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God's Perfect Peace
From Voice of the Martyrs
"Dr.
Robert Bateman gently helped his sister-in-law into the
lifeboat. “Don’t be nervous, Annie. This will test our faith. I
must stay and help the others. If we never meet again on this
earth, we will meet again in heaven.” Bateman dropped his
handkerchief to the woman as the boat dropped toward the dark,
icy water below. “Put that around your throat, Annie. You’ll
catch cold.”
"Dr. Bateman then gathered
about fifty men at the stern of the ship and told them to
prepare for death. Earlier that day, he had conducted the only
religious service on the large ship, a service that ended with
his favorite hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee.”
"Robert Bateman had founded the
Central City Mission in Jacksonville, Florida, a spiritual
lighthouse in a city regularly full of drunken sailors. He had
been called “the man who distributes more human sunshine than
any other in Jacksonville.” Bateman went to England to study
Christian social work and was returning to the United States to
put into practice what he had learned.
"However, late on the night of
April 14, 1912, Bateman’s ship struck an iceberg. Bateman led
the men with him on the stern of the ship in the Lord’s Prayer.
As the band played “Nearer
My God to Thee,” the great ship Titanic slid under the
waves.
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
yet in my dreams I'd be nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
There let the way appear, steps unto heaven;
all that thou sendest me, in mercy given;
angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
Then, with my waking thoughts bright with thy praise,
out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise;
so by my woes to be nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
Or if, on joyful wing cleaving the sky,
sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I fly,
still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
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