During the Second World War, F W Boreham in his editorials resumed his silent stance on war issues in favor of upbeat themes designed to keep his readers and himself in a positive and hopeful frame of mind. His ministry at Scot’s Church appeared to be very well received with large numbers of people gathering every week.Dr Boreham’s emergence from the war years and entry to his final decade as an unwell, bereft and despondent man were reflected in his editorials and in his diaries if not in his essays and his sermons. Not only did he seem out of step with the mood of the day but his paucity of references to major events and issues facing Australians in the post-war period showed he was out of touch with the issues his readers were facing.
Interestingly, in 1941, on his seventieth birthday, Boreham wrote an essay declaring that “no man should hold an office or sit on a committee” when he is seventy because of the “tendency to live in the past” and the likelihood of becoming “insufferably tedious.”[1]
Geoff Pound
Image: “unwell, bereft and despondent.” This condition is captured in this photograph of FWB.
[1] F W Boreham, Boulevards of paradise (London: The Epworth Press, 1944), 15-17.
