Their leader was Mr. Wallace H. Hartley. One who had been with him on twenty-two voyages on the _Mauretania_ states that he once casually asked him what he would do if he were on a boat which was wrecked. He promptly replied that he would play “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” And this was the hymn he led the bandsmen in playing after they had long been rendering popular tunes, when he had to make a last selection before the great ship made her final plunge. Among the 815 passengers and 688 crew who were drowned was W. T. Stead, editor of _The Review of Reviews_. A few years previous he had published “_Hymns That Have Helped_.” In this list of the best hundred hymns, “Nearer, my God, to Thee” stands seventh. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, sent a letter to the editor in which he expressed a preference for this hymn and said, “There is none more touching nor one that goes more truly to the heart than No. 7 on your list.” Mr. Stead made the terse comment, “The hymn is as dear to the peasant as it is to the prince.” Mr. E. J. Elliott, president of the local musicians’ union at Louisville, at the time of the disaster said there is a standing rule in the national organization requiring bands attending funerals of dead members to conclude the rites with this tune. “That is the last thing we play at the grave of a musician—‘Nearer, my God, to Thee.’ I believe that, knowing they were doomed as the result of their own heroism, the members of the ship’s orchestra thus commended their own souls to their God, giving expression to their petition in the notes of their instruments.” What a fitting expression for souls about to wing their way into eternity! Equally impressive is this incident when Rescuers Steered in the Direction Of the Singer When the English steamer _Stella_ was wrecked on the Casquet rocks twelve women were put into a boat which the waves whirled away, leaving them helpless without even an oar. They passed a terrific night not knowing what awaited them. Wet and cold they would have perished but for the courage of one of them, Miss Marguerite Williams, who was a contralto singer. There was no thought of ruining her voice at such a crisis, and through the night she sang parts from “The Messiah” and “Elijah” and also hymns. This cheered the desolate women. About four o’clock in the morning a lifeboat which was sent out to save any surviving victims came to a pause in the waters as the men heard a woman’s voice singing in the distance. The words, “Oh! rest in the Lord,” were carried to them by the wind and they promptly steered in their direction. Before long they sighted the boat with the twelve women who were taken aboard the steam launch. The singing of Miss Williams not only braced up her companions and herself but led to their rescue. Dr. W. T. Grenfell recounts a rescue under similar circumstances in his book[4] entitled “Adrift on an Ice-Pan”