“HOW DID you escape?” asked a newspaper reporter of one of the survivors of the Norge sea disaster. She was a young Swedish girl, and this was her touching reply: “My brother, seventeen, and myself were going to our uncle in America. When the ship began to sink, he pulled me upstairs, and led me to where the lifeboats were.
Very tightly he kept hold of me, or else I should have been trampled on. Then very earnestly he spoke some words (which I didn’t catch) to the sailors who were putting people into one of the nearest boats. He then lifted me in his arms and handed me to them over the ship’s side. Somebody in the boat, which was already full, helped me in, and got me a seat. Of course, I never doubted my brother was following, but the boat immediately rowed off, and when I looked up, there he was still on the Norge, waving to me from the deck! No one knows my agony: my darling, my only brother sacrificed his life for me.”
This grand, pathetic incident is but a faint shadow compared with the old, old story of Jesus who laid down His life for poor, helpless, death-doomed sinners — for you! for me!
May we each ask: Can I thank Him enough? Can I praise Him enough?
The answer is “Never!”
Through all eternity to Thee
A joyful song I’ll raise;
But, oh! eternity’s too short
To utter all Thy praise.
ML-12/22/1974