COMMIT HIS BODY TO THE DEEP.
“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take up to Himself the soul of our dear brother departed, we, therefore, commit his body to the deep to be turned to corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the seas shall give up her dead) and the life of the world to come, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.”
The prayers from the burial service were said, the hymn “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” sung and the blessing given.
Any one attending a burial at sea will most surely lose the common impression of the awfulness of a grave in the mighty deep. The wild Atlantic may rage and toss, the shipwrecked mariners cry for mercy, but far below in the calm untroubled depth they rest in peace.
On Monday the work began again early in the morning, and another day was spent in searching and picking up the floating bodies and at night a number were buried. On Tuesday the work was still the same until the afternoon, when the fog set in, and continued all day Wednesday.
Wednesday was partly spent in examining bodies, and at noon a number were committed to the deep. Thursday came in fine and from early morning until evening the work went on.
During the day word came that the cable ship Minia was on her way to help and would be near us at midnight.
“Early on Friday some more bodies were picked up. The captain then felt we had covered the ground fairly well and decided to start on our homeward way at noon. After receiving some supplies from the Minia we bid good-bye and proceeded on our way.
“The Mackay-Bennett succeeded in finding 306 bodies, of which 116 were buried at sea, and one could not help feeling, as we steamed homeward, that of those bodies we had on board it would be well if the greater number of them were resting in the deep.
“It is to be noted how earnestly and reverently all the work was done and how nobly the crew acquitted themselves during a work of several days which meant a hard and trying strain on mind and body.
“What seems a very regrettable fact is that in chartering the Mackay-Bennett for this work the White Star Company did not send an official agent to accompany the steamer in her search for the bodies.
CHAPTER XXII.
INQUIRY BY UNITED STATES SENATE.
Loading at the Rail—Inadequate Life-saving Appliances—No Extra Lookout—Searchlights Blinding—Wireless Rivals Not All Aroused—Went to Death in Sleep—Scratch Seamen—Cries of Agony—A Pitiful Story—Senators Ascertain Pertinent Facts—Much Good Accomplished.
What has been accomplished by the Senatorial inquiry into the loss of the Titanic with sixteen hundred lives?
For more than a week of the two that have elapsed since the Titanic made a record on her maiden voyage—a record never paralleled in marine history for its horrors, its sacrifice of life and material property—an earnest body of United States Senators has been at work conscientiously striving to uncover the facts, not alone for the purpose of placing the responsibility for what has now become one of the most heart-rending chapters of all ocean history, but also in the hope of framing remedial legislation looking to the prevention of its recurrence.
To attempt to draw conclusions as to the value of the work of a committee which is yet upon the threshold of its task would be presumptuous, but it is not too soon to present and formulate some of the pertinent facts which its researches have established in the light of sworn evidence.
Any attempt at systematic analysis of the facts deduced from the many thousand of pages of testimony already taken naturally divided itself into two departments:
Were the Titanic’s equipment and her general state of preparedness such as to justify the broad claims made in her behalf before the crisis arose, that she represented the acme of human possibility not only in ocean going comfort and speed but also in safety at sea?
Were the personnel and discipline of her officers and crew of such a standard that, after the supreme crisis confronted them, they utilized to the best advantage such facilities for the safeguarding and preservation of life as remained at their disposal?
With ten thousand families on both sides of the Atlantic mourning the untimely death of relatives and friends who went down into the depths from the decks of a brand new ship, widely proclaimed the greatest and the safest that ever ploughed the sea, these are, after all, the most pertinent questions that may be asked by a sorrowing world as it looks to the future rather than the past.