Dr. Nels Ferre was one of the imminent theologians a generation ago -- a professor at Vanderbilt. As an old man, he stood before his students and talked about his coming to America.

He was one of eight children living in Sweden. With the war coming ever closer, his mother chose him to leave the country. She took the family down to the great cathedral in the middle of the city and, having the children stand in a circle, encouraged them to pray together for each other, but especially for Nels.

He still recalls his brothers and sisters with the faces of children because that was the last time he ever saw them. "I see them as children. I hear them still today as children at their prayers.

"Then my mother made me go with her while my brothers and sisters waited in the church," he remembered. "She …