by Billy Graham
We had optioned Harringay Arena for three months, expecting the Crusade to last perhaps six weeks, but we could not bring ourselves to shut the meetings down with more and more people thronging to hear the simple Gospel message.
Many of our friends and supporters in the United States traveled to England to be a part of the Crusade. Among them were Roy Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans. They spoke at a children’s meeting at the dog track next door to Harringay; an estimated 10,000 adults showed up with 40,000 boys and girls. Roy Rogers rode his cowboy horse, Trigger, around the track, showing off his tricks. But when he and Dale spoke, it was a simple and straightforward witness to their faith in Christ.
Henrietta Mears, the great Christian educator and Bible teacher who had been so instrumental in my spiritual growth in Los Angeles, also came to see what God was doing in London. During her visit, we made sure she was invited to one of the formal functions held in our honor at the Dorchester Hotel, then considered the most prestigious hotel in London. Once again the invitation read, “Full dress and decorations.”
Miss Mears, a warm, fashionable woman who was welcomed in the highest society of the United States, regaled those at her table with interesting stories. I was proud that she was such a hit. At one point in the evening, Ruth and I went over to chat with her.
“You look very lovely tonight,” I said.
She smiled and pulled us closer. “I didn’t have a formal thing in my suitcase and had no time to shop,” she whispered. “I’m wearing my nightgown!”
Invaluable to me during that trip (and throughout the early years of the BGEA) was Paul Maddox. Paul had been U.S. chief of chaplains in the European theater during World War II. He acted as my personal assistant, helping to coordinate my schedule and making sure I was always where I was supposed to be. Paul also acted as a gatekeeper (as it were), buffering me from problems that could better be handled by someone else, while being sure I saw the people I really needed to see and made the decisions only I could make. He was a man with a great love for people and was in turn greatly loved by the Team. Paul also had a dry sense of humor that defused more than one awkward situation. In the military he had learned to wait on generals, and he had a true servant’s heart—willing to do anything to take some of the load off of me, even shining my shoes or taking my suits out to be pressed.
In London I had to prepare new messages constantly, and that was where my secretary, Luverne, was so helpful. Of the seventy-two major addresses I preached in the evenings, at least fifty of them were prepared the day they were delivered. Early in the morning and late at night, I studied and wrote my outline; then I dictated the message and asked Luverne to type up the notes. Often I would receive the final draft of the outline just before I stepped up to the pulpit. I felt the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in preparing those talks, and when I got up, I felt increasingly a greater power that refreshed me.
Several weeks into the Crusade, I was approached by a friend I had met during my Youth for Christ tour a few years before, the Reverend Canon Tom Livermore, by this time director of YFC in England. He gave me a book by an old Puritan preacher, Dr. Watson; it contained a series of sermons on the Ten Com-mandments. I adapted them into messages that I preached each night for ten successive nights, adding my own illustrations and evangelistic focus.
When we no longer had access to Harringay Arena—the twelve weeks were up—we were forced to end the London Crusade. I was exhausted; in three months I had lost thirty pounds. And the rest of the Team was also exhausted. Bev had been singing every night; Cliff had been leading the musicians and directing the choir every night. The pace we endured was grueling, and yet with that pace came the joy of being exactly where we were supposed to be, doing what we were supposed to be doing, and seeing God bless our endeavor all the way.
We planned to have the last meeting on Saturday, May 22, at Wembley Stadium, which seated 100,000. So many had been turned away from Harringay that we began taking reservations from groups who wanted to be sure to join us for that last meeting. But would we really see 100,000 people at one meeting?
Soon enough we knew the truth: Wembley would not hold the masses asking to come. So we also secured the second-largest facility, White City Stadium. We would hold a two-hour meeting there and then bus our Team to Wembley for the grand finale.
At White City Stadium alone, we had one of our largest crowds ever: 65,000. As we prepared to depart, we were told that traffic was already so jammed around Wembley that we should look into going there by helicopter. But there was no time to make new arrangements. We piled our Team onto a bus, and with the help of the police made our way through the traffic. Half an hour before the meeting, Wembley’s gates were closed; all 100,000 seats were filled. Someone escorted me to a high perch from which I could see the entire place through a window. It was amazing!
I was tempted for a brief moment to depart from my chosen sermon topic, “Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve.” With so many dignitaries and intellectuals in the audience—including Princess Marina, mother of the present Duke of Kent (who was at that time the Duchess of Kent), and her guests in the Royal Box—I wondered whether I should try to be erudite and academic. But then I reminded myself that I must not try to be impressive.
As I looked down on that great crowd, I noticed activity on the soccer field. The gates had been reopened, and another 22,000 were allowed to rush in and sit on the hallowed playing field, shoulder to shoulder in the frigid temperature under a black sky.
Cliff led the great choir as sleet stung the faces of singers and audience alike. Tens of thousands of umbrellas came to life all over the stadium. I half expected the crowd to begin a mass exodus, but no one moved. Something bonded us in that weather—all of us together, shoulders hunched against the elements, squinting through the torrents, listening to the music. Bev sang, and then I preached in utter simplicity. Once I began, I was grateful that I had not succumbed to the temptation to try to be something I was not.
Some 2,000 people waded through the mud to respond to the Invitation. The Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced the benediction, and the people sang “To God Be the Glory.”
As we exited the platform, the Archbishop told Grady, “We may never again see a sight like that this side of Heaven.”
Grady, so moved that he forgot protocol, threw his arm around Dr. Fisher. “That’s right, Brother Archbishop!” he agreed enthusiastically.
As soon as the meeting was over, we went to a holding area where we greeted many of the local committee members and special guests and said good-bye to them all. Then police escorted us through the crowds to the bus, which was now surrounded by thousands of people. They were shouting their thanks and singing hymns. For a moment, I feared that the pressure of the crowd might overturn us. Ruth was beaming and said later that her sadness at the end of the great Crusade was balanced by gratitude and joy over all that had taken place.
As the bus slowly wended through the crowd, I stood up and asked the Team to join me in thanking God for what He had done. Bev sang softly the doxology: “Praise God from Whom All Bless-ings Flow.” The Team picked up the words, and we all sang as the bus passed through the shouting, waving people. I have never forgotten that moment.
Toward the end of the Crusade, a minister who wrote a regular column in the Sunday Graphic, the Reverend Frank Martin, commented that he had attended three of the meetings and drawn a couple of fascinating conclusions: first, “that religion is alive and a powerful issue,” and second, “that religion can be warm, personal, invigorating.” He found my evangelistic approach to be unsophisticated but not boring. Obviously, he was not one of our most enthusiastic supporters, but I was deeply touched by his final statement: “Thank you, Billy. You’ve done us a power of good. Come again soon.”
In writing a report of the Crusade for a magazine in the United States, Paul Rees, who had helped us enormously in London, listed six factors that he believed contributed to the historic impact of the London Crus
ade: the power of prayer, the authority of the Word of God, the effectiveness of organization and promotion, the beneficial effect of teamwork, the link with local churches, and the spiritual vacuum waiting to be filled.
We were scheduled to leave for Scotland for a brief holiday the evening of Tuesday, May 25. That morning I received an unexpected call from Jock Colville, secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
“Would you be available,” he asked, “to join Mr. Churchill for lunch here tomorrow noon?”
“I’m honored,” I said, “but it would be impossible. We are leaving this evening for Scotland.” Turning down an invitation from Winston Churchill—that showed how exhausted I was!
Half an hour later the phone rang again. “Would you be able to meet with Mr. Churchill at noon today?” asked Mr. Colville. “He has a lunch scheduled at twelve-thirty with the Duke of Windsor, who is flying over from Paris, but he can see you before that.”
I hardly had time to get nervous! Much later I learned from Mr. Colville’s own writings that Mr. Churchill had himself been nervous about the meeting. Apparently, the prime minister had paced the room, asking, “What do you talk about to an evangelist?”
When I arrived at Number 10 Downing Street, I was reminded discreetly by Mr. Colville that the prime minister had precisely twenty minutes. After I was announced, I was shown into a large, dimly lit cabinet room. Mr. Churchill rose from his chair and shook my hand. I had not realized what a short man he was; I towered over him. He motioned with an unlit cigar for me to sit next to him. It would be just the two of us, apparently. I noticed that three London afternoon dailies were spread out on a table next to him.
“Well, first,” he said, in the marvelous voice I had heard so many times on the radio and in the newsreels, “I want to congratulate you for these huge crowds you’ve been drawing.”
“Oh, well, it’s God’s doing, believe me,” I said.
“That may be,” he replied, squinting at me, “but I daresay that if I brought Marilyn Monroe over here, and she and I together went to Wembley, we couldn’t fill it.”
I laughed, trying to imagine the spectacle.
“Tell me, Reverend Graham, what is it that filled Harringay night after night?”
“I think it’s the Gospel of Christ,” I told him without hesitation. “People are hungry to hear a word straight from the Bible. Almost all the clergy of this country used to preach it faithfully, but I believe they have gotten away from it.” (I had heard that Mr. Churchill had written a book while he was a reporter in South Africa, in which he stated that he believed the Bible was inspired of God.)
“Yes,” he said, sighing. “Things have changed tremendously. Look at these newspapers—filled with nothing but murder and war and what the Communists are up to. You know, the world may one day be taken over by the Communists.”
I agreed with him, but I did not feel free to comment on world politics. I merely nodded, and he continued: “I’ll tell you, I have no hope. I see no hope for the world.”
“Things do look dark,” I agreed. I hesitated, not wanting to repeat the gaffe I had committed with President Truman just a few years before by being too direct about religion in our conversation. We talked at length about the world situation, and then, as if on cue, the prime minister looked me in the eye. “I am a man without hope,” he said somberly. “Do you have any real hope?”
He might have been talking geopolitically, but to me this sounded like a personal plea. In the notes I jotted after the meeting, I recalled he referred to hopelessness no fewer than nine times. His bouts with depression are now well documented, although I was not aware of them at the time.
“Are you without hope for your own soul’s salvation?”
“Frankly, I think about that a great deal,” he replied.
I had my New Testament with me. Knowing that we had but a few minutes left, I immediately explained the way of salvation. I watched carefully for signs of irritation or offense, but he seemed receptive, if not enthusiastic. I also talked about God’s plan for the future, including the return of Christ. His eyes seemed to light up at the prospect.
At precisely twelve-thirty, Mr. Colville knocked. “Sir Winston, the Duke of Windsor is here for your luncheon,” he said.
“Let him wait!” Mr. Churchill growled, waving Mr. Colville off and turning back to me. “Go ahead.”
I went on for about another fifteen minutes, then asked if I could pray.
“Most certainly,” he said, standing up. “I’d appreciate it.”
I prayed for the difficult situations the prime minister faced every day and acknowledged that God was the only hope for the world and for us individually.
Mr. Churchill thanked me and walked me out. As we shook hands he leaned toward me. “Our conversations are private, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, having decided after the Truman fiasco that I would never again quote a leader during his or her lifetime.
What was the impact of Harringay?
First and foremost, we left London confident that thousands of lives had been touched with the transforming message of Jesus Christ. We knew that even among those who made no decision during the meetings, seeds had been planted that would bear fruit in God’s timing.
Second, we left London confident that the churches had been strengthened, not only by the influx of new converts but also by the opportunity to participate in what God was doing in their city and catch a new vision of His will. A few years later, Maurice A. P. Wood, principal of Oak Hill Theological College (Anglican) in the London area, stated that the majority of his students were either Billy Graham counselors or convert-inquirers from the Crusade.
I was humbled at what the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote after our departure in a letter printed in the Canterbury Diocesan Notes: “That the blessing of the Holy Spirit has been upon this campaign cannot be doubted. . . . The mission has beyond doubt brought new strength and hope in Christ to multitudes, and won many to him; and for this God is to be praised. It has given an impetus to evangelism for which all Churches may be thankful to God.”
Then he added a challenge: “As we thank God for what this had meant to so many, the Churches must take a lesson out of it for themselves. So often they do not begin far enough back. They expect people to understand whole sentences of church life and doctrine before they have been taught the letters of the Christian alphabet and the words of one syllable. It is the natural mistake of the keen teacher. Dr. Graham has taught us all to begin again at the beginning in our Evangelism and speak by the power of the Holy Spirit of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.”
Third, the London meetings gave us a greater vision of what God could do in a major city. I knew that God was not limited, but at the same time I had sometimes wondered if the challenges and problems of the great cities of the world were simply too overwhelming, and the task too massive for the message of the Gospel through mass evangelism to make any impact.
There was a fourth effect from Harringay, although we did not fully realize it at the time. If our 1949 meetings in Los Angeles marked a decisive watershed for our ministry in the United States, the London Crusade in 1954 did the same for us internationally. News of what had happened at Harringay traveled like lightning around the world, challenging Christians to believe that the particular place where God had put them was not beyond hope, but that He was still at work. As invitations poured in to hold Crusades on every continent, we knew that our ministry could no longer be limited mainly to the English-speaking world.
14
Impact in Europe
The Continent, Scotland, Cambridge 1954–1955
Immediately after the final London meeting on May 22, 1954, we took a quick trip to Glasgow to rest and to meet with ministers about a possible Crusade there the following year. Then Cliff, Grady, Jerry, and I left by ship from Tilbury, England, for Sweden, where we had a brief but refreshing rest before embarking on an intensive series of meetings on the Continent. I had
seldom felt so relieved and relaxed as I did on that ship. There was an orchestra of Swedish students on board; they played and sang Scandinavian songs. It was a marvelous few days.
BARNSTORMING THROUGH EUROPE
Jerry Beavan and Bob Evans, a friend from Wheaton College days who had founded the Greater Europe Mission a few years before and knew Europe intimately, had laid out a plan to hold a series of fairly modest meetings—many one-day rallies—in several of the major continental cities, often under the sponsorship of a new group, the European Evangelical Alliance. But the torrent of publicity coming out of London changed all that. The chosen venues could not handle the crowds that were now expected. With virtually no notice, they had to switch to the largest locations they could find.
Helsinki
Our whirlwind tour across Europe began with our arrival at Helsinki’s harbor on June 16. There we were astounded to find several thousand people packing the dock area and waving handkerchiefs. The national radio network carried my greetings live across the country. We had the strong support of the Lutheran bishop of Helsinki, E. G. Gulin, even though the state-supported Lutheran Church was not officially involved.
That evening an overflow crowd jammed the Helsinki Exhibi-tion Hall. The next evening—with the summer sun shining almost as brightly as at noon—30,000, said to be the largest crowd ever gathered in Finland for a religious event, attended our meeting at the city’s Olympic Stadium. Rather nervously, George Beverly Shea sang his “I’d Rather Have Jesus” in Finnish; he’d had the tongue-twisting words written out phonetically for him by a local pastor. So successful was he that he adopted that practice of singing in the native tongue in many of our international Crusades.