Hidden TreasureF W Boreham alluded to the hidden features of the sacramental in which its secret meaning was made known only to the initiated or to those who had the eyes to see. In editorials about ordinary objects hiding sacramental treasure, Boreham pleaded for discovering the sacramental in the inn,[1] revealed the “precepts of the porch”[2] and he wrote various articles about understanding “the secret of the street”[3] and seeing “the glory of the street”.[4]
Coming Ready or Not
A corollary to the concept of hiddenness was the belief that there was a power within ordinary objects that was working to make the hidden truths revealed. As already noted, Boreham wrote of ordinary things being “pregnant with romance”, a powerful image signifying the life and emerging quality of the sacramental.[5]
The nineteenth-century British preacher Henry Drummond (about whom Boreham wrote[6] and lectured[7]) voiced this same thought when saying, “If you are apathetic, if you will not look at the things which are seen, they will summon you”.[8]
Geoff Pound
Image: 'the precepts of the porch.'
[1] F W Boreham, Mercury, 14 December 1918.
[2] Boreham, Mercury, 2 October 1915.
[3] Boreham, Mercury, 26 April 1919.
[4] Boreham, Mercury, 5 January 1946.
[5] Boreham, Mercury, 22 December 1956.
[6] Boreham, Mercury, 17 February 1951.
[7] F W Boreham, Mushrooms on the moor (London: The Epworth Press, 1915), 21.
[8] Henry Drummond, The ideal life and other unpublished addresses (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), 129.
