Guiding Lights – February 01, 2004
The Old North Church, an Anglican church where sea captains and merchants loyal to the crown worshipped, is most famous as the place where two lanterns were hung in the tower to warn that British troops were arriving in Boston. Paul Revere, one of the Sons of Liberty, enlisted the help of the church’s sexton to hang the signal lanterns. Revere, stationed across the bay, mounted a borrowed horse and went off on his famous ride—immortalized in the poem written 85 years later by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.”1 Minutemen were alerted, and the surprised British were defeated in the battle of Lexington. The Old North Church has become a symbol, a place where a warning was posted—two lights set at the highest point in Boston.
Imagine colonial Boston at midnight. Most lanterns had been doused by then. The stars and moon provided dim night lights. Perhaps the steeple of the North Church was visible against the faint sky. It must have been a restless night for many, knowing of an impending attack, and yet not knowing from which direction it would come. Families in two-and three-room homes huddled in the darkness, wondering, waiting. Maybe some could see the lights on the steeple. Others waited for the cry from horsemen like Paul Revere. Hundreds would answer the call and throw themselves into battle and eventual victory.
As we navigate through life, we also depend on certain points of light—beacons that shine through the darkness, steady and never faltering. We look to them for guidance: parents, grandparents, and good friends. Perhaps what made Paul Revere’s ride so remarkable was that so many people trusted him. He had been a bell ringer sounding out alarms at the North Church since he was 15. He’d spent much of his life engaged in the welfare of his community. He could be trusted. He was, as the scriptures say, a light upon a hill.2 And when his fellowmen needed him most, even at the risk of his own life, he was there.
Program #3885
- 1. “Paul Revere’s Ride,” The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow, Cambridge Edition (1922), 207.
2. See Matthew 5:14