God's Answers: A Record of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in CanadaLowe, Clara M. S.
Religion
God's Answers: A Record of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada
Lowe, Clara M. S.
Canada -- Emigration and immigration; Church work with children; Home missions; Macpherson, Annie
emigrants to the mail tender which had just come alongside. About 300
or 400 soon crowded her decks, and she landed them at Moville pier,
after which she returned for orders. Subsequently the second tender
took off most of the saloon passengers, many wounded, and a large
quantity of baggage. The boats were lowered in order to save the
baggage. The mail tender returned and took the rest of the people,
and I went with them, and we reached Derry about nine o'clock that
night. I cannot refrain from referring to the heroic conduct of one
lady, [Footnote: Miss Catherine Ellis of Tryon House] a saloon
passenger, who, while partially dressed, rescued a baby that was
fearfully burnt, at considerable risk to herself; the mother had
proceeded to Derry, thinking she had lost her child for ever. The
promptitude and energy displayed by Captain Button was in every way
admirable, and his orders were executed with great decision. Miss
Macpherson and her little band of Canadian emigrants showed no small
amount of true fortitude and heroism. Most of the children behaved
nobly under the trying circumstances, and exhibited much of the fruit
of their careful training. They kept repeating to one another many of
the sayings they had heard from Miss Macpherson about being patient,
and brave, and good; I visited the infirmary before leaving on
Saturday, and spoke to each of the nine patients, who are all
suffering seriously, but I am hopeful of the recovery of some.'"
Miss Macpherson's own account follows:--
"Sunday morning.
"Since we parted from you and those beloved Christian friends at St.
Pancras last Wednesday, we seem to have lived years, and learnt more
of the reality of the delivering power of our loving Father than in
all our lives before.
"Wondrous to relate, and as marvellous as the deliverance of the
three children from the fiery furnace, is the fact that all our
precious little ones are in safety, and now gone to a place of
worship.
"Behold the loving-kindness of our God! Had the explosion taken
place a little while later, our vessel would have been on her way
instead of standing still waiting off Moville for the mails.
"Most of the children" were on deck, basking in the lovely sunshine
of that afternoon. We were all busy finishing our letters, and I
intended to write one more, and then go and spend an hour in the
children's steerage, when presently there was a terrible sound, as of
a cannon, followed by a deathly stillness for two minutes; I rushed
on deck and beheld a man jet black with soot, his halt burnt off,
issuing from a gangway near; then one of my own boys came,
exclaiming, 'Oh, Miss! I prayed to Jesus, and He saved me.' Then the
deck became a fearful scene of confusion, poor foreigners weeping,
and oh! the mutilated men and women, ghastly with fright, some of
their faces entirely skinned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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