Today we celebrate the 85th Anniversary of the ESU - a decade more than the Biblical Lifespan of 3 score years and ten. And while at 85 one might expect and deserve a little rest, this 85 year old is unlikely to experience that. We feel young, we are young, we work with and for the young and in our great task of providing "global understanding through English" there is far more to do than we have yet been able to achieve.

That said, this day and this service and this place enables us to pause and reflect.

Here in Westminster Abbey time has a special dimension of memory and achievement. Many of the achievements recorded here have been in the language itself - in drama and poetry and prose, in political and parliamentary debate, in oratory that has galvanized reform, in words that have inspired service and sacrifice.

And the achievements of science have also harnessed and ridden the language - conveying those insights into ourselves and our environment which have made the modern world. Achievements so often remembered, recorded, repeated, analysed, debated in this English language by generations of historians of both the arts and the sciences.

And so, today, what should we best remember? For what should we most give thanks? On what should we now reflect?

An individual living for 85 years will have been shaped by events and by others. Such a person themselves may have shaped events and influenced others. So too with the English Speaking Union.

It has benefited from so many who have provided leadership, inspiration and service over the years. We owe a special debt to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh - our President - whose enthusiasm and shrewd judgment has been unfailing.

And there are so many to whom we are indebted. From Sir Evelyn Wrench, the founder to Sir Winston Churchill, the ESU's Chairman in the early 1920's, the man who uniquely "armed the English language" and sent it into battle in defense of freedom, from directors general at Dartmouth House over the generations to those who have volunteered their time, energy and money to grow the ESU as a membership organization first here in Britain, then in the United States, and today in countries all around the world.

In so doing, the ESU has touched the lives of tens of thousands of people - many at a decisive point in their own development. Young people who have won scholarships to study and work outside their own countries, those who have competed locally and then internationally in speaking and debating, those who have attended conferences, those who have benefited from the hospitality of member's homes in countries far from their own. And in its turn the ESU has been enriched by all these people, gaining from their perspectives, thrilled by their enthusiasm, energized by their grasp of wider horizons for themselves and others.

What of events? The ESU has held many, created many and helped to shape some. During World War II, Dartmouth House became a second home for thousands of American Servicemen at a critical time. Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the ESU's expansion in East and Central Europe has responded to an imperative need to build bridges of contact, understanding and opportunity. In Asia and Latin America the ESU's growth nurtures understanding between peoples and generations at a crucial moment in world development.

Our two newest ESU's are here in the Abbey today - the Lebanon and Madagascar. Both countries know themselves to face daunting challenges but in both people believe the English language and the ESU can help to release human potential and provide vital links to the global community.

So what of the events that shape us? Above all else it is the explosion in the use of English globally.

Of the four most numerous languages - Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and English - the English language alone owes its prominence to its use as a 2nd language world-wide. There are many reasons for this and many consequences.

Of reasons, the Empire and Commonwealth, the British diaspora across the world, America's magnetic attraction for millions of immigrants are the most important. The consequences include the global role of English today in the sciences, in trade, in international organization, in international negotiations, in transport, entertainment, information technology and communications of every kind.

But for those of us who speak English as our mother tongue one consequence should be avoided - that of any false pride of ownership. We - perhaps particularly the British and Americans amongst us - do well to remember that English today belongs to all who use the language.

As John Agard has said in his memorable poem written especially for this service - we "resurrect a rainbow letting English be our bridge":

One of the men who most influenced me was a Frenchman - Jean Monnet - the key post war architect of European Unity. In 1973 as a BBC interviewer I presented a documentary on his life. In conversation at his house at Houjarray outside Paris, he said this on camera -

Since 9.11 it has become clear that what Jean Monnet brilliantly identified as the key challenge for Europe after two World Wars is today an imperative for the whole world.

It is our opportunity and obligation to offer English to a volatile world at a dangerous time - not as a means of dominance but as a uniquely universal means of understanding - shared not owned - not for "global glory", but for a dialogue that can reap a "world harvest".