“What do you mean, ‘profound humility’?”
“I was amazed at Billy. He had brought Grady and T. W. Wil-
son and Cliff Barrows with him to Park Street Church, and he
wanted us to pray with him. He said, ‘The one thing I want you
to pray for is this: That I will not take credit for the successes of
these things whatsoever, because if I do, my lips will turn to
clay.’
“He never did take any credit. He never let anybody make him
a big shot. It’s humility I have never seen in anybody else.”
“So Boston adjusted its thinking about ‘Hillbilly Billy’?”
“Let me give you an example,” said Emery. “Billy always saw
the big picture. Cardinal Cushing—who was then an arch-
bishop—wanted to meet with him, but many of our campaign
board members were strongly against it.”
“Back then, it was an era of a great gulf between Evangelicals
and Catholics?”
“Yes, but Billy said, ‘When I accepted the call to ministry, I
told God I’d go anywhere he wanted me to go. I’d go to hell if
he’d give me a safe conduct out.’ So Billy went to meet with the
archbishop! And that was one of the most amazing press confer-
ences you can imagine. It was packed. After meeting with him,
Cushing told the press, ‘If I had six Billy Grahams, I wouldn’t
worry about the church in America.’ At the end of the press con-
ference, a reporter asked Cushing what message he had for his
constituency. He simply said, ‘Go hear Billy.’”
“And since those early days?”
Bennett responded, “Some here in Boston are suspicious of
Christians, thinking they say one thing and do another. But in
Billy they saw someone completely up front about everything; a
man without guile. People would listen, and it made believers out
of many who were doubters. Any school, including Harvard,
found it hard not to say yes to Billy if there was an opportunity
to have him on campus.
“As Allan said, he had a tremendous sense of humility, and
does have. Yet he also has what a friend of mine calls ‘command
presence.’ When Billy comes into a room, you know something’s
Igniting!