The Rev. Cotesworth Pinckney Lewis, rector of the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, had an amazing experience Sunday, November 12. Looking down from his pulpit, he saw the Almighty sitting in the front pew.
The good Episcopalian minister at once interrupted his sermon and addressed himself in prayer to President Johnson:
"The political complexities of our involvement in an undeclared war are so baffling," he said, "that I feel presumptuous even in asking questions.
"But since there is a rather general consensus that something is wrong in Vietnam -- a conviction voiced by leaders of nations traditionally our friends, leading military experts and the rank and file of American citizens -- we wonder if some logical, straightforward explanation might be given without endangering whatever military or political advantages we now enjoy."
Since it is the custom in the United States to turn Sunday over to the clergy, leaving the rest of the week free for worship of the Dollar, the presence in the front pew said nothing. This was a rare display of magnanimity in view of the President's awesome powers as a speechmaker. Moreover, he had just completed a 5,100-mile tour in which he had delivered seven orations, all attempting to reply to the very question raised by the humble clergyman. He could easily have taken over the pulpit to come down an eighth time.
As word got around about the
happening at Bruton Parish Church, there was considerable fluttering in the hawkcote. Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives Carl Albert of Oklahoma said he thought it was the "first time in our history anyone has tried to make a captive audience out of the President."
Congressman Albert did not offer to estimate how many times in history American boys have been made captive by the draft and sent to distant heathen lands in undeclared wars to perform such civilizing missions as setting babies on fire with napaln.
Representative Wayne L. Hays, a Democrat of Ohio, said, "It's well known that the best way to get headlines is to attack the President. Nobody ever heard of this minister before today and nobody will ever hear of him again, which will be no great loss."
It would probably be no great loss if nobody ever heard of Representative Hays again...but let that go; no doubt he sounds great to Johnson.
In view of the uproar, the minister apologized profusely that he meant no harn.
He may be telling the truth; but the circumstances are suspicious. If he's not an ocutright fellow traveler or dupe, he at least may have been brainwashed by the "Prince of Peace," the alias of a subversive who seems to have been active in the church field for a dangerously long time.
REVOLUTIONARY