The Titanic's Last Hero (5 page)

Photo of Pastor George Harper

CHAPTER 3

MY BROTHER AS
I KNEW HIM

By Pastor George Harper

Edinburgh, Scotland

The fear of death did not for one moment disturb me.

I believed that sudden death would be sudden glory.

John Harper, after nearly drowning at age 32

TO ME, PASTOR JOHN HARPER, who sank along with more than fifteen hundred other people in the never-to-be-forgotten
Titanic
catastrophe on April 15, 1912, was my brother in a double sense—in the flesh and in the Lord. He was my only brother in the flesh (as four other siblings were our sisters). Together we were brought up, together we bowed at the family altar, as our godly father “…kneeling down to heaven’s eternal King, the saint, the father, and the husband prayed.”

Together we slept as boys in the same room, together we went to school, together we fished for trout in the little burn that flowed not far from our cottage home. Together we sat in the village church, and with but the brief space of three months between, I may add, together we entered the heavenly pathway, and as the years rolled on, we kept step in our beliefs and convictions, in matters spiritual, sharing our joys and sorrows in every possible way. The great ingathering of precious souls into our Lord’s Kingdom, which my dear brother witnessed in Chicago that winter, afforded me unbounded joy. Surely, then, my text will not be grudged me when I quote it. “I am distressed for thee, my brother John; very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (David’s words of grief at Jonathan’s death, II Samuel 1:26.)

SAVED FROM DROWNING AT TWO YEARS OF AGE

The earliest recollection of my boyhood days is associated with an accident that befell my brother. We had been playing some little, childish game beside the rather deep spring well at the end of our garden, when John missed his footing and tumbled into the well. He was then only two and a half years old. What could I do? The only thing was to stand at the top of the steps and cry “Mother! Mother!” for all I was worth. Mother came to the rescue just in time to save John’s life.

I well remember how she held his feet up in the air and how the water flowed from his mouth. I admit it was a somewhat primitive method of resuscitation, but it was mother’s method, and it proved to be successful. Nearly drowned at two and a half!

SAVED FROM DROWNING AT TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE

Twenty-four years later, we were working together in special mission work as “The Harper Brothers.” The day was very fine. We were some miles from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, England, on the coast. Without considering the possibility of a strong receding tide, we entered the water to bathe. I could swim but a very little. John could not swim one stroke. We were soon in difficulty. But for that Providence which rules all, my brother’s life-story might have ended in the sea, and mine too on that occasion. When once we got safely out of danger, we felt sure—exhausted though we were—that our Heavenly Father had mercifully saved us, and together we praised Him.

SAVED FROM DROWNING AT THIRTY-TWO YEARS OF AGE

Six years after this, John went on a trip to Palestine with a friend, Mr. Wylie of Glasgow. They were on board a ship on the Mediterranean, and it sprang a leak. After hours of weary suspense, most of which time they were staring death in the face, they were rescued. My brother, in a lecture afterwards, graphically described this incident. He said, “The fear of death did not for one moment disturb me. I believed that sudden death would be sudden glory, but there was a wee, motherless girl in Glasgow, and oh, I thought, if I had only committed her to my dear brother George’s care before I left.” Needless to say, his brother would unhesitatingly have accepted the trust, whether committed to him or not, a trust he would have considered sacred. Thus, on three occasions to my knowledge, prior to the final one of the fifteenth of April 1912, my brother was face-to-face with a grave in the waters.

A LABORIOUS STUDENT

Our parents were humble people. My father had a drapery business in the village of Houston, which did not yield a very large income, but notwithstanding the problem of bringing up a family of six children, he strove to give us all the best possible education. My father was himself a man of fair education and was widely read. However, John was not mindful in those days and missed much that would have proved helpful to him in after years, as he often admitted. I think the marvel is that he developed so strikingly. Again and again his diction in address and in letter-writing was, to me, simply charming. But, from his later teens onward, he was a laborious student. Few men prepare themselves and their message for the pulpit as he did. This, perhaps, is at least one explanation of my brother’s development.

STANDING UP FOR JOHN

I well remember our schoolmaster calling John out for punishment. It may have been because of his badly-prepared lessons. I rather think it was. However, the cane was being used somewhat freely and severely. I sat for a short time, but then my stronger self asserted itself. In those days, as in all the intervening years, my brother was the apple of my eye. Accordingly, I felt within myself that “this will not do.” Lessons or no lessons, this man will not beat my brother after such a fashion. I rose with my slate in my hand, raising it above my head and declaring at the same moment, “If you don’t stop flogging my brother, I’ll do for you.” The schoolmaster stopped at once and came right up to me, and before the whole school, he praised me for thus standing up for John. Ah! Don’t you see? John was my brother!

School days were all too soon over, and as stated by others, John went early to work. It was not considered wrong in those days in the country to send a boy to work at the age of fourteen or fifteen. He was supposed to have got a fair education and to have got some bone. For five years or more, he followed various occupations. It was at the beginning of this period in his life that he was led to Christ. I remember well the evening. It was on the last Sunday in March 1886 that dear John was born of the Spirit. The way had been well prepared for this.

OUR DEVOUT FATHER

My father was a man among men, as my esteemed friend, Mr. Hugh Morris, points out in his tribute. He was a Puritan in theology and in practice, a man who loved his Lord and his Bible. A great admirer of C.H. Spurgeon, whose sermons he constantly read, and that aloud too, and to which at stated times we all had to listen, whether we enjoyed them or otherwise. Family worship, with the careful reading of the Scriptures, and prayer, in conjunction with which we sang together one of David’s Psalms, was the order of our cottage home. In this Puritanical atmosphere, our family was cradled.

WE BECAME ONE IN THE FAITH

John was thus ready in a very real and practical manner for the great event in his life—that is to say, his surrender to Christ. Mr. Walter B. Sloan and Mr. Archibald Orr Ewing, both now of the China Inland Mission, occupied the village Free Church pulpit that evening. My dear brother sat beside me in our family pew. At the close of the service, an after-meeting was held. John, with others, waited behind, and from John 3:16 was led to see God’s rich provision in Jesus for his salvation.

Three months earlier, I had accepted Christ as my personal Savior. Now we were one in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. Yes, and thank God, this oneness in spiritual fellowship was never broken throughout the twenty-six years of our Christian companionship. I well remember how my beloved father rejoiced when he realized that God had answered his prayers in the conversion to Christ of his two boys, to be followed shortly after with the additional assurance that some of his daughters too had embraced Christ.

My brother’s subsequent life story is largely told in this book by others, the further revelation and call he received in the year 1890, his going forth with whole-hearted zeal into his Lord’s work in the village of Houston (his Jerusalem), and the surrounding villages. Suffice it to say, therefore, that I give only a few of the inner highlights of his Christian character and work. In the course of time, the Houston village mission, described so well on another page by Mr. Hugh Morris, came to an end. This mission, commenced by Mr. W.B. Sloan in the summer of 1885, continued for some years. In the early nineties, it was stopped. I was then away from home in business and only returned once every fortnight. My brother, with a few others, conducted open-air meetings every Sunday afternoon. When at home, I gladly assisted.

On one such occasion, a big man who had repeatedly declared his intention of stopping these meetings came upon the scene. Alas for us on this occasion, we numbered only two persons—my brother and myself. We sang a duet and then took our turn at preaching. The man would have none of it. He was six feet two or three inches in height and powerfully built. He shook his fist in our faces and threatened to deform us if we persisted in preaching, but my brother’s indomitable spirit was in no way scared. We continued to preach and sing for Jesus, despite his threats. After a time he left us, and in peace we continued and concluded that somewhat eventful open-air meeting.

The work in the Gryffe Grove Hall, Bridge of Weir, and in Johnstone, and other neighboring towns with which my dear brother was so closely identified, would require a volume by itself to do it justice. These were years of burning zeal for Christ and His Kingdom. Many were led to Christ through my brother’s faithful gospel ministry, and God’s people were quickened and revived. I had the unspeakable joy of assisting him, as opportunity afforded, in these early years, and saw much of the inner side of his life, which was transparently clean and true. I gladly bear witness to this. I will not detail the story of how John was led to enter the Baptist ministry. This period in his life had three distinct chapters, namely Govan; Paisley Road, Glasgow; and Walworth Road, London. In each sphere, God’s hand was distinctly laid upon His servant in power. But especially was this the case in Paisley Road, Glasgow.

MIGHTY IN POWER

During his thirteen years’ ministry there, hundreds upon hundreds were swept into Christ’s Kingdom. Let me once more take you to the inner side of all this. Others will tell you the story from the outside. My beloved brother was a man might in prayer. He was a master in this holy art.

In October 1899, I came from Bradford, where I was then pastor, to Paisley Road, to conduct a month’s mission. Night after night, just as I was about to announce my text, John would slip off the platform into a small side vestry and fall upon his knees in prayer. There he would wrestle with God as I pled with men. Needless to say, the results of that mission abide today. I have been with my dear brother in prayer again and again when his whole frame shook like an aspen leaf, so earnest was he in his pleadings with God for a perishing world. He often wept in prayer. Like his Lord, he offered up his supplications with “strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). Little wonder hard hearts were broken and stubborn wills subdued under his ministry.

As I listened to him in prayer, I used to say, “Dear John is far ben” (ben meant “the innermost, the intimate part of the house” in 19th century Scotland). He seemed to live on the most intimate terms with his Lord. There was nothing mawkish about his piety. He never tried to make one feel that he was holier than others, yet one instinctively felt that he was a man of God, whose supreme joy was in fellowship with his Lord and Redeemer.

SORROWS SHAPED HIS LIFE

The full story of those thirteen years of consecrated Christian labor will never be told. To my beloved brother, they were years of joy and sorrow. Every convert did not turn out to be a “crown of rejoicing” unto the Lord’s servant. The weak and faltering ones caused my brother much pain, and backsliders nearly broke his heart. But the joys of this period more than counterbalanced its sorrows. Many sought and found Christ and ever after followed on to know the Lord. It was during this time that two great sorrows befell my brother.

In the summer of 1905, his health broke down. His voice, which in the early days was rich and resonant, completely failed him. For six months he was unfit for duty. This was a very severe trial to him. He wept with me and I with him over this trial. However, a sea voyage and a complete rest, with special treatment, in due time brought back, at least, partial strength and energy to him. But he was never the same in physical fitness afterwards. Those who only knew him during his closing years saw but the skeleton of the former days—that is, in the physical power and mighty appeal.

True, during the last five or six years of his life, there was a wonderful mellowing, a ripening, that those of us who were in the more intimate fellowship did not fail to perceive. We saw the outer man waxing weaker and the inner man stronger every time we met.

LOSING ANNIE, HIS WIFE

A greater sorrow still lay across his path. Early in 1906, his wife was taken from him. Mrs. Harper was a real helpmeet to him. She was some years his senior and was of a bright disposition. My brother and she, then Miss Bell, met during the Bridge of Weir mission work. For ten years they waited for each other. I greatly rejoiced in my brother’s marriage with Miss Bell. But sadly, their marriage was of short duration. It covered little more than two years. A little girl was born on New Year’s Day in 1906, and just seven days later, Mrs. Harper’s spirit “winged its flight to realms of day.”

I will never forget that event. I was then pastor of Bellshill Baptist Church. It was Sunday evening. I had just given out my text, Isaiah 28:15-18, “a covenant with death,” when I was called into the vestry. A policeman wanted to see me. He had received a message by wire from my brother. It read as follows:

Dear George,