With Bleeding Hands He Built A
“… WITH BLEEDING HANDS HE BUILT A BRIDGE!”
The Golden Gate Bridge was built at a cost of $35,000,000 and required four years to complete. At that time, it was the world’s longest span – 4,200 feet and is swung between two towers 746 feet high. The chief engineer, “a proud and resolute man of Napoleonic stature and Napoleonic spirit,” battled against determined opposition and criticism to throw his 100,000 tons of steel across the entrance of San Francisco Bay. A Stanford seismologist declared that the southern pier was over a geologic fault and would menace the harbor in case of an earthquake. Others claimed that the Japanese would sink it – blocking the harbor. Some said it would never pay for itself. Undaunted by wisecracking small fry or by scholarship, Strauss drove through to final conquest and celebrated his triumph in a poem called “A Symphony In Steel” which opens with these lines: “Launched midst a thousand hopes and fears, damned by a myriad hostile seers, yet ne’er was its course stayed!” And there she stands today – combining the strength of beauty and the beauty of strength. The fee of the chief engineer was one million dollars – the original toll charge was 50 cents! Think of it! Think of renting a $35,000,000 facility for 50 cents – a bargain if there has ever been a bargain!
Years ago a group of mocking university students assailed me with this question: “Why don’t you give yourself to something worthwhile?” I asked, “What do you consider worthwhile?” They answered: `Why don’t you build a bridge – or something?”
I explained that the bridge had been built. The towers are remarkable – one was raised outside the gates of old Jerusalem; it was a wooden structure with a cross-beam at the top; it was soaked with divine blood and seared by judgement fires. The other tower stands high on the “Delectable mountains of immorality,” and around it on every side flash walls of jasper, and over it the arching rainbow of perpetual peace. The span is the longest ever swung by an engineer – it stretches all the way from the road to hell to the gates of heaven. It was built at a terrific cost to the Chief Engineer – as the last rough rivet was driven in place by a Roman sledge hammer, He died shouting (“IT IS FINISHED!”) Before His bloody body had been removed from this magnificent super-structure of redemption – the bridge had been crossed by a thief. Millions more have crossed since. For written there in bold blazing letters of fire for all men everywhere to read: (THERE ARE NO TOLL CHARGES ON THIS BRIDGE – IT IS FREE!)
Robert McCluskey
The Missionary Voice
“For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold…. but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 (1 Peter 1:18-19).
“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1 :7).
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
“But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8).
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