The Titanic's Last Hero (3 page)

The prophetic warnings these two men received from God indicate that the Lord sanctioned their sacrifices. Agabus’ warning imparted a sense of divine purpose to Paul as he traveled to Jerusalem, where he would preach the gospel, be arrested, and be sentenced to die. Mr. English’s warning gave Harper the same sense of divine purpose as he became a final witness on a ship of death.

In the End, There Were Only Two Classes of Passengers

Following the sinking of the
Titanic
, the White Star office in Liverpool, England, placed a large board on either side of the main entrance. On one they printed in large letters, “KNOWN TO BE SAVED.” On the other, “KNOWN TO BE LOST.” When the
Titanic
’s voyage began, there were three classes of passengers. But when it ended, the number was reduced to only two—those who were “saved” by the rescue boats and those who were “lost” in the deep waters.

Relatives and friends of the ship’s passengers waited outside the White Star office. As news of a passenger came, someone in the office would print the name on a piece of cardboard. Then an employee carried the name out to the gate. As he faced the crowd, he held up the cardboard. A deathly still crept over the crowd as they strained to read the name. They watched anxiously to see on which of the boards the name would be placed.

John Harper plunged into death with reckless abandon, knowing he would be among the lost passengers. But he had absolute confidence that his name would be on the “saved” list at the throne of God. Lord Mercer expressed Harper’s attitude toward death exactly: “In a single night, between sunset and sunrise, during a few short hours of oblivion to many unconscious slumbers, there had passed away from this earth hundreds of lives, some rich in promise with apparent happy futures, carrying with them all the hopes of other lives. But the Christian constancy and courage, the absolute self-renunciation and unflinching heroism with which so many met their doom, help us to realize that death is not the end of all things and that this life is but the entrance into the true life, that it is but the portal of eternity.”

JOHN HARPER’S LAST CONVERT

Two hours and forty minutes after the
Titanic
struck the iceberg, she sank beneath the icy waters. Hundreds huddled in lifeboats and on rafts, and others clutched pieces of wood hoping to survive until help came. For fifty terrifying minutes, the cries for help filled the night. Eva Hart was a seven-year-old passenger on the ship when it struck the iceberg, and she was tormented by nightmares for a long time afterwards. She said, “The sound of people drowning is something I cannot describe to you. And neither can anyone else. It is the most dreadful sound. And there is a dreadful silence that follows it.” Survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie called this “the most pathetic and horrible scene of all. The piteous cries of those around us still ring in my ears, and I will remember them to my dying day.”

During those fifty minutes, a young man from Scotland who was clinging to a board drifted near John Harper. Harper, who was struggling in the water as well, cried, “Are you saved?” The answer returned, “No.” Harper shouted words from the Bible: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Before responding, the man drifted away into the dark night.

Later, the current brought them back in sight of each other. Once more the dying Harper shouted the question: “Are you saved?” Again the man answered, “No.” Harper repeated the words of Acts 16:31. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Bereft of strength, Harper released his hold and sank downward into his watery grave. The man to whom whose soul Harper had with his last breath thrown a verbal lifeline was indeed saved. That man not only put his faith in Jesus Christ but also found himself rescued by the
SS Carpathia’s
lifeboats. In Hamilton, Ontario, four years later, this survivor whose identity remains a mystery (although some investigation might lead one to believe he was John “Jack” Stewart, one of the ship’s stewards), described what happened and testified that he was John Harper’s last convert. Harper’s final convert was won by Harper’s last words: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

There were many heroes on the
Titanic
, but, by helping others as he himself drowned, John Harper was the last.

“Little Nan”

He did one thing then,

and he did it to the end—

he labored to bring men from sin to God.

Photo of Annie Jessie Harper

CHAPTER 2

THE MAKING
OF A HERO

by John Climie

IT MUST BE ABOUT TWENTY years, probably slightly more, since we first met Mr. Harper. Our earliest recollection of meeting him was in connection with his labor in the gospel at Bridge of Weir. He then looked simply like a full-grown boy. But at that time, as all through his public career, the candle of the Lord burned brightly in his heart.

JOHN HARPER’S CONVERSION

He was born in Houston, Renfrewshire, on May 29, 1872, and it was on that last Sunday of March 1886, when he was thirteen years and ten months old, that he was led to Jesus. He never knew what it was to “sow wild oats.” His young life from his early teens was molded and shielded by his belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God was shed abroad in his heart, and it pervaded his life to its utmost circumference, shaping his thoughts and in due time spurring him to action and preserving him from the evil that is in this world. It was through John 3:16—“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”—that the way of salvation was made clear to his heart and mind. It has been the means of enlightening multitudes. It enlightened him and freed him from fear. “Perfect love casteth out fear” (I John 4:18).

Harper received the truth in the love of it, and the truth made him free. In the illuminating words of that text, he saw Jesus as God’s gift that was offered to the whole world and therefore to him as one living in this world. He received that gift with thanksgiving, and for him a new era began.

Those who conducted the public service at which he was led to the Savior have been a blessing to many, but such converts as John Harper are few and far between. There is sometimes great jubilation and multiplied hallelujahs when some notorious sinner professes conversion, but oftentimes—alas!—the rejoicing is short-lived. Some who have been much rejoiced over have been afterwards found to be far from reliable.

Whether there was any special rejoicing when the village boy that night trusted Jesus cannot be recalled, but in an honest heart, having received the Word, he kept it and brought forth fruit with patience. The word of John 15:16 may well have been spoken of him: “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.”

It is not necessary that men be plunged deeply into sin before being useful for Christ after the saving grace of God overtakes them. Mr. Harper in the exercise of his public ministry could never tell of having wandered far from God and far into sin. Yet under God he was the means of leading numbers to the Savior who had gone far astray. From his early days, he was by God’s appointment very manifestly “a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use” (II Timothy 2:21).

It is to the Savior’s praise that He can—and that He does—change the lives of men who have disgraced and dishonored themselves and give them a place of honor and distinction in His service. But their deeds of darkness prior to conversion are sometimes a snare to them after conversion rather than a help to them in service for Christ. A clean life before conversion is a valuable asset.

THE HERITAGE OF GODLY PARENTS

John Harper was born and brought up in a Christian home, as will be told elsewhere in this book. His parents, poor in this world, were heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised to them who love Him. The more Christian homes there are the better, not only for the church but also for the nation as well. To be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and in an atmosphere of prayer and of reverence for the Word of God is to be stamped in youth with impressions that are of great value, even though sometimes the results looked for are long in appearing.

A godly upbringing is a priceless heritage. While it was on a Sunday night in March 1886 that the boy nearing his fourteenth year was led to Christ, there were all the impressions of the years that had gone before stored up in his youthful mind. It was not for nothing that he had listened through those impressionable years to his father’s prayers and pleadings and expositions of God’s Word in that humble home. The fuel had been laid on the hearth of his heart, and lo, on that Sunday night a spark of love divine fell on it, and the flame was kindled.

HARPER’S BAPTISM OF FIRE

During the four years that followed, there was nothing particularly noticeable about him, nothing at least that bespoke or presaged the great usefulness that marked his future life. He regularly attended the gospel meetings that were carried on with enthusiasm by some young men in the village with the help of preachers from different parts. He kept himself free from entangling companionships, and in a quiet and unostentatious way kept the faith.

However, after four years and four months, when he had just turned eighteen years of age, he entered into an enlarged experience. Growth is a law of the kingdom of God. Sometimes it is very slow and scarcely perceptible. At other times, it is phenomenally rapid. Some men grow more in an hour in the apprehension of the things of God than others do in years. Such a crisis has sometimes been called the “second blessing,” sometimes the “baptism of fire.”

By these and other terms, preachers and writers have endeavored to describe the marvelous change that has been suddenly manifested in the lives of some Christian men and women. But by whatever name the new experience may be called, it is manifestly the Spirit of God working for growth in grace, leading the soul into a wider expanse, enlarging the horizon, clearing the outlook, implanting nobler ideals, making “young men to see visions, and old men to dream dreams.”

A VISION OF HOPE

It was in the year 1890 that John Harper got the vision that sealed him for public service. He was at home all alone one Saturday afternoon in the month of June. All around his village home, nature was dressed in its best. June is the queen of summer months. The flowers were blooming. The birds were singing. The sun was shining. But while other youths may have been roaming in the green fields or by babbling brooks, inside that village home the Spirit of God was leading that young lad into green pastures and beside still waters.

An enrapturing vision was given to him, almost overpowering in its intensity, in which he saw and felt as never before the purpose of God in the cross of Christ. In Christ’s love for men as seen on Calvary, he beheld anew, in fuller form, a door of hope opened for a sinning world, and along with that fresh revelation, He felt that God was beckoning to him and committing to him a part in the ministry of reconciliation. The next day, his lips were opened. Taking his stand on the street of his native village, he began to pour forth his soul in earnest entreaty for men to be reconciled to God.

A PREACHER NOT SHAPED BY ANY UNIVERSITY

Any education he had received was obtained at the school in his native village, and like many other boys, he had not been too eager for school lessons. He was anxious to get to work, thinking like others of his age that work is the mark of manhood. Besides, anything he could earn was needed at home. As soon as he could get away from school, his hands were filled with labor. He worked at gardening for a time, but he was at work in a paper mill when he received the fresh anointing and the call to service.

No university ever got the opportunity of shaping him. He came from God’s hand for service with no college stamp upon him. This may have lessened his status in the eyes of some, but it did not lessen his zeal for the moral and spiritual welfare of his fellow men. After all, it is not what a man acquires in scholarship but what a man accomplishes in results that counts among right-thinking men.

THE WORD OF GOD WAS HIS DOCTRINE

Harper had an orderly mind. This became more noticeable as the years went by, and he was a diligent student of theological works. As a lad, he had imbibed a good deal of what is known as Calvinistic doctrine, but of the very rigid, narrow type. However, as he grew in grace and in knowledge, his mind broadened, and he found no difficulty in holding fast any truth or system of doctrine, whether termed Calvinistic or Armenian, that seemed to have Bible support. Divine sovereignty and free will, as these terms are popularly understood, he embraced and held fast to, believing them to be rooted in the Word of God. How they co-exist he didn’t profess to be able to explain, and he didn’t argue about them, feeling as the wisest and devoutest of men in all generations have felt, that they are matters for faith and not for discussion.