A beacon to God,
To love and loyalty.”
The Hymn That Wrought a Miracle
The Wembley Stadium is known as a great sports center in England. With it, however, there is associated a very remarkable story of the effect of one of our choicest hymns. English periodicals have reported this incident under the headings of “The Miracle at Wembley” and “The Song in the Stadium.” Naturally the story is associated with an individual, who in this case is Mr. T. P. Ratcliffe, “the conductor in tennis flannels,” and dates back to a “memorable day at the Wembley Stadium, in April, 1927, when the crowd numbered 96,000 people.”
Refusing to be discouraged by the statements of his friends, that “singing at Wembley would not be a success,” this leader of community singing had his great audience begin with “Pack Up Your Troubles,” and followed with other popular songs of the day. The people liked it. Said he: “On my right, 48,000 waved their song-sheets and shouted ‘Cheerio’ to a similar number on my left.”
This period of singing was about to close, when, greatly daring, the leader announced that they would, in conclusion, sing the “grand old hymn, ‘Abide With Me.’” He was about to ask all to stand, when, glancing at the Royal box, he saw King George V rise and bare his head.
The hymn created a great depth of religious feeling. Said the leader, as quoted in The British Weekly: “Wembley became for the moment a great open air cathedral.” One who knew the circumstances remarked: “If ever any felt a possible incongruity in the singing of ‘Abide With Me’ by almost 100,000 people on a football ground and in between two exciting parts of a game that awakened an immense sporting enthusiasm they should listen to some of the stories of the influence of that hymn under those conditions.” One of those related was particularly arresting.
This concerned a man who was in a muddled condition because of drink, but the strange experience of “singing a church hymn on a football stand apparently sobered him.” And an usher stated that he pulled off his cap for the final stanza.
Two years later Mr. Ratcliffe, the leader, was singing in a mission hall in the north of England, and a lady who was present asked him to her home to visit her husband. When he reached the house her husband, Bill, with shining eyes, grasped the visitor’s hand, and expressed his happiness. He was the confused Wembley singer, and he thus related what happened to him: “When you sang ‘Abide With Me’ something snapped. I could never explain, but I felt myself a new man. The singing of the first verse recalled my Christian parents, and a godly home, while the second brought before me my unhappy wife and children. I tried to join in the third verse which was a prayer just suited to me.” This is the verse which begins:
“I need Thy presence every passing hour: