Forty years ago this month, on Labor Day 1961, the German cargo boat Carl Fritzen, which I had boarded at the Liverpool clocks 11 days earlier, began its entry into Chesapeake Bay. We sailed past the beach where the Jamestown settlers had landed in 1607 where they gave thanks to God on the sands for their arrival, dedicating America to His glory. We clocked in Norfolk, Va. On that holiday America was at play— the water skis, the speedboats, the fishing and the barbecues were sights I had seen in hundreds of photographs, but I was a now a part of it.

Entry was no problem. I presented the officials with a huge chest X-ray I was required to have taken by the Welsh Embassy at Cardiff (long closed), and, suitably impressed, they stamped my passport for “unlimited entries” to the Land of the Free, and opened the doors of the USA to me. Soon I was another anonymous inhabitant, sitting on a Grey hound bus on the road to New York City.

I never saw the city so attractive as it was that September week—clean streets, wide boulevards, opulent and safe. Such a contrast with the cities of the United Kingdom. No pollution, and no threat. familiar and unfamiliar sights were visited, the Guggenheim Museum, the Red Circle line boat trip on East River and the Hudson, an evening at Yankee Stadium to see Roger Mans hit homer 52 on his way to heating Babe Ruth’s record (“but there were fewer games in the season in Babe’s clays”). But there wasn’t much preaching anywhere.

For the next three years I lived in America. It was 1971 before my wife and daughters were introduced to the USA, and they came to appreciate it almost as much as I did. A niece we took with us fell in love with and married an American pilot. How can any British child not “lurve” America? Now, so very fortunately, hardly a year goes by without a visit, and still the pulse beats more rap idly after passing through immigration and customs and picking up my case from the carrousel. I go through the doors to greeting friends and I am there again. What a wonderful country it is.

In September 1961 autumn was on its way to Philadelphia, and outside the stores in Glenside there were those plump, brilliant orange pumpkins for sale. I get an ache of nostalgia from that memory alone, and all that is associated with it. Forty years have gone by; what privileged years they were. I-low I failed to take frill advantage of them There are many sweet memories of new foods: the fruit, vegetables and meat on display in the vast food stores; bagels and cream cheese and lox; the food malls, salad bars, sushi, and chop suey. Clam chow der. Crab meat in melted cheese. Ice cream. Donuts. Eating out is still easy and inexpensive.

Then Thanksgiving came along. We have nothing like it, the most spiritual and non-covetous annual festival in the world. Cruising along interstate high ways in a loaned car now hearing Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Christian Radio. Would he have approved of my listening to holy preaching in a car? The four seasons. The beautiful fall colors, Those sudden snowfalls in the winter, head- lights cutting through large flakes slowly swirling more.

But the aspects of life in the USA I miss more are human rather than culinary and physical. Although one should not generalize about nations and people, there are qualities which can he described as being “typically American.” Openness is one of them. A free society. The right to know something. Banks are more accessible and the staff more smiley, with “Hi!” and “Have a nice day!” in their greetings. Americans tend to be much franker that their British counterparts. Only in America has a churchgoer described my sermon to me as ‘quite good.” It was exactly that. When they ask you to come to their towns, visit them and stay with them. they are in dead earnest.

Optimism is another endearing feature. Americans used to do much less whining than people on this side of the Atlantic. The US is a “can do” society. Despite the growing signs of an eco nomic crisis now emerging. Americans seem confident that they can cope with it. The terrible events of September 2001, never to be forgotten, will also he transcended with that same determination and hope.

Americans are also generous to a fault. There have been few acts of international philanthropy so magnanimous as the setting up of’ the Marshall Plan after the Second World War. Can you imagine any other nation acting with such open-handedness? That same generosity is seen in the bursaries they give to theological students (how otherwise would I have been able to study at Westminster Seminary?). Their unfailing support of missionary endeavor is a reason for the wide expansion of the gospel into the Third World.

Most of all, American church life and family life sets a standard for the rest of Christendom. There is true godliness and spiritual maturity in Christian homes with their dedication to the education of their children, instilling biblical family values and a work ethic. There is a commitment to the life of their congregations which is waning here. How they pray for their nation. They have established an alternative com munity of friendship and service centered on home and church. At times I feel we are falling further and further behind American Christians not just financially and numerically (where we can never compete), or in the extraordinary parachurch world of Chris tian organizations, but in basic disciple ship. overcoming the world and loving the brethren fervently.

And what am I glad to leave behind as I fly back to \Vales? Not very much. One hundred- degree days, newspapers, denominational and missionary bureau crats, the church music staff, worship leaders, church bulletins, uneven concrete block sidewalks, their “Christian” bookshops, sweaty joggers pounding away under the sun, the roads on the edges of each town with their neon light signs all the same everywhere from Miami to Maine. polyester clothes (in that climate), television, that it is impossible to go anywhere without a motor car, and how few blacks there are in Reformed churches. That’s not much of a grumble list is it? And I had to scratch my head to make up that list. They grumble about the same things too.

I am writing all this as I ponder the terrible events of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacks. I am wanting to express my affection, admiration, respect, shock, and pain. What can one say? I had to write a few E-mails to some American friends immediately and just say, “So sorry. So very sorry.” It was my grief too. I had to call some friends here and say, “Have you heard the news? Are you watching the TV?” It was live on every channel hour after hour. We watched CNN live from New York. This is indeed a global village.

Where would we be without America? Would we have come under the domination of Hitler or Stalin? We certainly would not have been free Europe with out America. We are under American influence, and they are under ours. Our security and danger are as keenly felt in the US as theirs are felt in England and Wales. Indeed, there now seems to be far more honest loyalty to British laws and institutions in America than there is in Britain. The shared legal heritage re mains with its associated habits of adversarial government, open discussion, and public spirit. So too remains the basic loyalty which goes back to our Shakespeare, before the Declaration of Independence was signed. The demise of America would bring incalculable loss to Great Britain.

The attack on New York and Washing ton this month was an attack on a political tradition, noble ideas of constitutional government, and common law, which are British basic freedoms. The heaviest of spirits hangs over us, and it will he weeks before it will be lifted. We are so sorry for what happened. We grieve with you, and pray for the American church at this dark hour.

God bless America.