The Titanic's Last Hero

by Adams, Moody

  I made several attempts to break away from drunkenness and other sins by going to confession, taking pledges, making resolutions, etc., but all to no avail. I could not save myself, and I often thought, “What is the good of all these confessions when each time I am as bad and often worse than before?” Then one Saturday night, January 14, 1905, I found myself in the Iron Church, Plantation Street, again under the influence of alcohol. It was a time of revival, and everyone seemed so intensely happy. The service went on, but I can’t tell much about what was taking place, only that I got very unhappy and convinced that I was a very great sinner and had been leading a very bad life.

  Thanks be to God, a Christian man took notice of me and came over and sat down beside me. He was the means in God’s hand of leading me to the Savior. But it was not without a painful struggle. Satan brought up every possible and impossible reason why I should not trust Christ as my Savior. But, when I trusted Him, the joy and peace and sense of a new power more than made up for all.

  Without the slightest doubt or fear, I felt and knew that I was saved and, thank God, I know it now. “I am not all I ought to be, but I am not what I used to be.” All I am I owe, under God, to our late, dearly beloved and much lamented Pastor John Harper, who was to me a father and brother, watching over me, praying for me, and instructing me in the new life.

  Four days after my conversion, my wife was led to the Savior. Three months later, we were baptized and joined the church. I am now one of the deacons, having been appointed to the office a few months ago.

  —H.P.

  A HELPLESS PRODIGAL’S DEBT TO JOHN HARPER

  Testimony #4

  I was a poor, helpless sinner, held by the power of strong drink and a blaspheming tongue. I tried to repent by going to church and taking the pledge, but it proved of no avail. A special mission was being held in the Baptist church in Gordon Halls. I had a brother who was a member of the church. Special prayer was made for me. God heard and answered the prayer. By invitation I went to one of the services. At the close, one of the deacons spoke to me and asked if I was saved or if I would like to be. He read to me John 3:16, and he showed me that “whosoever” meant anyone and must mean me. I trusted Christ that night, October 11, 1898.

  Mr. Harper came to the house the next morning to see if I had confessed Christ, which I had done and have done ever since. I am what I am by the grace of God. I owe very much to my dear, late pastor Mr. Harper, for his teaching and inspiration, and for the encouragement he gave me to be out and out for God. I praise God for the privilege of sitting under him for twelve years and for being engaged in the Lord’s work with him during that time. I now hold the position of a deacon—I, who was once a poor drunkard and blasphemer! But I found mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ.

  “To God be all the glory, great things he hath done.”

  —A.M.L.

  A “DEEP-DYED” SINNER IS CLEANSED

  Testimony #5

  Thank God for His saving grace in lifting a poor sinner like me from the dunghill and setting me among the princes. I was brought up a Presbyterian but had no knowledge of God’s salvation. As a lad, when living in Greenock, I went into the spirit trade with the determination to avoid the drink in any form and not to taste it. But I soon fell under its power and dominion and became a confirmed drunkard. I got so used to it that I could drink all the day long, and yet one could hardly tell it on me.

  I was twelve years selling the cursed stuff behind a public-house counter, and never once in all those years did I go home sober. I left the drink trade and went to a lemonade manufacturer. But that was as bad, as I supplied the public houses with aerated water, and I got drunk there as well.

  At the age of twenty-five, I came to Glasgow and went into the employment of P. & W. M’Lellan, at Clutha Iron Works. But still I was a victim to strong drink. I was gripped by the giant evil and could not get free of its power.

  One night, at New Year’s 1901, I took very ill, and the doctor was called to come to me. He said I had only three hours to live. This, then, was the end of my drinking; three hours—and then hell. I knew that was where I would go. I knew there was no hope, but yet I prayed that God would spare me, and I would stop drinking and live a better life. He did spare me, and for two years afterwards I struggled against my love for whiskey and beer but still drank wine.

  I determined to pay a visit to every church in Glasgow to see if I could hear of something that would bring me rest and peace. One Sunday evening, November 1, 1903, I found myself in the Baptist church on Plantation Street and heard Mr. Harper preach. A young lady sang “Over the Dead Line,” and I felt that if I did not accept Jesus Christ, I would pass over that dead line and be lost.

  No one spoke to me. I was so awakened to my need of Christ that I knew all I had to do was accept Him as my Savior. I did so, and now after eight and a half years of victory over drink and sin, I can say that God’s Word is true, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

  I was in a new world. The drink desire was gone. Peace filled my soul. I knew from the moment I said, “Lord, I’ll trust Thee, sink or swim, I’ll trust Thee,” that I was saved, and thank God, I have been kept ever since by His mighty power and grace. About a year after that, I was baptized and joined the church.

  I am now a deacon in the church. Oh, what grace that transforms a poor drunkard, a seller of whiskey, and a deep-dyed sinner, such as I was, into a son of God and a child of His love! All I owe in my spiritual life, I owe to the influence and teaching of Mr. Harper, who taught me the things of God, and whose life was an inspiration to me.

  May God help some poor drunkard to trust in my Savior and find that “wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

  —J.C.

  HARPER OVERCAME “ARMS OF REBELLION”

  Testimony #6

  I just want to give my humble testimony to the saving and keeping power of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has been my Savior now for fifteen years. It was on October 27, 1897. My mother was giving a Halloween party, and I was asked to bring up my sweetheart for her tea. Little did I think that it was for the purpose of getting me in touch with Mr. Harper that the party had been arranged. At length the night came, and we were all gathered in the room, and to my great surprise, who did I see in the room but Mr. Harper and several members of the church (one of them now the senior deacon of the church).

  My mother was a member of the church, being among the first number that was at the start of the church in the Gordon Halls. Of course, I knew what would happen after tea—I would be spoken to about my soul. Well, we had our tea, and then after a little conversation, I thought it was time for me to get out. It was getting too warm for me, so I got up to get my cap, but I could not find it. It had been removed from its place.

  I went out with my bare head, but I did not stop long as it was a cold night, so I had to go back to the house again, for this purpose of getting some covering for my head. Little did I think I was to get a covering for my sins.

  When I got to the house, an elderly brother got hold of me and spoke to me about Christ. In the corner of the room, Mr. Harper was dealing with my sweetheart about her soul. Shortly after, Mr. Harper engaged in prayer, thanking God for her decision. I then threw down the arms of rebellion and accepted Christ also as my Savior and Lord. The Scriptures through which we saw the light were Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep,” etc., and Romans 10:9, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, though shalt be saved.”

  That eventful night will never be erased from our memories, and we were baptized shortly afterwards and joined the church. After over fourteen years’ experience of Christ’s love and salvation, we can say that His grace is sufficient for us, and His strength is made perfect in weakness.<
br />
  What we are in the Christian life, we owe to our late lamented pastor, Mr. Harper, whose godly life and holy example proved such a help to us, and who looked after us as carefully as a father after his children, and brought us to love the study of Scripture and the joy of waiting upon God in prayer. Would to God I could pray like him, and now that he is in the presence of the Lord whom he so much loved and so loyally served, our only desire is to follow in his steps even as he followed Christ.

  —C.B. and Mrs. B.

  HARPER’S WORDS BROUGHT DEEP CONVICTION

  Testimony #7

  On the Sabbath evening of July 4, 1897, I went to hear Mr. Harper. The text he spoke from was Revelation 3:20. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” I had been convicted of my sinful state for some time, and as Mr. Harper went on, my conviction deepened. I saw I needed a Savior.

  There I surrendered my all, and I have been going on my way rejoicing ever since. It has not always been sunshine, but Christ is all in all to me. I am a member of Paisley Road Baptist Church, and so is my wife.

  —S.M.K.

  HARPER SHOWED ME MY NEED FOR CHRIST

  Testimony #8

  On the Sabbath evening of June 27, 1897, I went to the Boilermakers’ Hall, Govan, where Pastor Harper was then preaching. The text he spoke from was John 3:36. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

  I was convicted of sin, saw my need of a Savior, and there and then surrendered to Christ.

  —Anon.

  CHAPTER 16

  A MESSAGE FROM JOHN HARPER

  Delivered in 1911 at the

  Moody Church in Chicago

  VISION, COMPASSION, INTERCESSION—THESE ARE three great links in the golden chain of redemptive service. How clearly you can see them in the saving ministry and life service of our Lord Jesus Himself. He saw the multitudes as sheep without a shepherd—scattered, torn, bruised, and bleeding—and if that was the vision before His eyes when He looked on a multitude from the quiet religious villages of Galilee, where the people were moral in their habits of life and not sunken with drink and manifold vice, what would be the vision before Him if He looked today on Chicago?

  With that vision, His heart was moved with compassion, agitated with deep feeling—agonized within Him would be a better word. He had compassion on them, taking their pain and sorrow up into His own heart of love, and with that love-swept spirit He turns to His disciples and says, “Pray ye.” On every possible occasion, He slips off Himself to the lonely mountainside to spend the night or early morning hours in prayer.

  Beloved, how few of us have the Master’s vision, and hence, how few of us have the compassion-filled heart, the consequent ministry of intercession! If any one conviction has laid hold of my spirit more than another, and has held it in a grasp as solemn as eternity for some years past, it is that the overwhelming need of the church and the doomed world is intercessors—not so much preachers, however great that need is—but men of the mountain solitude and midnight watch, who know how to stand between God and men, in fasting and prayer, who will not leave the throne of grace until from His presence will go forth times of refreshing and salvation that will make His name a praise in the earth.

  Then will preachers with the tongues of fire and workers mantled with His power be given to the church, and the whole awakened, Spirit-filled church will become the instrument of our glorified Lord in awakening a godless world to the conviction of sin and sense of need of the atoning blood and to the fear of coming wrath.

  A very little while and He will come, and the door will be shut, and the door of Christendom sealed. Only a brief season can remain for us all. But what may not be done in these quickly passing days! What seasons of prayer and intercession may we not have! What sacrifices for Him may we not make! What power from the throne may we not receive! What scenes of blessing may we not witness in the gathering out of the last members of the body of Christ from this doomed and darkening world, while upon it the night shadows of coming judgment are falling fast!

  Beyond this little while there will be the glory of His presence, the glad reunion with the loved, the thrilling “well done” of the Master at His judgment seat—the entering in, to go out no more forever.

  But there will be no more opportunity of praying lost souls to His feet and winning them to His heart forever.

  CHAPTER 17

  BEAUTIFUL IN THE MORNING

  The night before the Titanic sank, Mr. Harper was seen earnestly seeking to lead a young man to Christ. Afterwards, when on deck, seeing a glint of red in the west, he said, “It will be beautiful in the morning.”

  Oh, fair must it be in the morning,

  When the sunset enkindles the west,

  And the clouds, in their golden adorning,

  Creep quietly down to their rest!

  Rest we, like them, in the hope that a dawn

  Calm and resplendent comes marching on.

  Ah, drear is the tale of the morning,

  And awesome the wail in the tide,

  When the hand of the Ice-King, unwarning,

  Tears open the vessel’s side,

  And into the depths of the ruthless deep

  Thrusts multitudes fast in their final sleep.

  Yet fair must it be in the morning,

  If fair did the sun go down.

  God’s heroes, the death-trammels spurning,

  Press up to the victor’s crown.

  Where then is thy victory, vaunting grave,

  When ours is the SAVIOR, mighty to save?

  See, faithful to Christ, his Master,

  Intent on the task He gave,

  On the eve of the dire disaster

  One is telling His power to save.

  If sinks the sun with so pure a light,

  It will rise again both serene and bright.

  The death of the righteous who dieth

  Is gateway to life evermore;

  The joy that all glories outvieth

  For him is laid up in store.

  Painless and tearless,

  with “no more sea,”

  Beauteous indeed

  shall the morning be.

  —Horace E. Govan

  CHAPTER 18

  FOUR SERMON OUTLINES BY

  JOHN HARPER

  I. “Christ’s Chosen Ones”

  “THEY ARE NOT OF THE world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16).

  1. His chosen ones were given to Him by the Father, verse 6.

  2. For them He prays—not for the world, verse 9.

  3. They are hated by the world, verse 14.

  4. He seeks that they be kept from the evil of the world, verse 15.

  5. He sends them as He was sent Himself into the world, verse 18.

  6. He desires their unity to convince the world, verse 21.

  7. He shows that the Father is not known to the world, verse 25.

  The words of the text (verse 16) present to us:

  1. A DISTINGUISHING TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

  a. Christians are not of the world in the origin of their life—They are born from above.

  b. Not of the world in the character of their service—The Christian life consists in doing the will of God.

  c. Not in the world in the nature of their conduct—They follow after holiness. They abhor sin.

  d. Not of the world in the sources of their joy—Their joy is in God; the world finds pleasure in sin.

  e. Not of the world in the theme of their conversation—Their desire is “tell me more about Jesus.”

  2. THE WORDS OF THE TEXT PRESENT US WITH A SEARCHING TEST FOR THE CHRISTIAN HEART.

  a. If not of the world this will be seen:

  i. in the hour of bereavement and loss

  ii. amid trial and perplexity

  iii. in the decisions and choices we make

  iv. in times of prosperity and success

  3. T
HE WORDS OF THE TEXT SUGGEST TO US THAT THERE WILL SURELY BE TRIAL IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

  a. The world will reject us.

  b. The world will not love us.

  II. “Who Is the Fool?”

  “I have sinned I have played the fool” (I Samuel 26:21).

  The text clearly indicates that:

  1. THE MAN IS A FOOL WHO SACRIFICES HIS LIFE AT THE SHRINE OF SINFUL INDULGENCE.

  “Fools make a mock at sin” (Proverbs 14:9). Another reading is, “Sin makes a mock at fools.”

  It mocks men by promising what it never performs. Men sacrifice all and gain nothing.

  a. Sin robs of peace of conscience.

  b. Sin robs of purity of mind.

  c. Sin robs of health of body.

  d. Sin robs of the hope of heaven.

  2. THE MAN IS A FOOL WHO SHROUDS HIMSELF IN INFIDELITY.

  “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God” (Psalm 14:1).

  a. Is he not a fool who gives up light for darkness?

  b. Is he not a fool who gives up home for hopelessness?

  c. Is he not a fool who gives up gospel comfort for a cheerless philosophy?

  3. THE MAN IS A FOOL WHO PUTS OFF THE DECISIOIN FOR CHRIST TILL HE IS DYING.

  He is a fool because he is a present loser.

  a. He loses true joy of heart.

  b. He loses peace of conscience.

  c. He loses victory over sin.

  d. He loses capacity to enjoy life.

  He may be an eternal loser. He may delay till too late.