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Solemn Services for the Dead

MEMORIAL SERVICES THROUGHOUT CANADA—TRUST IN GOD— AT ST. JAMES’S CATHEDRAL—RABBI JACOBS’S TRIBUTE— WHOLE CITY HONORED THE ARMY DEAD—SERVICES IN THIRTY-FOUR LANGUAGES

In every church in Canada, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish alike, reference was made on Sunday, May 31, to the disaster that had at one blow bereaved hundreds of Canadian homes. Many congregations had suffered to the extent of losing one or more of their members, and these held memorial services of an impressive character. The first news of the sinking of the Empress came with such suddenness that few people were at once able to appreciate the appalling nature of the tragedy. But by Sunday, when the full significance had impressed itself upon them, the effect was apparent. An air of sadness filled the churches, and the faces of those in the congregations were grave and drawn. Outside, scores of flags floating at half-mast bore mute testimony to the catastrophe.

Trust in God

Reverend Dr. W. G. Wallace, of the Bloor Street Presbyterian Church, made reference to the tragedy as a preface to his sermon. “Our spirits are hurt and our hearts are sore,” he said, “in the presence of the great bereavement that has come with such tragic suddenness to thousands of our fellow Canadians.”

Reverend J. W. Aikens, of the Metropolitan Methodist Church, said: “There is a mystery in the relation of God to happenings such as this disaster. We cannot understand His relation to them, but there are some things which He permits but does not cause.”

Reverend Dr. W. F. Wilson, of the Elm Street Methodist Church, said: “Man, with all his imperial power of mind and genius, must sooner or later learn the great laws of nature. They are fixed and irrevocable.”

Reverend T. T. Shields, at Jarvis Street Baptist Church, made a touching reference to the disaster, seeking to show that such occurrences have an object. “Sometimes,” he said, “the newsboy is a better preacher than the minister.”

At St. Paul’s Church, Bloor Street, Archdeacon Cody devoted his sermon to the loss of the Empress. He made particular reference to the death of Mr. H. R. O’Hara, who was one of the sidesmen at St. Paul’s, speaking of his connection with the church and of his life in the community. Special music was rendered, including the “Dead March” from Saul.

At St. James’s Cathedral

Reverend Canon Plumptre preached at St. James’s Cathedral from the text “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses.” With reference to the disaster in the St. Lawrence, he said the collect for Whitsunday struck exactly the note desired. He said that in our perplexities and bewilderment at the ways of God we should rest assured that He would “give right judgment in all things,” and prayed that the bereaved might be given grace to “rejoice in His holy comfort.” Canon Plumptre spoke of the comfort in the memory of lives consecrated to the service of God and fellowmen and of the acts of heroism that had illumined the darkness of the night. “Whether death comes to us,” the preacher concluded, “as a lightning stroke in the darkness or amid the calm of a peaceful destiny, may it be said, ‘We died like men and fell like one of the princes.’”

Rabbi Jacobs’s Tribute

“It is with difficulty,” said Rabbi Jacobs, of the Holy Blossom Synagogue, “that I can trust myself to speak on that sad calamity which has touched the heart of Canada and other parts of the civilized world so deeply in the past two days. Ah, it is such blows as these which teach us how fleeting is all human existence, how uncertain the span of life, how our earthly days are measured, our only hope in God. May this sad event remind us of the uncertainty of life and stir us all to a greater sense of our duty to the Great Creator and to each other. Events such as this have a great spiritual purpose to accomplish. They show how weak, how unstable, all our calculations are—how man proposes, but God disposes. May the Lord take into His safekeeping the souls of the departed.”

Throughout the churches of England and America similar references were made to the catastrophe that carried so many souls swiftly to their doom and sympathy expressed for those who had suffered the loss of dear ones. To the bereaved Salvation Army especially was a wealth of Christian love and fellowship extended.

Whole City Honored the Army Dead

With the heavily draped standards of their late corps massed before, and amid the solemn notes of the funeral dirge, the dead of the Salvation Army were on the following Saturday borne in melancholy state through the streets of Toronto to their final resting place in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. The procession followed an impressive and soul-stirring service in the Arena, attended by a sorrowing multitude which crowded the vast building to its utmost. The service was under the direction of Colonel Gaskin and Commissioner McKie, successor to Commissioner Rees. Lying in heavily draped caskets, covered with the world-renowned colors of the Army, emblazoned with the motto “Blood and Fire” and surrounded with handsome wreaths, tokens of love and esteem sent by sorrowing comrades and friends, the bodies lay in state in the Arena. The mute evidence of the terrible disaster which had overtaken the Army on the “Black Friday” of the week before, when the Empress of Ireland was swept beneath the waters of the St. Lawrence River, drew a vast concourse of people.

Long before the service commenced the streets were lined with the grief-stricken citizens who desired to pay their last respects to those silent Soldiers of the Cross. With sorrowing faces and tear-glistening eyes they reverently passed through the heavy banks of floral tributes encasing the catafalque, on which rested the caskets in three long rows, and gazed for the last time upon the still forms of the sixteen victims who had done so much for the uplift of humanity in the city and whose labors were so suddenly ended.

A Striking Service

The most striking feature of the service was its wonderful revelation of the common brotherhood of humanity. In the face of the great calamity which had befallen the Army, men of every religious denomination and every sphere of life were present to bow their heads in humble submission to the will of the Almighty Father. A still stronger and deeper note was struck by two of the survivors of the disaster, who, in simple, eloquent words, brought home to all anew the great truth of the Resurrection. The wonderful sustaining power of Christianity, they said, was shown in the early morning hours when the vessel sank, and when the sudden call came none was afraid to answer the summons. They knew that it was a call to Glory!

Although a pitifully small remnant of the Army dead had been recovered, the service was also an affectionate and reverent memorial for the great majority whose remains still lay engulfed in the St. Lawrence River. Many were the sorrowing tributes paid by the speakers to those missing comrades and friends, and deep regrets were voiced that the waters had not given them up so that they might lie in state beside the silent forms with whom they had in former days toiled together to accomplish God’s work.

Messages of Sympathy

The sorrow which the great tragedy had aroused throughout the entire Army world was made public by Commissioner McKie, who read numerous telegrams from Army officers in the farthermost corners of the world, from Japan and India, from Australasia and Africa, and from Northern and Southern Europe.

Photo by Bain News Service

PROMINENT ACTOR WHO WENT DOWN

Laurence Irving was the second son of the late Sir Henry Irving, the famous English actor, and was himself well-known on the stage.

Photo by Underwood & Underwood, NY

MABEL HACKNEY

The young and charming wife of Laurence Irving, who also went down with the ship.

In an eloquent address the commissioner paid a tribute to his dead comrades on behalf of the general and of the British corps. “At this moment I stand before you as the representative of General Booth and Mrs. Booth,” he said, “to express for them and for all our comrades their deepest sympathy for you in this your great hour of sorrow.

“I should also like to say a few passing words about those whose remains lie in our midst, and to assure the bereaved relatives and friends that the sorrow is international. In the death of Mrs. Commissioner Rees we have lost a good worker, and the loss is a heavy one. Mrs. Rees was a good mother and helpmeet to her husband. I cannot speak of her without making a reference to the commissioner. Great as is our sorrow at his being called home, and heavy as we will feel his loss, it would be a source of great consolation to us if we but had his remains with us to lay beside those of his brave wife.”

With the conclusion of the service the massed militia bands, under the conductorship of Lieutenant Slatter, of the Forty-eighth Highlanders, began to play Chopin’s “Funeral March,” and the sad duty of removing the caskets to the funeral vans commenced. Between the long rows of mourners the pallbearers silently passed with their mournful burdens, while the drawn faces and dimmed eyes spoke eloquently of the pangs suffered as the remains of their loved ones passed from their sight forever. It was a moment filled with the tense current of emotion—a moment as impressive as any that has followed the tragic Empress disaster.

Impressive Procession

Headed with the heavily white-draped standards of the Army from all the city corps, at the slow march, and followed by the first section of the massed bands playing the “Dead March,” the cortege presented a melancholy and impressive sight. The funeral cars, draped heavily with crepe and purple, and each drawn by four black horses caparisoned with black-and-purple trappings, and each led by an attendant, were preceded by two draped cars heavily laden with the beautiful floral tributes. Behind came the mourners and farther in the procession the survivors, many of whom came from sickbeds to attend the service, while at the rear walked the lodges, the massed military bands, and the various representatives of the local militia in full regimentals. The procession was one of the largest known in the city, almost 6,000 marching.

People Lined Streets

Tens of thousands of citizens lined the streets to witness the passing of the funeral cortege. The crowd was densest on Yonge Street, both sides of the thoroughfare from Wilton Avenue to the cemetery gates, a distance of three miles, being crowded with humanity of every nationality. As the remains of the unfortunate victims were borne past on the heavily draped drays, every man bared his head in solemn reverence, while hundreds of women were observed wiping their stained eyes. There was a solemn silence that seemed strange at such an hour of the busiest day of the week.

Services in Thirty-Four Languages

On the following Sunday, in sixty-nine countries and colonies the world over, 200,000 soldiers of the Salvation Army, speaking thirty-four different languages, conducted impressive memorial services in honor of those of the Empress dead who belonged to that organization. It is estimated that upward of 2,700,000 people gathered in all the citadels and buildings of the Army to mourn for the 138 of the Army that went beneath the waves in the St. Lawrence.

In a special memorial service held in Albert Hall, London, General Booth paid special tribute to those who had perished for their lives of service to the cause and for the many sacrifices they had made. Their trials were now over, their warfare had ceased, he said, and victory was theirs. He spoke in highest terms of Commissioner Rees and of Colonel and Mrs. Maidment. While the Army had been deprived of some of its most valuable officers, and while he, above all others, felt the great blow, yet there seemed no limit to the evidences that good fruit would follow from the sorrowful trial.