Recently, I was given a copy of a book written in 2013 about the events between 1939 and 1941, ie the period running up to the United States entering World War 2, called Rendezvous with Destiny by Michael Fullilove.

This was a period during which Franklin D Roosevelt had the unenviable task of trying to win over those in the United States who were known as ‘isolationists,’ i.e. those who were fighting as hard as they could to keep the US out of the war, in the period before the events of Pearl Harbour.

As part of his campaign, FDR sent five separate ‘personal envoys’ to the United Kingdom, to help to build up friendly relationships and trust at the highest level, as well as finding out in more detail what the UK’s material needs were, under FDR’s ‘Lend/Lease’ arrangements that he was still struggling to get over the line politically, against fierce opposition.

The second of these envoys was Harry Hopkins, who visited the UK between January and February 1941. Towards the end of his hugely successful visit, after a dinner hosted by Winston Churchill at Ditchley in Oxfordshire, the great man broke into an impromptu speech:

 “We seek no treasure,” Churchill promised, “we seek no territorial gains, we seek only the right of man to be free; we seek his right to worship his God, to lead his own life in his own way, secure from persecution. As the humble labourer returns from his work when the day is done, and sees the smoke curling upwards from his cottage home in the serene evening sky, we wish him to know that no rat-a-tat-tat” – and here Churchill rapped on the table – “of the secret police on his door will disturb his leisure or interrupt his rest. We seek government with the consent of the people, man’s freedom to say what he will, and when he thinks himself injured, to find himself equal in the eyes of the law. But war aims other than these we have none.”

Sadly, it seems to me that these words underline just how far we’ve fallen in recent years. The great man would surely weep?

Save us from ourselves, Father, we pray you. Amen