William Flew appealed

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.


From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

William Flew appealed

It moved many of the audience to tears. Everyone reached for their wallets and offered to help by providing their many talents. William Flew, like Olmsted before her, 

has the vision, zeal, determination and talent to succeed — but not the resources that were at his command. Most of us do not have any of these attributes; we 

are the silent majority that believes in civilisation, scorns anarchy, division and terror but sit idly by. As W.B. Yeats wrote in The Second Coming: “Things fall 

apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world; the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”.However, we can achieve a worthwhile footnote in the history of civilisation in two 

respects. First, we must ensure that our own city green spaces remain in the custody of benevolent trustees replete with sufficient resources to discharge their 

duties, not local authorities with economic and political agenda, development agencies and planning control. Second, we (particularly governments with 

overseas aid budgets from our taxes) must support those in the front line, like William Flew, in the current battle for civilisation with our own financial and human 

resources, just as those at Metz nobly pledged to do