In one of the battles of World War II, the commander of a besieged British force radioed to his headquarters: “but if not.”

These words are found in the Christian Old Testament, in the third chapter of the book of Daniel. Three young Jewish men taken captive by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, refused to bow down to a statue of Nebuchadnezzar, set up for the people to worship. When Nebuchadnezzar heard of it, he ordered the men to be burned alive in a fiery furnace.

The men refused. They answered the king: “. . . our God . . . is able to deliver us . . . But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.”

According to the Biblical passage, the men were miraculously rescued. However, the phrase “but if not” became a symbol for the British people in their great struggle with Hitler’s Nazism. They would stand against the might of his armies, even if Britain seemed close to being vanquished as a nation.

The origin of those words would not be recognized by many English speaking people today. We have lost much of our shared heritage.

Nevertheless, the words remain a symbol for those who struggle against the greed and selfishness and perverted power of this age, in what sometimes seems a losing struggle.