He had won by ballot a place in one of the boats. The ship was going down,
but he was to be saved. One pictures the scene: The boat is waiting to take
him to the shore and safety. He looks at the old comrades who have lost in
the ballot and who stand there doomed to death. He feels the passion for
life surging within him. He sees the cold, dark sea waiting to engulf its
victims. And in that great moment--the greatest moment that can come to any
man--he makes the triumphant choice. He turns to one of his comrades.
"You've got parents," he says. "I haven't." And with that word--so heroic
in its simplicity--he makes the other take his place in the boat and signs
his own death warrant.
I see him on the deck among his doomed fellows, watching the disappearing
boat until the final plunge comes and all is over. The sea never took a
braver man to its bosom. "Greater love hath no man than this ..."
Can you read that story without some tumult within you--without feeling
that humanity itself is ennobled by this great act and that you are, in
some mysterious way, better for the deed? That is the splendid fruit of all
such sublime sacrifice.
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