Sharing the Savior’s Story

No Accident

Years ago a British express train was racing through the night, its powerful headlamp speared the fog ahead. This train was special, for it carried Britain’s Queen Victoria. Suddenly, revealed in the beam of the train’s headlight, the engineer saw a figure in a black cloak. On the middle of the tracks, he was waving his arms. It took but a second for the engineer to throw the brake lever, a little longer for the train to scream to a halt.

The engineer, along with the other railroad employees, got out to find the fellow who had stopped them. The man was gone. They did, however, find a section of track that had been washed out by a swollen stream. The engineer cringed at the thought: if the unfound man in the black cloak had not stopped them, they would have derailed, creating a national catastrophe.

Eventually the bridge was repaired and the train finished its trip into London. There, the mystery of the man in the black cloak was discovered. At the base of the engine's headlamp was a great moth. The engineer studied it, wet its wings and pasted it to the glass of his lamp. Climbing back into his cab, he switched on the lamp and saw the “phantom flagman” in the bright beam. Seconds before the train had reached the ruined track the moth had flown onto the lamp. In the fog, it appeared to be a black-cloaked man waving his arms. Queen Victoria’s reaction to the strange occurrence? She said, “I'm sure it was no accident. It was God's way of saving us.”

Excerpt from The Lutheran Hour broadcast of: August 3, 2003