Friday, September 09, 2016

Stirring metaphors, lightly shaken

From the dark days of June 1940, a rather surprising -- and as far as I know, unique -- use of imagery:

The entire task of upholding civilisation and the justice based on Christian faith has now fallen on the British Commonwealth of Nations, with such aid as may be extended by the friendly offices of the United States.

God has bestowed on the inhabitants of this Island certain advantages which make their position radically different from that of the Continental nations who have succumbed before the inhuman tide of brute force.

Those advantages devoted and consecrated to the Author and Giver Who has conferred them, are fully adequate to save Britain from the horn of the Nazi unicorn, and thereby to save European civilisation from being irremediably submerged.


The Church Times (21.6.1940), quoted in the Ministry of Information's weekly bulletin The Spiritual Issues of the War, no. 34, 22 June 1940, 2. (Emphasis and line breaks added.)

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