There was a fire-engine there, but there was no hose. I think the fire lasted about an hour, and by that time all the cars were burned. I don't think any one was taken out alive after the fire. I am fearful that all who were not saved before the flames got headway perished in the general conflagration. I should say there were at the least reckoning one hundred and fifty persons killed outright or burned to death, and this in spite of the fact that some of the officers claim that there were only one hundred and sixty-five on the train. I don't know the name of a human being among the killed, except Mr. Bliss and his family, and I don't know the names of any of the injured. All along the road coming from the scene are anxious men, fearful that friends or relatives were on the train and killed or injured. Perhaps some of them may yet hear of deplorable losses, for the railroad officials admit that there were over one hundred killed. Fortunately, the dear children of Mr. and Mrs. Bliss had been left at Rome, and they were safe. The father and mother "went before" them into the valley of the shadow of death. CHAPTER XXV. IN MEMORIAM-FEELING AND GLOWING TRIBUTES, IN POETRY AND PROSE, FROM EDITORS, CLERGYMEN, SINGERS AND FRIENDS, TO THE MEMORY OF THE DEPARTED SONG WRITER. ROM various sources we select a few of the many good things of their death. "None knew them but to love them; none spoke but to praise them." The editorial columns of the Chicago Inter-Ocean contained the following glowing tribute to our friend, written while it was still supposed that Mr. Bliss' children were among the lost at Ashtabula : P. P. Bliss, the song writer, the author of "Hold the Fort," "The ArmorBearer," Almost Persuaded," and scores of other popular songs, was on the train that went down with a crash to terrible destruction at Ashtabula. He was coming from the holiday meeting at his old home, with its tender memories clinging to him, to hold a grand praise meeting in Chicago, to which he was looking forward with all the wholesome enthusiam of his stalwart, Christian manhood. Moving along a line leading from joyous scene to pleasant duty, he was stopped midway to die with wife and children; to die in an attempt to save those he loved from a terrible fate. This horror of a railroad disaster has darkened many a home; in the case of Mr. Bliss it destroyed one-blotted it out as with a thunder crash. The catastrophe has depressed the public, a public already sore to the heart's core over the Brooklyn theater disaster; but in the death of Mr. Bliss it touches chords that bring it home as a family grief to every church and Sabbath School in America and England. Mr. Bliss was the song writer of the church and Sabbath School. He stood prominent among those earnest workers who have invested Sabbath School music with the cheerfulness, lightness, brightness and briskness that were wanting in the old hymns, and who have added to them new pathos and tenderness. His works were songs rather than hymns, and they were written under the inspiration of the ideal song writer. In words and music his compositions were adapted to the longings and wants of those he desired to reach. The illustrations were familiar, the methods were striking, the sentiment was an echo of the feeling in his own heart. He seized quickly upon incident or figure, or story, and turned it to good account. Catching suggestions from the actual life of the people, his songs and his musical compositions came to the masses as revelations. The relation of an army incident suggested "Hold the Fort." It was written on the impulse of the moment, and it has traveled the world over. It has been translated into not only nearly all the European languages, but into Chinese and the native languages of India. It is not too much to say that it is popular beyond any other Sabbath School song of the age. And with it travel others almost as popular; "What Will the Harvest Be?" "Almost Persuaded," "Only an Armor-Bearer," etc., etc. When we remember that every child, from the lisping four-year-old to the youth of fifteen or eighteen, is singing in Sabbath School and home, "Only an armor-bearer proudly I stand," and that not only in home and Sabbath School, but at political meetings, people have been shouting "Hold the fort, for I am coming," then, and not till then, do we realize how near this man, whom we of Chicago knew so well, was to the people at large. And when we read these songs and hear the simple music, we go further, and realize how much he has helped all people, but particularly the young, toward a better life. Mr. Bliss was a fine specimen of the vigorous and robust man. He was gifted with a sweet voice and an attractive manner. He carried into his musical work the martial bearing and movement of the commander in a great crusade. This spirit breathes along his lines and swells in all his music. Children caught quickly this heroic spirit. His military figures found the nation responsive. He is never, in any composition, at a halt. He is always marching forward or struggling upward. There is always the suggestion of the leader's plume to the front; there is always a purpose, a hope, a promise, a resolve, at the heart; there is always present the spirit that moves masses to responsive or heroic moods, or that pathos that calls out the best there is in Hence the popularity of Mr. Bliss' compositions, and, more important, the good influence they have exerted. man. As with Mr. Moody, the people of Chicago have watched the course of Mr. Bliss with peculiar interest. Those earnest in Christian work observed with pleasure his growing toward the conviction that he must enter a wider field. They were familiar with the doubts in his own mind, which went down one by one under the resolve that he must do his whole duty, and they have rejoiced over the good results of his work. And this class of earnest workers, numbering in its ranks Mr. Moody and many of the ministers of the city, have seen with clearer vision than the masses the spirit and purpose of Mr. Bliss. They have known him better and have understood him better than have the people at large. But to all he has spoken as a friend; and standing appalled before the Ashtabula horror, many will turn shivering to the picture of the song-maker struggling to save his wife and children. And then will come that vivid picture of his own: On, like a fiend in its towering wrath, On, and destruction alone points the path; REV. DR. SEMPLE'S SERMON. 299 So he went down to death. And of this sudden coming of death he has said: I know not the hour when my Lord will come To take me away to His own dear home; But I know that His presence will lighten the gloom, And that will be glory for me. People think and speak in formula furnished by this man now dead, and many will recall reminiscences of his home life that make very touching this picture of his terrible death. One of his intimate friends relates how many of his compositions, now famous, first found shape in his own home; of how, with wife and children and a few chosen friends about him, he first sung the songs that were to be given to the world. And this friend tells of how the singer and his family rejoiced over the perfecting of some work that reflected an experience or trial or struggle or rejoicing that they themselves had lived through. The man spoke from the heart of his home, and no wonder he touched the popular heart. In a sermon preached at Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 6th of January, Rev. R. F. Semple, D. D., expressed himself as follows respecting Mr. Bliss and his work. Want of space alone prevents our publishing the sermon in full : There are many stricken households, widely scattered, greatly mourning the disaster at Ashtabula bridge. Some of our number lost near kindred on that dreadful night: the joy of the marriage succeeded by the wail of death. And there was one widely known and greatly beloved. Hence, thousands in this and in other lands, as the electric wire flashed the sad intelligence of his decease, cried in the bitterness of their grief, "Alas! my brother." Wherever the sweet "Gospel Songs" were sung, and especially where the voice of him who wrote them had been heard, there is sorrow such as has seldom been surpassed. With feelings of peculiar sadness, relieved only by the light from beyond, we who linger a little behind now sing, Down life's dark vale we wander, And hereafter, as we join in the familiar song, there will come to us thoughts of a night dark and stormy; and as we look through the blinding tempest we shall see a noble form moving calmly on, and a manly face turned heavenward, and shall hear a voice of marvelous compass and sweetness singing, in trustful strains, mingling with, and rising above, the moanings of the wintry winds Though the pathway be lonely and dangerous, too, and then as the weary, blistered feet touch the heavenly shore, we catch the triumphant refrain Hallelujah! 'tis done! I believe on the Son, I am saved by the blood of the Crucified One. You all know to whom I refer. I have scarcely felt that I could trust myself to speak his name. I had come to know him intimately, and to love him tenderly, and to confide in him implicitly. The brother beloved who had labored with him in Gospel services, and was competent to form a judgment of his character, said of him, "He is the purest minded man I ever knew." There certainly have been few so loving, unselfish and kind. He was singularly artless. He wore no disguise. In presence dignified and commanding as Saul among the children of Israel, he was in spirit simple, and unostentatious, and confiding as a child. His songs were like himself. They were the utterances of his own great heart. They claimed no relation, and had none, to the measured and lofty poetry of the Homeric hymns. They were sweet lyrics rather. The most intellectual were moved by them. The unlearned understood them. They were fragrant with the love of Jesus, and I doubt not led many to Him. Already they are sung in every land. Though born within the last decade, they have overtaken the sacred hymns of Watts, and Newton, and Toplady; and some of them will live as long. It was well said of such songs as Hold the Fort," "Almost Persuaded," ," "When Jesus Comes," and "We're Going Home To-morrow," that, "As the years roll on, like the handsful of seed dropped in the furrow, they shall yield increasing harvests, till from all lands and kindreds and tongues there shall come up a mighty throng to cast their crowns at the feet of that dear Lord whose dying love it was our brother's highest joy to magnify." And we fully accord with the judgment of another, that "Evangelical song lost its greatest exponent when Philip P. Bliss staid by the car in Ashtabula Creek," and burned to death in the fruitless attempt to save his wife-an act characteristic of his affectionate and self-forgetful nature. This dear brother has sown seeds in the hearts of many whom I now address, which I fervently hope shall yet bring forth immortal fruitage in their salvation. How tenderly did he speak to the young, of Christ, the children's friend, and urge them to come to Him. How earnestly did he pray that they might know Jesus, and rejoice in His light. The memory of those November days will abide with us down to the winter of life, and we shall always be thankful that our dear brethren in Christ, Whittle and Bliss, came this way; loving evangelists, who pointed us to the wicket gate of Mercy, and bade us hasten to it. I recall a sweet and solemn service, when our dear brother and his equally lovely wife sang together a hymn which was prophetic of their end—may it be of our peaceful departure: Through the valley of the shadow I must go, |