Horatio Spafford made a frantic dash for the train station.

            “I must get to Chicago!” he shouted to the agent.

            “But, sir, they say the fire’s out of control. The early train’s running, but I have no idea if it will reach the city.”

            “I don’t care. Sell me a ticket, man.” Horatio almost leaped aboard the train, riding it along with other worried men whose families and businesses were in Chicago.

            God, grant that my lovely ones are safe. Anna. Oh, Anna. My girls.

            He blessed God that the train made it to the south side of the city. He left his valise aboard and headed downtown. Chaos met his eyes. Fire fringed almost every house he saw, flames licking hungrily at neighboring buildings. Wagons, carriages, buggies, and handcarts loaded with desperate people and household goods clogged the streets, lurching into each other’s paths, running down pedestrians. Hundreds of men, women and children mobbed the neighborhoods in a frantic search for escape routes and lost relatives, often trampling each other to death. Children wandered alone, screaming, their tears unheeded. Mothers with broods of little ones hunted for others they would never find. Helpless invalids lay on pallets in the street, begging for help to escape the fire.

            What can I do, God? There are so many in need, so many, thought Horatio. He moved several elderly ladies to safer ground and tried to comfort a weeping mother who could not find her little boy. But I must get to Anna and the girls. I must make sure they are safe. . . .

            Wealthy homeowners hauled elegant furniture and clothing, priceless paintings and ornate silver services from their burning mansions, offering wagon drivers fantastic amounts of money to carry them and their treasures to safety. Some guarded pianos, only to watch them explode into flames when the wooden sidewalks ignited. Looters scurried through the streets, loaded with all they could carry.

            “This is it! Opportunity! Opportunity for the worker, the everyday man!” A tall, wild-looking man tossed a burning torch into a pile of mahogany furniture a fat bald man had dragged from his opulent mansion. The “prophet” continued to preach with abandon from a wooden box.

            If I weren’t in such a hurry, I’d knock him flat, thought Horatio.

            His own office and extensive library no doubt would be plundered. But I must make it to a bridge. I’ll have to cross a bridge to make it to Lake View. He veered toward the Chicago River and directed several bewildered women and their families to the river, too.

            “Run to a bridge!” he urged. “Hurry, before they all burn, and you’re trapped in the city!” Horatio led an active life, walking, swimming and cycling; he could swim the river if he had to. But these mothers and little children. . . . “There’s one still intact!” he shouted in relief. “Cross that bridge!”

            “But it’s burning!” said a terrified woman in a tattered evening dress. She was holding a pink-cheeked toddler in her arms.

            “Only a little. Hurry, take your child before there is no way across!” Hundreds of people already jammed the bridge; Horatio did what he could to protect the young woman as they struggled through the stampede. More desperate scenes awaited him as he walked the streets—hundreds, thousands more blazing buildings, frightened mobs, hordes of vehicles smashing into each other, their drivers cursing in every language Chicago knew. Drunken men flourished bottles of beer they had stolen from empty saloons. The fevered air split with the thunder of an explosion, then another. Horatio grabbed an iron lamppost as the ground beneath him shook and cried out as the hot metal scorched his hands.

            Mr. Moody often preaches of hell, Lord. Could it be worse than this? Horatio wiped his weary, sweaty face with burnt, sooty fingers.

            When night came, the city did not darken, still illuminated with the ghastly, unnatural glare of the fire. Neither did the winds subside. Horatio coughed as clouds of acrid, choking smoke tried to smother him. He had hoped to outrun the fire. He realized, with horror, the fire had outdistanced him with ease and was racing northward—northward toward the forest, toward Lake View. An evil dragon that engorged itself on everything living and dead in its path, the fire grew every moment.

            Horatio reached the empty train station where he usually took the Dummy home. No one here. I must go on. Winded and weary, Horatio was forced to slow his pace to a fast walk. His own breath tasted like the filthy gray mists that swirled and eddied around him. He followed the train track north. Help me, oh God. Please keep them safe. Anna. Annie. Maggie. Bessie. Tanetta. The names became a refrain that kept him moving, a rhythm that pushed his legs far beyond their usual strength. Anna. Annie. Maggie. Bessie. Tanetta. . . .

 

 

             Condensed from Well with My Soul:  Four Dramatic Stories of Great Hymn Writers

 

by Rachael Phillips

 

Reprinted with permission from Barbour Publishing