"Since we parted from you and those beloved Christian friends at St. Pancras last Wednesday, we seem to have lived years, and learnt more of the reality of the delivering power of our loving Father than in all our lives before.
"Wondrous to relate, and as marvellous as the deliverance of the three children from the fiery furnace, is the fact that all our precious little ones are in safety, and now gone to a place of worship.
"Behold the loving-kindness of our God! Had the explosion taken place a little while later, our vessel would have been on her way instead of standing still waiting off Moville for the mails.
"Most of the children" were on deck, basking in the lovely sunshine of that afternoon. We were all busy finishing our letters, and I intended to write one more, and then go and spend an hour in the children's steerage, when presently there was a terrible sound, as of a cannon, followed by a deathly stillness for two minutes; I rushed on deck and beheld a man jet black with soot, his halt burnt off, issuing from a gangway near; then one of my own boys came, exclaiming, 'Oh, Miss! I prayed to Jesus, and He saved me.' Then the deck became a fearful scene of confusion, poor foreigners weeping, and oh! the mutilated men and women, ghastly with fright, some of their faces entirely skinned.
"My first care was for the little ones. They clustered round me, as the two young men, (former boys of 1870, who had been home to see their friends), gathered them out of the crowd. Mr. Merry gave me the list, and they dried their tears, and answered to their names when called. We soon found all accounted for, and were hushed with praise Picture us all standing near the wheelhouse, awaiting orders, or to see, it might be flames, or another explosion of a still more serious character.
"Oh! could every Sunday school teacher in the land realise my feelings at that moment, they would never rest until every child in their class was' washed in the Blood of the Lamb. I saw nothing but imperfection in all my work, and want of burning reality for souls.
"The scene of the disaster was very near to the children's sleeping berths; a very few yards off two women sat upon a box together, one was blown up into the air, the other driven she knew not whither; but late that night I came across her seeking a bed in Moville, and she told me that in those first terrible moments every sin she had ever committed came before, her, and the one most awful was her having rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what our God can do in tire twinkling of an eye! by unbalancing a little breath of His own created air, then the stoutest-hearted sinners quail."
Another witness wrote:—
Sunday.
"It is terrible to have been in the midst of such a calamity! and the sight of the poor, blackened, and scorched faces of the sufferers I shall never forget. There was such a nice, family on board; the father, mother, and four children. The mother was blown up; her body was found yesterday, scarcely recognisable, but the husband had to go and identify it. Poor man! he was here, and in such an agony of distress. The last order I heard the Captain give, was thundered out, 'Send all the women and children up from below,' and Miss Macpherson came herself, and dragged me up. Captain Button says there have been the most wonderful providences.