86. The Loss of the Arctic.

In the fall of 1854 the steamer Arctic was lost through a collision with another vessel (the Vesta) in a voyage from Liverpool to New York, and a large number of persons perished. This vivid description of the disaster is from a sermon by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.

It was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages, from Rome and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living nature; from the sides of the Switzer's mountains; from the capitals of various nations: all of them saying in their hearts, "We will wait for the September gales to have done with their equinoctial fury, and then we will embark. We will slide across the appeased ocean; and, in the gorgeous month of October, we will greet our longed-for native land and our heart-loved homes."

And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient, converging upon London, still hastening towards the welcome ship, and narrowing, every day, the circle of engagements and preparations. They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us.

The hour was come. The signal ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool. The anchors were weighed, the great hull swayed to the current, the national colors streamed abroad as if themselves instinct with life and national sympathy. The bell strikes, the wheels revolve, the signal gun beats its echoes in upon every structure along the shore; and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from

the Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run. The pilot stood at the wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel in all

the voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his presence, nor whispered his errand.

And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety disported itself, and joy was with every guest. Amid all the inconveniences of the voyage, there was still that which hushed every murmur, "Home is not far away." And every

morning it was still one night nearer home.

Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that for ever haunts the vast shallows of Newfoundland. Boldly they made it; and, plunging in, its pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon there came, noiselessly stealing from the north, that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, two steamers were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible.

At a league's distance unconscious, and at nearer approach unwarned, — within hail, and bearing right towards each other, unseen, unfelt, - till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The deathblow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm.

Prompt upon humanity," the Arctic's commander, the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration

1 effulgent, shining, bright.
2 Prompt upon humanity, i.e.,

prompt to respond to the cry of need.

and respect), ordered away his boat with first-officer Gourley to inquire if the stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, O that some good angel had called to the brave commander, in the words of Paul on a like occasion, "Except these abide in the ship, ye can not be saved!

They departed, and with them the hope of the ship; for now the waters, gaining upon the hold, and rising up upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. O, had now that stern, brave mate Gourley been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to obey,—had he stood to execute efficiently the commander's will, we may believe that we should not have had to blush for the cowardice and recreancy 2 of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters, and crew rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, children, and men to the mercy of the deep. Four hours there were from the catastrophe of the collision to the catastrophe of SINKING!

O, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home, among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank; and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as placid as before.

1 except.

2
saved. (See Acts recreancy,

unfaithfulness, dis

xxvii, 31.)

obedience,

87.- True Eloquence.

When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction.

True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It can not be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they can not compass1 it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion.

Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it: they can not reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible.

Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent: then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear concep

1 compass, accomplish, attain to.