DR. JOWETT ON THE TITANIC.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 26 June 1912, Page 6

DR. JOWETT ON THE TITANIC.

"THE AVORLD ESSENTIALLY

RICHER."

In connection with the wreck of the Titanic, Dr Jowett, of New York, preached a sermon in which he uttered a warning against the danger of regarding the disaster, with its tragic loss of life and shock of grief, as a Divine retribution. "AYe have no right to say why the Titanic was destroyed," said Dr Jowett. "Don't try to explain it. People say, 'It was a Divine rebuff against luxury.' But what about the poor steerage passengers? The best thing to do is to acknowledge the mystery of it all."

"It is the good pleasure of God," said Dr Jowett, to retain the ministry of the cloud. We see all things 'as in a mirror darkly.' There must be a strong and gracious ministry in mystery, or its presence and discipline would not be so continuously used. It appears to me that the world is essentially richer than it was before the great liner was lost. We are richer in common-sense. We are richer in the discernment and discrimination of values, and in the firm determination to put first things first. We are richer in that pure indignation which is the minister and guardian of true progress, and we are richer in the bonds of human kinshin. The entire race is

making a simultaneous passage through a common sorrow, and the welding power of the experience cannot possibly be expressed. Humanity is one in the 'love and pity' that redeems, and we are surely richer from the amazing exhibition of sublimest courage. Our men went down, but they retained their manliness even in the hour of apparent defeat. They lost their lives but they did not lose themselves. In a certain glorious sense they were grander and mightier than the seas that over whelmed them. In their self-control, in their self-forgetfulness, in their quiet chivalry and self-renunciation, ki their calm acceptance of death rather than the selfish grasp and possession of life — in all these things they revealed a majesty before which every other form •of power is eclipsed; and when the horrors of that awful night have become **im their triumph will remain an abiding enrichment of the noblest glories of our race. We are richer, too, in onr obligations. Upon us there is laid the sacred and privileged service of intercession and beneficence, so that we may Imng comfort and succor to those who are desolate and broken. There is no ifear of the obligation being left undischarged."