Tribute to Miss McQuaid

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7137, 20 November 1894, Page 4

Tribute to Miss McQuaid

The New Zealand Times article, from irhioh we quoted the first few lines the other evening, has been so much admired throughout the colony that we here reproduce it in extejvso : — " Only » stewardess ! Only that aud nothing more. But is there anyone to compare with her? She is dead now ; gone beyond our ken ; gone to receive the reward that is due to all simple, selfsacrificing souls. But she can never be away from us. Her story will live wherever men are congregated together who believe in the greatness of human virtue under the sun. In that way her soul will be with us always, touching our hearts raising our natures above material things, teaching us the grand lesson of life. Only a stewardess ! When the people rushed out of their cabins panicstricken j she was busy. The lifebelts had to be 1 served out. A simple matter enough, if that were all. No need in reality to i trouble about the serving. Are there not j instructions printed and displayed in every | cabin 1 There are the belts in sight, and. what is more, they are accessible to :U1 and sundry who take the trouble to think a little moment for themselves. In these awful moments, however, people never think ; they rush, not caring where. Then comes the patient, watchful stewardess. She and others stop the rushing people. take out the lifebelts for tho people, tie the lifebelts on to the people. Presently the people are all served. One belt remains ; there is no one to claim it. The stewardess takes it for herself. She remembers then, and not till then -think of the nobility of it !— that she, after all said and done, has a life too. No sooner is she equipped than there comes to her a little child. In one respect the scene is familiar enough to her. The little one is in her little white nightdress. How often has she taken the little people so arrayed, soothed them, said their little prayers with them, taken the place of the mother to them. Then it was a bright light, a snowy cot, a pleasure of beautiful surrounding, herBelf the central, beneficent, ministering, protecting figure. Only a stewardess ! But an angel from Heaven to all those little ones, wan and white, and clustering about her knees. In this awful hour comes one of these little figures. The little white nightdress is the same, all else how changed. Thick darkness for the bright light ; the roaring of the wind, the screaming of the cordage, the uproar of the surges and the moving cargo, the noise of the last agony of human souls, the end of all things, with the terror of death over all. Only a stewardess ! But the child— what a wonderful instinct have the children! sees ahe Angel fr^m Heaven, runs to her in its terrible terror. buries its little face in her dress. Only >\ stewardess; But she soothes the child, prays with the child, quiets the child, notices that the child is without a lifebelt. You have heard of tin' generous man who will share his last crust with him who is in want. It is universally recognised that such sharing is above the average of human generosity. This lifebelt is a supremely precious thing. Far beyond all crusts, even the last ones standing before starvation. It is a solid chance of life to one ready to be thankful for a straw to catch at in the gurgling of tho hideous, merciless sea. Only a stewardess ! A ministering Angel for all that. No thought of sharing ; no division. How easy to keep the belt and give the white-robed child a claspinu share, with determination to keep hold ot the little thing at all hazards. Only r. stewardess J But not built that way. One look of ineffable tenderness down at the shrinking figure, and then the belt U put round the little figure. The ont remaining solid chance of life is given v the little odo, given serenely and cheer folly and promptly. At this sublimi moment comes in the cruel sea, and dead and darkness are one. The Angel fron Heaven has gone back to her home, aiu she has taken with her her white-robec client, freed from the task of carrying « weight of gratitude too great for humm. power to bear. Only a stewardess ! Goc help us to keep her memory green ii reverent minds by shaping our. lives 11: some colorable imitation of her nobleness. Her story should be carved in deathles> marble or eternal brass by an appreciative people. We must record it as au ideai example for all the generations that art to come.