One Minute Testimonial: Schweitzer's Eye Caught A Need

GENTLENESS - A One-Minute Testimonial Announcement
Faith Committee, Character Council of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky

Contributed from Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustrations

SCHWEITZER’S EYE CAUGHT A NEED

When a distinguished foreigner paid his only visit to America in 1950, a committee of prominent Chicagoans lined up at the railway station to offer official greetings. But the committee noticed that his eyes were not wholly fixed on them. Those penetrating eyes were wandering beyond the encircling committee. Something on the station platform caught his eye amid the crowd of travelers. With politeness but firmness the great man said to the committee, “Excusez-moi,” and literally dashed past the receptionists.

Diving into the crowd, he stopped beside an elderly woman who was staggering under her load of heavy suitcases and extra bundles. With his big, sensitive hands he grabbed the old woman’s suitcases and bundles and, beckoning her to follow him, he threaded a way through the throngs. He led the woman to the coach she wanted to take, lifted up her suitcases into the overhead rack, and bowing in a courtly manner, wished her, “Bon voyage.”

Then he rushed back to the astounded committee with apologies for keeping them waiting.
This is the way Dr. Albert L. Schweitzer arrived in America!

[Reproduced with permission from Encylopedia of 15,000 Illustrations, by Paul Lee Tan, Communications, Inc., Dallas, TX, 1998, #5058]

[Editor's note: Dr. Albert L. Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a German philosopher, musician,
physician and missionary. By the time he was 21 Schweitzer had decided on the course for
his life. For nine years he would dedicate himself to the study of science, music, and
theology. Then he would devote the rest of his life to serving humanity directly. Before he
was 30 he was a respected writer on theology, an accomplished organist, and an authority
on the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1904 Schweitzer was inspired to become
a medical missionary after reading an evangelical paper regarding the needs of medical
missions. He studied medicine from 1905 to 1913 at the University of Strassbourg. He also
raised money to establish a hospital in French Equatorial Africa. He founded a hospital
there in 1913. Over the years he built a large hospital that served thousands of Africans.
Schweitzer, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, used his $33,000 Nobel Prize to expand
the hospital and to build a leper colony. In 1955 Queen Elizabeth II awarded Schweitzer
the "Order of Merit," Britain's highest civilian honor.]