Stuff About Things
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 doesnt it? It isnt 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 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 mans 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-anothers 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.