The SS Deutschland, an iron passenger steamship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, was on her maiden voyage from Bremen to New York. On December 4, 1875, the Deutschland was on its way from Bremerhaven to New York, with 123 emigrants. The weather conditions for the steamer were horrible; a blizzard hit the steamer on the Kentish Knock, an area off the coast of Kent and Essex in England. Deutschland's crew attempted to reverse but failed because the stress fractured Deutschland's propeller. The ship began to sink, the sea began to break the steamer, and the wind rose until it became stormy; consequently, the order to abandon ship. On December 7, 1875, 135 out of 213 people were saved from the shipwreck. Among the victims of the shipwreck were five Franciscan nuns from Salzkotten, Westphalia. The Franciscan nuns had emigrated to escape the anti-Catholic Falk Laws, bills enacted in the German Kingdom of Prussia during the Kulturkampf's conflict with the Catholic Church. The deaths of the Franciscan nuns inspired Gerard Manley Hopkins to compose his longest Christian-themed poem, "The Shipwreck of Germany", dedicated to their memory. In this lyric poem, dedicated to the lives of the Franciscan nuns, Hopkins expresses his reactions to the shipwreck of the Deutschland, which aroused powerful emotions in him. Although Hopkins is a devout Catholic, he encounters critical difficulties in understanding the ways of God and tries to resolve them in his poetry. “The Wreck of Germany” is, therefore, a theodicy (an attempt to reconcile the existence of tragedy and suffering with faith in a God who is both loving and powerful), determined to justify God's ways to the man. In the first part, Hopkins confesses his t...... middle of paper ...... bleed in a bitterer vein for the/ Without comfort unacknowledged of them -/ No, not without comfort: lovely-happy Providence / Finger of a race; O feathered delicacy, the/ Maiden's breast could thus obey, be a bell, ring it and/ Frighten the poor sheep back! the shipwreck is then a harvest, the storm brings the grain / for you” (241-249). In the last stanza of the poem, the tone is the drama of triumph rather than a confrontational tone: "Ladies, at our door / Drowned, and in our shallows, / Remember us in the streets, the paradise of reward :/ Our King return, oh, upon English souls!/ Let the Easter in us, be a dawn to our darkness, be a crimson-crested east,/ More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as her kingdom flows,/ Pride, rose, prince, our hero, high priest, / The fire of charity of our hearts, the crowd of chivalry of our thoughts, Lord.”