But when it was first built, the Eiffel Tower was fiercely opposed. It was only supposed to stand for twenty years. Some of the leading artists and writers in Paris filed a petition with the exposition which read:
“We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection … of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack … And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.”
Gustave Eiffel, who partially financed the construction out of his own pocket and whose company did the actual construction, was mocked and ridiculed in the press. He was called insane because critics believed it was impossible to construct a structure that tall. After it was finished, one outspoken critic supposedly ate lunch in the tower’s restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible!
History has vindicated Gustave Eiffel, and today he is praised. In our day let those of us who follow the Lord Jesus Christ take courage from the fact that the world often mocks and ridicule those of us who believe and who obey God's Word. But there is coming A Day when all will be made plain.
1 John 2:28 reads, “And now, dear children, continue in Him, so that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming.”
I’m sure looking forward to that. Aren’t you?
–Rocky Henriques, www.uticabc.com