We are all sailors on the ocean of life bound for a harbor of safety whether we arrive in port or not. The unbeliever is the man in the boat without oars. The person who thinks that his faith without works will save him is the man in the boat with only one oar. But the man who believes in God, and works out his salvation with fear and trembling, is the man in the boat with two oars. (Text.)
(1047)
FAITHFULNESS
To the coolness and devotion to duty of John Binns, operator of the “wireless,” and one of the actors in the shipwreck of the Republic, was due the prompt assistance accorded the stricken passenger-steamer by sister liners. As he himself exprest it by wireless, Binns was “on the job” from the time the Florida crashed into the Republic amidships until the last passenger had been transferred to the colliding vessel.
It was a stretch of thirty hours, and every minute of that time the telephone receivers, which are part of the wireless apparatus, were strapped to his eager and listening ears. Seldom has there been a more shining example of that calm courage that goes hand in hand with a sound sense of business duty.
Almost until the Republic went down Binns kept his ship in touch with Siasconset and passing ships by the use of accumulators, for the shutting down of the engines ended the power of his electric dynamos that ordinarily give the power of transmission to the wireless.
(1048)
According to dispatches from Hartford, Col. Jacob L. Greene, who was the head of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company from 1877 until his death a year ago, left a fortune of only a little more than $50,000. The smallness of his estate created comment from the newspapers and much surprize in insurance circles. It was supposed that he had taken at least some little advantage of the many opportunities for money-making which his position gave him.
The settlement of his estate seems to show that, during all the time he was in the insurance business, he conducted himself in strict accordance with the axioms which he had laid down for the guidance of insurance men and insurance companies in general. One of these axioms was, “A mutual company ought not to be mulcted for the benefit of the agents.” Another was, “True mutuality in life insurance does not seek to favor a few at the expense of the many, nor to give to a few what many have lost.” (Text.)