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 Remember
the midnight ride of Paul Revere? Of course you do— for most
of our readers live south of the Canadian border. Dashing
bravely through the night, he warned American patriots ”The
British are coming, the British are coming! I” Perfectly
natural!
But
how many of you have heard of Laura Secord? Laura who? Laura
Secord, the Canadian patriot. American troops were billeted
in her home at Queens-town, Ontario (or Queenston). Having
overheard plans for an attack on Beaver Dam, she walked twenty
miles to warn her countrymen. She escaped detection by driving a
cow ahead of her as though taking the cow home for milking. Her
cry was, in effect, “The Americans are coming, the Americans
are coming!!” In the battle, June 23, 1813, the British
surrounded American troops and tricked them into surrendering.
It all has a strange sound to us doesn’t it? It isn’t
strange here.
This
is being written in Bancroft, Ont., ca. 200 miles north of the
U.S. border, where I am in a gospel meeting. This work has taken
me through the Niagara Peninsula, and to Sundridge (150 miles
N.W. of here), where we have been royally treated by
fruit-growers, mechanics, lumbermen — folk rich and poor.
No one wants to
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continue the War of 1812. I only want to
impress you with how differently matters look from this side of
the line.
Most
of us give lip service to the importance of “walking in the
other man’s shoes” but we make little effort to practice
this attitude when we are involved in differences. It is hard
enough to get opponents to try to understand one-another’s
position, much less to appreciate how and why the position is
attractive to anyone. Yet, even gross error is best overcome
when it is properly understood and arguments can be
intelligently directed. How many of you have read debates only
to see what your man said — just skimming through the
opposition? I have been badly misrepresented by opponents who
had my works on their desk, but who obviously had studied only
what was said against me.
It
is good for us to know about the Laura Secords of other
countries. Their brave deeds are appreciated, even when
threatening our cause, because they were done for love of
country. Makes me regret this last ironic note. The long
cow-drive was not necessary, for Indians had already told the
British of the coming Yanks.
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