125
April, 1944
Is SECURITY
Here..
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T O A JOURNALIST, and particu larly a Christian journalist, Paternoster Row—that ten-foot London’s St. ' Paul’s Cathedral — was sacred ground. I was not living in London during the peak blitz period, but I fully remembér what a cold chill passed through my frame when I listened to the radio report that the Row with its religious publishing houses and its Bible shops had been burned to the ground. It was about two months after the fateful December raids that I visited the great metropolis, and walked as far as the barricades from the Cheap- * side end. Not being able to see much, I then made my way round Newgate Street into Warwick Lane, which was not barricaded. Tears started into my eyes as I watched workmen feeding bonfires of the remaining rubbish on ground which but a few weeks before had
; A parable it is, surely, of the valley of. suffering through which the world is passing in these momentous days, and of the remarkable deliverances which have been experienced by those in Britain’s favored isle. Experiences of Total War For the first three years of war, I lived on the South Coast. During one period, sneak raiders popped in so frequently that the sirens lost all meaning, for it was impossible to keep in mind which siren was heard last, the warning or. the all-clear. Danger and death were so closely associated with the sound of the air plane in the sky that I have known myself to duck my head when one of our owA planes rushed low over head. The terrifying thud of the fa ll ing bomb, the horrifying glare of burning buildings at night, the sight and sound of falling debris, the piercing screams of frightened chil dren, the scramble from the danger area of unexploded time bombs, the breathless vigils fire-watching while
been a center of evangelistic life and literature. Then I noticed the new view of St. Paul’s made' possible by the demoli tions. As I stood there silent and sad, the sun broke through the February clouds and lit up the golden cross on the top of the cathedral. It was a resplendent sight. It ban ished my sadness; it warmed my heart, and put a new song in my mouth. I stood there enraptured and exultant. Nazi bombs may rain de struction; but :‘the cross, it standeth fast” ! There, high in the heavens, lit up by the sun, was the conquering symbol, the token of triumph, the un- dimmed and indestrtictible hope of the future! There, alone, amid the ruins, I lifted up my voice and sang: The cross it standeth fast, Hallelujah! Defying every blast, Hallelujah! The winds of hell have blowh, The world its hate hath shown,
wide thoroughfare by the side of
Yet it is not o’erthrown, Hallelujah for the cross.
* Known also as "The London Journalist,” he U the author of many helpful books.
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