The tongue is a fire...
Illustration
"The tongue is a fire" -- Adolf Hitler knew all about that. Just look at that old
documentary footage of his Nuremberg rallies: the clipped, staccato speech, the eyes
glowing like two black coals, the angry forefinger stabbing the air -- then wave upon
wave of sheer adulation from the crowd, shouting, "Sieg heil! Sieg heil!" It was only
words that Hitler spoke; yet those words packed sufficient power to set a continent
ablaze, and then a world. Millions perished.
On the other side of the English Channel stood Winston Churchill: hand on hip, watch on fob, bulldog chin extended. They used to say Churchill's tongue could cause more damage to the German cause than a V-1 rocket. In the darkest days of the war, all over England the British people huddled around their radio cabinets, straining to hear what he would say next. James says the tongue is like the rudder of a ship: small in size, but oh- so-important.
Churchill began his service as prime minister by announcing, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." Can you imagine a politician today getting away with that brand of brutal honesty? (How would that sound bite play on the evening news?) But the British people loved it. Churchill told it like it was.
Just a month later, two days before the French surrendered to the Nazis, and the Spitfire pilots stood alone against the mighty Luftwaffe, Churchill came on the radio again. He told the people, "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' "
A blazing fire; a tried-and-true, unfailing rudder: the human tongue may be applied to the cause of evil, or to good!
On the other side of the English Channel stood Winston Churchill: hand on hip, watch on fob, bulldog chin extended. They used to say Churchill's tongue could cause more damage to the German cause than a V-1 rocket. In the darkest days of the war, all over England the British people huddled around their radio cabinets, straining to hear what he would say next. James says the tongue is like the rudder of a ship: small in size, but oh- so-important.
Churchill began his service as prime minister by announcing, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." Can you imagine a politician today getting away with that brand of brutal honesty? (How would that sound bite play on the evening news?) But the British people loved it. Churchill told it like it was.
Just a month later, two days before the French surrendered to the Nazis, and the Spitfire pilots stood alone against the mighty Luftwaffe, Churchill came on the radio again. He told the people, "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' "
A blazing fire; a tried-and-true, unfailing rudder: the human tongue may be applied to the cause of evil, or to good!
