The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

THE INDESCRIBABLE SUNDAY SERVICES.

The body of Major W. T. Levy, United States Immigrant Agent of this district, was among the number. He made a gallant struggle to save his wife and three children. All were lost, and the bodies of the wife and children have not been recovered. They are still among the uninterred dead, and when found will be disposed of as the father and husband has been.

What pen can describe the religious service on Sunday? Houses of worship ruined, congregations scattered and in despair, yet all those who survived gathered in impromptu temples and in sorrow and grief prayed for loved ones gone, and in humble thanksgiving offered up their hearts for their own preservation. The scene at the little chapel in St. Mary’s University was pitiful in the extreme, the Sacred Heart Church lying in ruins, the Jesuit fathers threw open their private chapel to those who formerly worshipped in this once magnificent church. Within this meagre little chapel none could for a moment lose sight of what now existed here; many of those who received the communion from the priests’ hands know no home other than this same building; children came to this sacrifice of the mass barefooted and hatless, even their expressions showed the awe struck feeling which shrouded all.

At the low mass no sermon was preached, no word spoken, all prayer was in silence, nothing but the words of the mass was heard, as each heart poured forth in feeling deep and still their thanksgiving. The environments there each told the sad, sad story. On the lower floor of this chapel were the destitute waiting for the food supply to be given them, this in itself the saddest picture the miseries of life can sketch. On the same floor with the chapel are the priests’ rooms, now the hospital wards, everywhere the sick being tended by skillful hands, looked wistfully at the passer-by. Thus in this one corner of the university, the whole effect of the tragedy is enacted; the hungry, the homeless, the ill, and above all these earthly miseries, the kneeling before the throne of God in submission and prayer.