I’ve done my best in doing my duty.” He was forty-six years old and, ironically—given the message sent—was traveling with his mistress, who survived and returned to Paris.

  As the ship went down, the card sharks who sailed under assumed names and clipped the passengers for $30,000, stopped their cons. Gym instructor T.W. McCawley, who was teaching people to ride on mechanical horses and camels, stopped his lesson. The allure of four-postered beds, designer fireplaces, Turkish baths with gilded cooling rooms, and the first swimming pool ever built in an ocean liner ended. Passengers in the first-class lounge ceased their partying and paraded onto the deck with lifebelts over their evening dress. The business deals stopped. The idle chatter of the socialites died away. But, with his last breath, John Harper tirelessly continued his life’s work of urging men to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

  HARPER KNEW WELL THE TERRORS OF DROWNING

  Harper’s courage did not come from ignorance. Probably no one else on the Titanic was as familiar with the terrors of drowning as John Harper. At age two and a half, he had fallen into a well and was resuscitated just in time by his mother. At twenty-six, Harper was swept out to sea by a reverse current and barely survived. At thirty-two, he faced death on a leaking ship in the Mediterranean. Perhaps it was God’s way of testing this servant for his last warning mission on the Titanic.

  Harper already knew what hundreds discovered on that tragic night: drowning is a horrible death. William Murdoch, the Titanic’s first officer, worked to move women and children into the lifeboats. Then, apparently unable to face a slow demise in the water, it is reported that he committed suicide by shooting himself as the bridge of the ship slipped below the surface of the Atlantic. (He was thirty-nine years old; his body was lost at sea.) Many of the men, women, and children who were left on the sinking ship screamed their way toward a dreadful silence. In contrast, a confident John Harper faced death with absolute assurance that Jesus had conquered death and given him the gift of eternal life. This assurance overcame the terror of drowning.