AMERICAN EVANGELIST CONVERTS HIS CRITICS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27369, 7 June 1954, Page 8

AMERICAN EVANGELIST CONVERTS HIS CRITICS

LONDON LETTER

(By K. W. McCOOK London Correspondent of “The Press”)

London, May 28.—Dr. Billy Graham, the handsome 35-year-old American evangelist, left for Scotland on holiday this week after his triumphant “Greater London Crusade.” Few doubted that his three-month campaign had been an astonishing success. At his final meeting at Wembley, when more than 120,000 packed into the stadium on a cold drizzly evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Fisher) pronounced the Benediction and offered a prayer for what had been “planned and thought, attempted and done through the work of the mission.” In. the Royal box were the Lord Mayor of London and a score of titled people and members of Parliament. And to crown his success, Dr. Graham spent 40 minutes at No. 10 Downing Street talking with Sir Winston Churchill—a rare, invitation. Billy Graham’s conquest of London has astonished church leaders and laymen. Last February, when he arrived in Southampton with his retinue of assistants, including a “star” baritone and a guitar-playing cowboy, his mission was treated with some scepticism not only by the press, but by church leaders. In some newspapers he was hailed as the £5OOO-a-year “hot gospeller,” who had organised evangelism with high-pressure salesmanship on the lines of Big Business. The British public were told that Billy had come “to save them from sin” with a backing of £lOO,OOO. The barrage of publicity that opened his crusade, and the huge. posters and displays that covered the city, seemed to indicate that Londoners might be lukewarm about the American’s whirlwind gospelling. 30,000 Converts But events justified the evangelist’s faith in coming to London. When his crusade ended, he had addressed some 1,500,000 people in Harringay arena and some 30,000 had been? converted at his meetings. His campaign had proved that an old evangelistic technique, coupled with modern advertising and presentation, could draw huge audiences and persuade a good proportion of his listeners to make a religious decision.

Billy Graham has no great oratorical gift. His appeal is emotional, tout his gestures are not particularly extravagant His message is always Biblebased and is simply stated and repeated. But he impressed a wide range of people who met or heard him with his sincerity, humility, and common sense.

One of the many critics that Dr. Graham won over to his cause was the acid-penned columnist of the “Daily Mirror,” Cassandra. On the evangelist’s arrival, “Cassandra” described him as the “smoothest, slickest opponent of iniquity” he had ever met and likened him to “a Hollywood version of John the Baptist.” Last week, ‘‘Cassandra” met Dr. Graham on his ovto “sinner’s ground,” a pub called “The Baptist’s Head,” near Smithfield Market. This time he described the evangelist as “a good and simple man who had been welcomed in London with an exuberance that made Londoners blush behind their precious AngloSaxon reserve.”

Dr. Graham left London inspired to do “even greater things” in the big cities of his own country. “I have never had faith to go to New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia,” be said. “But I feel that if God can accom? plish this in London, He can accomplish it in other cities.” According to one newspaper, Dr. Graham is “one of ,the most remarkable Americans ever to have visited London.” Will his evangelistic message remain? In Dr. Graham’s own words, “Only time will tell.”

England’s Soccer Defeat Eleven unhappy men flew into London airport on Tuesday this week. They were the English soccer team which had two days before been overwhelmed by a Hungarian side at Budapest by a score of 7 goals to 1, Before their downfall on the Danube the English side .were praised as Britain’s finest ambassadors, and” details of the players’ records were repeated endlessly in the newspapers for the soccer-crazy British putflic. Their homecoming was slightly dif~. ferent. There was no reception, and -the players were hustled off to their homes uncheered and uncomforted. Foreigners who read newspaper reports of the team’s defeat could be excused if they presumed that a national tragedy had just occurred. The headlines were full of terms such as "shame,” “humiliation,” and “national pride crushed,” while one newspaper announced that it would spare no effort to discover the “guilty men” responsible for England’s loss. For a country which is renowned for its sense of sportsmanship it was a most ungenerous welcome for 11 good players who had been fairly defeated by a superior Continental eleven. Motor-Car Racing A sour note was introduced into motor racing this week by the Austin motor company while its British and Continental competitors were feverishly preparing for the European

scasvu. .me company that as its Austin-HeaW ™"2 unB ft was basically a standard car, they would not comn£. ucti ®i 24-hour classic at Le Mans 111 tl ”- nor in any other sports in Europe this year. ev ent) The reason for the withdw , its cars is that the that present regulations , '’’ “‘'M car racing on the Continent al!n» Port l to compete which do not slightest resemblance to nnS . in< cars and which are speciallv one race. Many of the sports cars are labelled tm22 enta l' are rarely put into prS?,! 2 ? after they have succeeded? rS"' 11 ! the glittering prizes of moteS"®? and the resultant publicity tha, with a major success 1 Although Austins have from Le Mans, British cars'Stn’ 1 !?* a good ehance of defeatin” tfe ft made Continental “prototv»2’’ Jaguar company has design*] , uRW 1 sports car which is said to of speeds over 180 miles ar hour. The Martyred Bank A mix-up in taiW alteration tickets made a bank official, Normanh John Martyr, a “maityr in more ways,-' than one,” accords to a judge at j Gerrard’s Cross this week. When'; Mr Martyr wen' to collect a pair of trousers whic> he had left at his. tailor’s for alterations he was told they & had been into a woman’s skirt; by mistake. When AU Martyr sued his tailorli for damages, Judge Tudor Rees srn,. ! pathised with his plight “I what b(s bank would have said if had turned up in that skirt,” saidi His Honour. “From what I have heardjthe whole society connected wiftP banks would be shocked to despair The judge awarded 12 guineas danages against the tailor. He advialfr the tailor to preserve the skirt as a j souvenir of the “most unique mistaknk made in the history of tailoring.” Hotel Radios Alarm Hotel owners in London got a shod' this week when a radio trade stated that under a new Post Offiahregulation they might have to pay separate radio and television licence! for each room equipped with radkft and television sets. In the pastlxj&& have been licensed as one household.paying £3 a year for their sound and vision sets irrespective of the number of sets they had installed. In many of the larger London hotels, -5 radios and television sets are in- ; stalled in every room. In the 1000room Cumberland Hotel at Marbler% Arch, the new regulation would have meant an increase in licensing fees . from £3 to £3OOO. The Post Office will not interpret its new regulation literally, however. Hotels will have to pay extra licence fees only for per- ’ manent guests, as temporary guests are presumed to possess licences for their homes. Rebuke to Tax Inspectors Some caustic comments on the trouble taken by the Income Tax De- ■ partment “to catch sprats while f mackerels swim free” were made by 11 judge in the Chancery Division thi week. He disallowed an appeal by th< s Crown which claimed that money ob c tained by Bruce Dooland, a forme L Australian test cricketer, when “th(l hat was passed round” to Lancashire ft League games was liable to incomt: tax. In Lancashire League cricket when batsmen have passed 50 or madt their century in good time, a bat it passed round the crowd for donations Dooland had received some £24 m “whip-arounds” in a year by hi! batting. The judge found that spontaneous collections were not profits arising ■ from the cricketer’s employment. Ai there were only 16 professionals in th* league where it was the practice to taks that hat around and only a few woulc get £4O from collections, he consid ered the Crown case a waste of time; It would be more profitable to tax £ payers if time was spent investigate! i the more elusive gentry, who wen r dodging taxation, added' the judge. Power Bicycle Accidents The thousands of “put-put bikes”bicycles with small motors attachedwhich have appeared on r roads since the war are creating uffli ■ traffic hazards, according to Britist ?, road safety experts. Investigators d the Road Research Board found th? ■ many of the brakes, lights, and tyre , of the power-bicycles were inadequal $ a,t speeds of 20 miles an hour. i The experts said that on wet road: the ordinary bicycle-tyre rim braka | took up to 94ft to stop the | —snore than four times the brakinp distance of a car travelling at 20 miw ?? an hour. Bicycle lights were unsatis | factory for machines capable of travel ling at more than 20 m.p.h., while the g narrow tyre tread was also inadequal in certain road conditions. ! ■ Many accidents were caused ra y drivers of other vehicles, undef estimating the speed of toe P OW JJ' | bicycles which they mistook w g ordinary bicycles, says the board. J g has suggested that the power bicycM| should carry special markings to chs« tinguish them from bicycles. Ij