Read Defoe's account of the Plague of London.

How men and women left their safe homes, to serve in the pest-houses, knowing that sooner or later they were doomed.
Read of the mothers in India who die of slow starvation, never allowing a morsel of food to pass their lips so that they may save up their own small daily portion to add it to their children's.

Why don't we pray to God not to withhold from us His precious medicine of pestilence and famine?
So is shipwreck a fine school for courage.

Look at the chance it gives the captain to set a fine example.

And the engineers who stick to their post with the water pouring in upon them.