While the country tried to make sense of the [Supreme] Court’s recent interpretation of First Amendment rights and its long-term consequences, prayer appeared more vibrant than ever in the heartland of America. The pioneer television talk-show host Phil Donahue recounted one of the most moving moments in his life involving the simple act of prayer. Five years out of the University of Notre Dame and working as a reporter for WHIO-TV and radio in Dayton, Ohio, he was assigned to cover an accident in 1962 involving thirty-six men trapped in a West Virginia coal mine.
What made the story a reporter’s dream, particularly for a twenty-seven-year-old, was that CBS News had asked Donahue and the CBS affiliate he worked for to file it for the evening network news. Covering the life-and-death account over the next three days seemed interminable, but the story took on a new, more dramatic twist when a preacher in his thirties called some of the rescuers together to pray around a barrel of burning scrap wood intended to keep the men warm. Donahue and his cameraman fixed themselves on the scene as the minister spoke from his heart: “Dear God, we ask… at this troubled time…” When the minister was done with the prayer, he led the men in singing a hymn written in 1855 by the Canadian Joseph Scriven:
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and grief to bear,
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer.
With quiet petition, the minister concluded, “Bless us, Lord, hold us in your arms.” The sincerity, spontaneity, and drama of the moment made the scene electric. As Donahue later wrote, “It was all there… rock-of-ages faith… fearful eyes… snow falling from heaven.” The Protestant hymn was unfamiliar to the Catholic Donahue, but he would remember it for the rest of his life.
Just as Donahue and his camerman began to savor their exclusive for the evening news, panic set n. They realized that the camera had broken down in the freezing temperatures. Their “magic moment” had never been captured for America’s “Tiffany Network” and its huge nationwide audience. The camerman quickly fixed the problem, and Donahue lost no time in approaching the preacher, explaining who he was, what had happened, and how he needed to have him repeat the informal prayer service for the camera.
To his amazement, the preacher calmly looked at him and said, “But I have already prayed, son.” “Reverend,” Donahue clearly enunciated, “I am from CEE BEE ESS NEWS.” “Wouldn’t be honest,” the minister responded.
Donahue persisted, telling the minister that his prayer would appear on more than two hundred television stations with millions of viewers watching and petitioning God as well for the safety of the miners. “Wouldn’t be right,” the minister responded one final time as he walked away. Gritting his teeth, Donahue called CBS in New York, telling his assignment editor, “The son of a bitch” just will not do it. Donahue was livid that his moment of glory had blown away in the drifting snow on a mountaintop in West Virginia, despite the fact that all thirty-six miners would make it out alive.
In time Donahue realized how that one preacher had shown “more moral courage” than he had ever witnessed firsthand in his life, that repeating the prayer for others would have been “phony.” On that bitterly cold day there would be “no ‘take two’ for Jesus.” It did not matter whether it was for a young reporter, for millions of people across the country glued to their television sets, or even for “CEE BEE ESS NEWS.”
One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, Jr. Doubleday, 2005. p.364, 365
