O receive my soul at last.”
“John McDonough! who is he?” my young reader will doubtless exclaim.
It is true, his name is not written in golden letters on the pages of History,—no Senate chamber has resounded with his eloquence,—the conqueror’s wreath has never encircled his brow; but John McDonough has performed a deed which posterity, to the remotest generation, can never forget.
But a few weeks since, the steamer Northern Indiana was burned on one of the Northern lakes, and then and there it was, that this noble and gallant deed was performed.
You who have never seen a ship on fire can form no idea of the awful horror of such a scene. All was wild excitement and mad confusion. The flames spread like a whirlwind over the noble ship, and soon wrapt it in their withering embrace. Every heart was lifted to God in prayer; every voice was joined in supplication; mothers were clasping their infants to their bosoms; husbands endeavoring to save their wives; fathers encircling their sons in their strong and unfailing arms; the waters were a mass of living, immortal beings, struggling for life.
Amid the hissing of the flames, the pale glare of the atmosphere, and the wild shrieks of hopeless agony that arose from the sinking passengers, John McDonough might have been seen, calm and composed, struggling nobly with the swelling waves, and bearing in one hand life-preservers to the perishing souls scattered over the surface of the lake, which, to many, was destined soon to be the winding-sheet of Death.
How noble the action! How my heart swells within me when I think of the gallant and fearless conduct of such a man!
When despair clothed every brow, fear paled every cheek, and the wild cry—“Save, Lord, or I perish”—echoed in the ears of the drowning, his lofty brow showed no signs of fear, his eye beamed with hope. He still struggled on, and on, till many and many a soul was rescued from a watery grave.
I had rather be the brave, the dauntless, the self-sacrificing John McDonough—the humble laborer on the ill-fated Northern Indiana—than Alexander the Great weeping because there were no other worlds for him to conquer.
God bless thee, noble John McDonough!