Boreham: The Stimulant of a Noble Purpose

I came across James Ryle’s web site today on which he posts ‘rylisms’.

In his most recent posting James gave this fine quote:

F. W. Boreham wrote, “There is no intellectual stimulant so intoxicating as the formation of a noble purpose, the conception of a sudden resolve, the making of a great decision.”

Follow the link to read the rest of this interesting post entitled, The Unflappable Champion. Thanks James.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: “Pursuing a noble purpose.”

Boreham on Grasping & Passing the Torch

The Brighton Baptist Church in Melbourne is close to the Armadale Baptist Church, where F W Boreham served as pastor.

On the history page of the Brighton Baptist web site are some words and a quote from Dr Boreham who participated in the church’s centenary celebrations:

“Brighton Baptist Church has a long history, being founded in 1851. We are still encouraged and remember the words of F.W. Boreham as part of the 1951 Centenary celebrations: ‘we grasp the torch handed to us by noble predecessors, and who, in due time, pass it on to eager and faithful successors. Each a link in a golden chain.’”

Dr Geoff Pound

Image: “pass it on to eager and faithful successors.”

Boreham with Truth for Ordinary Lives

I am constantly amazed at how F W Boreham’s books continue to be quoted and increasingly by members of the younger generation.

Check out this article by Nathan Zacharias and also posted by Tim, who finds meaning in Boreham’s essay, The Poppies in the Corn, and applies it skillfully to his own life and clan.

Image: Poppies in the Corn

Geoff Pound on the Significance of 2009

Important Anniversary
F W Boreham once wrote, “When a man has been fifty years in his grave it ought to be possible to review his work dispassionately. The sentiment that is born of human fondness has by that time evaporated; and the prejudices that arise from personal animosity have died down.”

Next year (2009) it will be fifty years since the death of F W Boreham and for many reasons it will be an important year to reflect on his contribution and distil the insightful lessons from his life.

Teaching and Preaching
I am booking in dates now for preaching and teaching appointments in different countries in 2009 and I wanted to see if you (your seminary, church, conference organizers etc.) were interested.

This might include:

* A one off lecture or after dinner talk about F W Boreham (with his books available for purchase afterwards).

* Several lectures, perhaps for pastors and leaders at an annual conference, which take a Boreham theme. For instance, I have been working on a series of lectures to inspire effective preaching and communication in various media with the title, ‘Fancy a Preacher Named Bore-ham: The Communication Secrets of F W Boreham’.

* I also have spoken on Boreham and His commitment to Public Theology—getting the conversation about God out of the churches and engaging with the important issues that are facing society.

* I am not confined to Boreham themes as I regularly lecture in different parts of the world especially on Leadership (Getting a Vision for your organization, Leading into Constructive Change, Working constructively through conflict) and on Mission (examining the many dimensions that make up the mission of Jesus Christ).

* I am also keen to share something of the vision and opportunities of service through Theologians Without Borders and to speak about Creative Things that Are Happening in Theological Education and how this Creativity can be Engendered in ministry and in the seminary.

RSVP
If you have anything from a vague idea to a definitive invitation, do let me know at the earliest time so I can coordinate the different appointments.

Dr. Geoff Pound
geoffpound@yahoo.com.au


Images: Frank William Boreham; Geoff Pound

Boreham on Fate, Destiny and Providence

I was reading the other day Commander J W Gambier’s Links in my Life, and was amused at the curious inconsistency which led the author first to sneer at Providence and then to bear striking witness to its fidelity.

As a young fellow the Commander came to Australia and worked on a way-back station, but he had soon had enough. ‘I was to try what fortune could do for a poor man; but I believed in personal endeavour and the recognition of it by Providence. I did not know Providence.'
‘I did not know Providence!’ sneers our young bushman….

But on the very same page that contains the sneer Commander Gambler tells this story. When he was leaving England the old cabman who drove him to the station said to him, ‘If you see my son Tom in Australia, ask him to write home and tell us how he's getting on.’ ‘I explained,’ the Commander tells us, ‘that Australia was a big country, and asked him if he had any idea of the name of the place his son had gone to. He had not.’

As soon as Commander Gambier arrived at Newcastle, in New South Wales, he met an exceptionally ragged ostler. As the ostler handed him his horse, Mr. Gambler felt an irresistible though inexplicable conviction that this was the old cabman's son. He felt absolutely sure of it; so he said:
‘Your name is Fowles, isn't it?’
He looked amazed, and seemed to think that his questioner had some special reason for asking him, and was at first disinclined to answer. But Mr. Gambier pressed him and said, ‘Your father, the Cheltenham cab-driver, asked me to look you up.’

He then admitted that he was the man, and Mr. Gambier urged him to write to his father. All this on the selfsame page as the ugly sneer about Providence!

And a dozen pages farther on I came upon a still more striking story. Commander Gambier was very unfortunate, very homesick, and very miserable in Australia. He could not make up his mind whether to stay here or return to England. ‘At last,’ he says, ‘I resolved to leave it to fate.’ The only difference that I can discover between the 'Providence' whom Commander Gambier could not trust, and the `fate' to which he was prepared to submit all his fortunes, is that the former is spelt with a capital letter and the latter with a small one. But to the story.

‘On the road where I stood was a small bush grog shop, and the coaches pulled up here to refresh the ever-thirsty bush traveller. At this spot the up-country and down-country coaches met, and I resolved that I would get into whichever came in first, leaving it to destiny to settle.

Looking down the long, straight track over which the up-country coach must come, I saw a cloud of dust, and well can I remember the curious sensation I had that I was about to turn my back upon England for ever! But in the other direction a belt of scrub hid the view, the road making a sharp turn. And then, almost simultaneously, I heard a loud crack of a whip, and round this corner, at full gallop, came the down coach, pulling up at the shanty not three minutes before the other! I felt like a man reprieved, for my heart was really set on going home; and I jumped up into the down coach with a great sense of relief!’ And thus Mr. Gambier returned to England, became a Commander in the British Navy, and one of the most distinguished ornaments of the service. He sneers at 'Providence,' yet trusts to `fate,' and leaves everything to `destiny’!”

Boreham concludes that regardless of his sneering and confusion, Gambier is being guided by the Hand that longs to lead us home.

F W Boreham, ‘When the Cows Come Home’, Mushrooms on the Moor (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 205-208.

Image: “I jumped up into the down coach with a great sense of relief!”

Boreham on Children and Simplicity

In our last posting we heard F W Boreham talk of the importance of children and his indebtedness to children in his preaching ministry—“The children in the congregation are my salvation.” This new excerpt is from the same sermon and he extends the themes of children and simplicity in good communication:

Style of the Masters
Can anyone imagine John Wesley talking to his summer-evening crowd at Dublin about ‘nullifidian,’ or quoting German?

I will say nothing of the Galilean preacher. The common people heard Him gladly. He was so simple and therefore so sublime.

A little child, especially a little child of a distinctly restless and mischievous propensity, is really a great help to a minister, and it is a shame to deprive the good man of such assistance. It is only by such help that some of us can hope to approximate to real sublimity.

Keep Your Eyes on the Waiters
Lord Beaconsfield used to say that, in making after-dinner speeches, he kept his eye on the waiters. If they were unmoved, he knew that he was in the realms of mediocrity. But when they grew excited and waved their napkins, he knew that he was getting home.

Pick out the Stupidest
Lord Cockburn, who was for some time Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, when asked for the secret of his extraordinary success at the bar, replied sagely, ‘When I was addressing a jury, I invariably picked out the stupidest-looking fellow of the lot, and addressed myself specially to him—for this good reason: I knew that if I convinced him I should be sure to carry all the rest!’

Speak to the Waiters
Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in addressing gatherings of ministers, used to tell this story of Lord Cockburn with immense relish, and earnestly commended its philosophy to their consideration. I was reading the other day that Dr. Boyd Carpenter, formerly Bishop of Ripon and now Canon of Westminster, on being asked if he felt nervous when preaching before Queen Victoria, replied, ‘I never address the Queen at all. I know there will be present the Queen, the Princes, the household, and the servants down to the scullery-maid, and I preach to the scullery-maid.’

Little children do not attend political dinners such as Lord Beaconsfield adorned; nor Courts of Justice such as Lord Cockburn addressed; nor Royal chapels like that in which Dr. Boyd Carpenter officiated. And, in the absence of the children, the only chance of reaching sublimity that offered itself to these unhappy orators lay in making good use of the waiter, the stupid juryman, and the scullery-maid…

Discuss Manuscripts with Your Students
Robert Louis Stevenson knew what he was doing when he discussed every sentence of Treasure Island with his schoolboy step-son before giving it its final form. It was by that wise artifice that one of the greatest stories in our language came to be written…

Expressing Love with Simplicity
We do not make love in the language of the psychologist; we make love in the language of the little child. When life approaches to sublimity, it always expresses itself with simplicity. In the depth of mortal anguish, or at the climax of human joy, we do not use a grandiloquent and incomprehensible phraseology. We talk in monosyllables. As we grow old, and draw near to the gates of the grave, we become more and more simple.

Perfect Simplicity
In his declining years, John Newton wrote, ‘When I was young I was sure of many things. There are only two things of which I am sure now; one is that I am a miserable sinner, and the other that Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour.’ What is this but the soul garbing itself in the most perfect simplicities as the only fitting raiment in which it can greet the everlasting sublimities?

Sublimity and Simplicity
‘Here are sublimity and simplicity together!’ exclaimed John Wesley on that hot July night at Dublin. ‘How can any one that would speak as the oracles of God use harder words than are to be found here? By this I advise every young preacher to form his style!’

Aspiring to be Great
‘He who aspires to be a great poet—as sublime as Milton—must first become a little child!’ declares the greatest of all littérateurs.

‘Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven!’ says the Master Himself, taking a little child and setting him in the midst of them.

‘Pity my simplicity!’ pleads this little thing with its soft arms round my neck.
‘Give me that simplicity!’ say I.

F W Boreham, ‘Pity My Simplicity!’ Mushrooms on the Moor (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 153-157.

Image: “taking a little child…”

Boreham on Children in Church

I am told that, away beyond the Never-Never ranges [remote areas of Australian outback] there is a church from which the children are excluded before the sermon begins.

I wish my informant had not told me of its existence. I am not often troubled with nightmare, my supper being quite a frugal affair.

But just occasionally I find myself a victim of the terror by night. And when I am mercifully awakened, and asked why I am gasping so horribly and perspiring so freely. I have to confess that I was dreaming that I had somehow become the minister of that childless congregation.

As is usual after nightmare, I look round with a sense of inexpressible thankfulness on discovering that it was only a horrid dream. An appointment to such a charge would be to me a most fearsome and terrifying prospect. I could not trust myself.

In a way, I envy the man who can hold his own under such circumstances. His transcendent powers enable him to preserve his sturdy humanness of character, his charming simplicity of diction, his graphic picturesqueness of phrase, and his exquisite winsomeness of behaviour without the extraneous assistance which the children render to some of us.

But I could not do it. I should go all to pieces. And so, when I dream that I have entered a pulpit from which I can survey no roguish young faces and mischievous wide-open eyes, I fancy I am ruined and undone. I watch with consternation as the little people file out during the hymn before the sermon, and I know that the sermon is doomed. The children in the congregation are my salvation.

F W Boreham, ‘Pity My Simplicity!’ Mushrooms on the Moor (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 151-152.

Image: “When I dream that I have entered a pulpit from which I can survey no roguish young faces and mischievous wide-open eyes, I fancy I am ruined and undone.”