"Dr. Robert Bateman gently helped his
sister-in-law into the lifeboat. “Don’t be nervous, Annie. This
will test our faith. I must stay and help the others. If we
never meet again on this earth, we will meet again in heaven.”
Bateman dropped his handkerchief to the woman as the boat
dropped toward the dark, icy water below. “Put that around your
throat, Annie. You’ll catch cold.”
"Dr. Bateman then gathered about fifty
men at the stern of the ship and told them to prepare for death.
Earlier that day, he had conducted the only religious service on
the large ship, a service that ended with his favorite hymn,
“Nearer My God to Thee.”
"Robert Bateman had founded the Central
City Mission in Jacksonville, Florida, a spiritual lighthouse in
a city regularly full of drunken sailors. He had been called
“the man who distributes more human sunshine than any other in
Jacksonville.” Bateman went to England to study Christian social
work and was returning to the United States to put into practice
what he had learned.
"However, late on the night of April 14,
1912, Bateman’s ship struck an iceberg. Bateman led the men with
him on the stern of the ship in the Lord’s Prayer. As the band
played “Nearer My God to Thee,” the great ship Titanic slid
under the waves.
"You will keep him in
perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You."
Isaiah 26:3