“A house of many mansions”

The New Testament Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 14, contains an inspiring passage that Winston Churchill absorbed as a boy:

1. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 4. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Churchill particularly liked verse 2, “a house of many mansions,” and quoted it during five important moments in his career. The first apparent instance was in Dundee, Scotland in May 1908, a Parliamentary seat he won and would hold for 14 years. Here he spoke of the broadness and diversity of the British Empire:

Cologne Cathedral took 600 years to build. Generations of architects and builders lived and died while the work was in progress….So let it be with the British Commonwealth. Let us build wisely, let us build surely, let us build faithfully, let us build, not for the moment but for future years, seeking to establish here below what we hope to find above—a house of many mansions, where there shall be room for all.[5]

The thought remained with him three years later, when as Home Secretary he said in London:

The British Empire must be a house of many mansions, in which there shall be room for each and all to develop to the fullest his personal or national contribution to the common united welfare and to the strength of the indivisible whole.[6]

Thirty years on

“Many mansions” lodged comfortably in his commodious memory for almost 30 years before Churchill found need of it again. This time it was to assure peoples under the Nazi boot that their ultimate liberation was sure:

The day will come when the joybells will ring again throughout Europe, and when victorious nations, masters not only of their foes, but of themselves, will plan and build in justice, in tradition, and in freedom, a house of many mansions where there will be room for all.[7]

He certainly thought this a serviceable line, because he invoked it to President Roosevelt in 1943. He mentioned only chapter and verse, since he knew FDR kept a Bible handy. The President had cabled that Cairo, their proposed meeting place before the Teheran Conference with Stalin, was vulnerable to German air attack. Should they  rendezvous elsewhere? Churchill replied: “See St. John, chapter 14, verses 1 to 4.”[8]

The text of those verses was typed on the message by his Map Room staff. “On reading this through more carefully after it had gone,” Churchill reflected, “I was a little concerned lest, apart from a shadow of unintended profanity, it should be thought I was taking too much upon myself and thus giving offence. However, the President brushed all objections aside and our plans were continued, unchanged.”[9]

Again at Fulton in 1946, in perhaps his most crucial speech of the postwar years, Churchill argued for a continuation of the Anglo-American “special relationship” born in World War II. There was nothing in the United Nations Charter, he said, that precluded any special arrangements between countries:

None of these clash with the general interest of a world agreement, or a world organisation; on the contrary they help it. ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ Special associations between members of the United Nations which have no aggressive point against any other country, which harbour no design incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, far from being harmful, are beneficial and, as I believe, indispensable.[10]

Endnotes

Churchill’s Biblical storehouse

“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” —St. John 14:2 [1]

We have often said of our own British Empire: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” So in this far greater world structure, which we shall surely raise out of the ruins of desolating war, there will be room for all generous, free associations of a special character, so long as they are not disloyal to the world cause nor seek to bar the forward march of mankind. —WSC, House of Commons, 21 April 1944

* * * *

“Arm yourselves, and be valiant men, and see that ye be in readiness against the morning…For it is better for us to die in battle, than to behold the calamities of our people and our sanctuary. Nevertheless, as the will of God is in heaven, so let him do.” —I Maccabees 3:58-60 [2]

Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be. —WSC, Broadcast, 19 May 1940

Frequent Biblical allusions

“More than to any other book or group of books, Churchill alludes to the King James Bible,” wrote Darrell Holley in Churchill’s Literary Allusions:

It is for him the primary source of interesting illustrations, descriptive images, and stirring phrases. His knowledge of the Bible manifests itself in direct quotations, in paraphrased retellings of Biblical stories, and in his frequent, perhaps even unconscious, use of Biblical terms and phrases. The Tower of Babel, Belshazzar’s feast…the millstone around the neck, the “great gulf fixed” between Paradise and Hell [from Luke 16:26] the last great Battle of Armageddon—these occur often in Churchill’s writing.”[3]

Yet Churchill was not a religious man. Having read the leading anti-religious tracts of the late 19th century, weighing them against the Anglican teachings of his boyhood, he held a pragmatic attitude toward spiritual questions:

I adopted quite early in life a system of believing what I wanted to believe, while at the same time leaving reason to pursue unfettered whatever paths she was capable of treading.Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University education used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. The whole creation is but a dream; all phenomena are imaginary. You create your own universe as you go along.[4]

What moved Churchill was the Biblical beauty of King James English, badly mutilated by “new revised” Bibles ostensibly designed to make them more “relevant.” He had an ear for the memorable phrase, and he never hesitated to deploy Biblical allusions both famous and obscure. One of each is sufficient to demonstrate his expertise.

Continued in Part 2.