Psalms 107:23, 24, 28

23 They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
24 These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
28 . . . they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

Charles Herbert Lightoller was the only senior officer to survive the Titanic. In the book entitled, Titanic Voyager, The Odyssey of C. H. Lightoller by Patrick Stenson, page 191 includes a paragraph that illustrates the promise of Psalms 107 as Lightoller and others were floating on an upturned lifeboat.

“Eventually a seaman somewhere further back spoke up and said ‘Don’t you think we ought to pray?’ There was unanimous heartfelt agreement all round and in unison everyone standing on the upturned boat launched into the one prayer they all knew best. In all the time Lightoller had known the Lord’s Prayer, and heard it recited since childhood, he would never be among a gathering who put such conviction and feeling into it as his companions did just then. Everyone with him was now only too aware that if they were to live through this night they were going to need all the help they could get from wherever it came. There was no sign of any of the other lifeboats. They had just rowed away and disappeared into the blackness. All was now quiet, the cries of those struggling in the water had died away. They were quite alone with nothing but an overturned boat between 30 of them and the cold, grey, unfathomable depths of the Atlantic.”

Lightoller shares his testimony in The Christian Science Journal, October 1912. He says, “A doubt never entered my mind as to the possibility of my surviving; in other words, of the ability of the divine power to save me.” He also says, ” . . . and while I was below the surface these words from the 91st Psalm came to me so distinctly that I seemed to realize their full import: ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee.'”

Much gratitude for the lesson writer this week, the Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent, the work and sacrifices of Mary Baker Eddy, and the Plainfield congregation

Leiut. C. H. Lightoller C.S. Journal October 1912