Boreham on The Lightning and the Dawn

I love what my friend, Paul Windsor, had to say on his blog this week (March 5, 2007) about The Lightning and the Dawn.

I did not pick up on his title as one inspired by F. W. Boreham but when I wrote to thank him for his thoughts he replied:

“You will be interested in the fact that the lightning/dawn idea was a Boreham one (I think). I am quite sure I read that ‘dawn’ idea in one of his books and experienced a burden lifted as I did so.”

I, too, have been greatly liberated by this thought that sometimes revelation comes to us as a Damascus Rd. experience and at other times it comes as it did to those on the Emmaus Rd. Being myself part of the Emmaus Rd. fraternity I have found this helpful, particularly at testimony time when it often seems that the only way God works is with lightning bolts that blind us and knock us off our horses.

If you’d like to read the entire Boreham essay and sermon here it is:

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THE LIGHTNING AND THE DAWN

By F. W. Boreham

JUST as, in many homes, there hang companion pictures, so Jesus loved to present His parables in pairs. The Parable of the Mustard-seed and the Parable of the Leaven are obviously twins.
The kingdom is like mustard-seed which a man took... . The kingdom is like leaven which a woman took... .

Both point, in different ways, the same truth. Similarly, the Parable of the Treasure and the Parable of the Pearls are a pair, and both grew out of the selfsame custom. In the old days, before banks were dreamed of, an oriental magnate divided his wealth into three parts. The first part he secreted in some safe place, so that if he lost the other parts, it would still be available; with the second part he purchased diamonds or pearls, so that, if he were suddenly driven from his home, his possessions would be easily portable; and the third part he invested. The first and second of these partitions of wealth explain this pair of parables.

I

These two men—the man who found the treasure in the field and the man who sought the goodly pearls—represent two familiar types of character.

We all know these men—know them even by name. The one is Mr. Stay-at-Home: the other is Mr. Gad-about. The one finds his treasure in his own field: the other wanders over the world in search of his. They stand in striking contrast the one to the other; yet each is excellent in his own way. The one cleaves to the centre: the other reaches out to the circumference.

We all love the man who finds his sweetest happiness at home. His field, as in this case, may be only a rented field: the man in the parable has to sell all that he possesses to make it legally his own: but, to him, there is no place like it. He loves every blade of grass that grows there.

He represents the men who have no desire to wander. He goes through life crooning to himself that there is no place like home. No woman like his wife; no children like his children; no village like his village; no farm like his farm; no church like his church; no minister like his minister. We smile at his frailty; but it is a very lovable frailty; and, as in the parable, it invariably rewards him with wondrous treasure.

Moreover, it has meant much to the world at large. It is the foundation of all the finest patriotism. Civilization is based on the attachment of the peasant to the soil. An Englishman's love of England is, first of all, his love for that little bit of England in which he was born. Lecky, Macaulay, and all the great historians insist that the most heroic and chivalrous virtues have been displayed by men who were moved, not primarily by their devotion to an empire, but by their passionate fondness for a certain city or town. Men died for Athens rather than for Greece; for Florence rather than for Italy. All these men found their treasure in their own fields.

But the man who travels widely in search of his pearls also represents a type. If the first man represents a divine content, this man represents an equally divine discontent. He is the father of all adventurers, all discoverers, all inventors, all explorers. Take Livingstone, for example. It is just as well that most men are content to settle down to the task that lies nearest to them, working out their modest destinies without bothering their heads about the distant and the unexplored. But it is also well that each age contains a few adventurous spirits who feel themselves taunted and challenged and dared by the great unknown. They are restless and ill at ease as long as there is a sea uncharted, a mountain unclimbed, a desert uncrossed or a forest untracked. It is the most sublime form that curiosity ever assumes.

From the moment of his landing on African soil, Livingstone was haunted, night and day, by visions and voices that came to him from out of the undiscovered. He tried hard, and he tried repeatedly, to settle down to the life of an ordinary mission station. But it was impossible. The lure of the wilds fascinated him. He built three houses and left each of them as soon as it was built. The stories that the natives told of vast inland seas and of wild, tumultuous waters tantalized him beyond endurance. The instincts of the hydrographer tingled within him. He saw the three great rivers—the Nile, the Congo, and the Zambesi—emptying themselves into three separate oceans; and he convinced himself that the man who could solve the riddle of their sources would open up a new continent to the commerce and civilization of mankind. Like the merchant-man who sought the goodly pearls, he therefore became a nomad, a wanderer, a gipsy. The world has been wonderfully enriched by the lives of men who, like the man who found his treasure in his own field, have made the most of what they already have; but it also owes an incalculable debt to the men who, turning their backs on all that has been acquired, set out in search of fresh realms to conquer.

II

These two men represent two types of spiritual experience. The man who found his treasure in the field represents the people who enter the Kingdom of God without seeking it: the man who found the pearl of great price represents the people who enter the Kingdom as a result of a long and patient and tireless quest. The man who turned up the gold with his ploughshare had never once thought of treasure; the man who wandered about the world in search of pearls had thought of nothing else.

The first of these men represents the class to which Paul belonged. Whilst, in persecuting mood, he made his way to Damascus, `suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying' And so on. It came upon him as abruptly as a flash of lightning. It is often so. Men plough their common fields as ploughmen should, and the hidden gold appears! Shepherds are watching sheep as shepherds should; and, suddenly, they hear the angels sing! Scientists are watching stars as scientists should, and all at once they see the star that leads to the Light of the World! Fishermen are fishing as fishermen should, when, all unexpectedly, a Stranger comes down to the shore who bids them leave their nets and fish for men! A Customs officer goes down to his office, and, whilst seated at his desk, hears the resistless challenge of discipleship, the clarion call of destiny! The man who faithfully follows his allotted path may at any moment find other worlds impinging upon this! He may turn a bend of the dusty road and find himself face to face with the glory ineffable! Like crocuses that peep up through the snow, life's golden romances burst through our most frigid commonplaces! In the most unlikely places the hidden hoards lie buried.

The second of these men represents the class to which Bunyan belonged. Both in The Pilgrim's Progress and in Grace Abounding the way of salvation is a long and tortuous one. Mr. Spurgeon used to tell of an old fish-wife who, staggering home with her load of fish, was confronted by a youthful evangelist who saw an opportunity of dropping a word in season. 'Ah!' he exclaimed, `here you are coming along with your burden on your back; let me ask you if you have got another burden, a spiritual burden.' `What!' she asked, `do you mean that burden in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress? Because if you do, young man, I got rid of it many years ago, probably before you were born. But I went a better way to work than the pilgrim did. The evangelist that John Bunyan talks about was one of your parsons that did not preach the Gospel, for he said, "Keep that light in thine eye, and run to the wicket gate." Why, man alive! that was not the place for him to run to. He should have said, "Do you see that Cross? Run there at once!" But instead of that, he sent the poor pilgrim to the wicket gate first, and much good he got by going there. He got tumbling into the dough, and was like to have been killed by it.' `But did not you,' the young man asked, `go through any slough of despond?' `Yes, I did, but I found it a great deal easier going through with my burden off than with it on my back.'

In telling the story, Mr. Spurgeon used to say that `the old woman was quite right. John Bunyan put the getting rid of the burden too far off from the commencement of the pilgrimage. If he meant to show what usually happens, he was right; but if he meant to show what ought to have happened, he was wrong'. That is precisely the point. There are those to whom salvation comes like a flash of lightning and there are those to whom it comes like a gradual dawn. And the two men in this pair of companion parables represent those two classes.

III

These two men represent two types of conversion.

In the one case there is the joy of a great surprise. I do not know how long it took to make the world. I only know that it can be made all over again in twenty seconds. If you have any doubt about it, ask this man—the hero of the Master's treasure story. You should have seen him just ten seconds before the ploughshare scattered the coins all over the freshly turned furrow; and you should have seen him ten seconds afterwards. Ten seconds before, life was as drab as drab could be. He was pursuing the same old round, following the same old dreary routine. Same old field; same old furrows; same old oxen; same old plough! Up and down, round and round; it was as monotonous as anything could be. And then, just as he was wondering how much longer it must last, there was a jolt and a swirl and a glint and a glitter, and the soft brown sods were all sprinkled with gleaming gold! He stoops and finds that there is more and more and more! So swiftly does the romantic emerge upon the commonplace!

In the other case there is the rapture of ultimate success. The long, long quest is over: the pearl of great price has been found!

In one respect they are both alike. Each sells all that he has—the one to buy the field, and the other to buy the pearl. And each parts joyfully with his old possessions. Augustine tells how, in the days before his conversion, he surveyed all the delights that he would be compelled to surrender if he became a Christian: and then he describes the ecstasy with which, on finding the Saviour, he parted with them all. It is true that, in order to enjoy the Father's home, the prodigal must surrender his husks; it is true that, in order to enjoy the life of a free man, the prisoner must give up his chains. But, amidst the gladness of his home-coming, what prodigal ever sighed for the poor satisfactions of the far country? And, amidst the luxuries of liberty, what prisoner hankers for his cell? The treasure found in the field, and the pearl of great price, compensate a thousand-fold for all that must be sacrificed in order to secure them.

F.W. Boreham, ‘The Lightning and The Dawn,’ Boulevards of Paradise (London: The Epworth Press, 1944), 172-177.

Image: Photo taken by FWB at Wedge Bay, Tasmania. In the moonlight. Approaching the dawn.

Boreham Imbibing Liquid Spirituality

I was just making a cup of tea (pictured) and I remem-bered what Dr. Boreham’s son told me on one of my many visits to his home.

Frank Boreham (jnr) said:

“My father was a great tea-drinker. He always loved to drink two big cups of tea and he would pour the two of them out at the same time and put the saucer over the second cup, rather than letting the tea continue to stew in the pot.”

This remembrance may not have much value but it reminds us that FWB, like many writers, was an avid tea drinker. His proper processing of the tea rather than using tea bags (they were available then but not so popular) suggests how refined a person he really was!

It’s interesting the details that flow to mind, especially when you are a tea drinker and a tea collector!

Further reflections on Boreham and tea, while you are waiting for your tea to draw, can be found at Boreham and the God of the Cup of Tea and for more, do a search (top left of the blog) on all the references on the Boreham site to ‘tea’.

Geoff Pound

Image: Time for a cuppa!

Boreham Continues to Inspire

It is interesting the number of people who continue to draw on the writings of F. W. Boreham in their own writing and reflection.

Check out the recent article by Dr. Andrew Corbett, who is based in Boreham’s old stamping ground of Tasmania, Australia.

The web reference is Andrew Corbett: The Discipline of Art.

Thanks Andrew for permission to make this posting.

Geoff Pound

Image: FWB taking time out from reading and study to be with his wife, Stella.

Boreham and the Doke Connection

Readers of Frank Boreham’s newly republished book, Lover of Life, will get to know the story of his mentor, J.J. Doke. After establishing this friendship in New Zealand, Doke went to South Africa.

The New Zealand Baptist Union in 1962 invited Doke’s daughter, Olive Doke to visit and tell her story. In this article she shares some fascinating glimpses of F W Boreham, her father and her own adventures in Africa:

Like Coming Home

My first words must be those of grateful thanks and praise to God for all His goodness to me in bringing me to this land again. Here I have been so warmly welcomed by Christian friends that I feel it is like coming home. It may be of interest to hear something of the happenings of the intervening years.

It was during my father's pastorate at Oxford Terrace that I gave my heart to the Lord at one of the Rev F. W. Boreham's missions, and even at that early age dedicated my life to missionary service. Shortly after this we went as a family back to England, where in 1903 my father had a "call" to the Grahamstown Church in South Africa and later to the Central Church in Johannesburg.

Pioneeering
My missionary call came whilst here to serve in Central Africa, and in 1916 I joined my brother Clement at Kafulafuta in the Ndola district of Northern Rhodesia, then as yet unopened up. He had already been there two years, having been sent up as the first missionary of the South African Baptist Missionary Society (who had taken over the work from the pioneer Nyasaland Industrial Mission), after the death of my father, the Rev J. J. Doke, following a journey to investigate the possibilities for the S.A.B.M.S, to extend their missionary programme. The work was still in the pioneer stages, and a great deal of "trekking" had to be done, involving long journeys of hundreds of miles on foot through the African forest infested by wild animals of every description. It was still the days of primitive travel with native porters carrying the necessary camp equipment and barter goods. One had to depend on one's rifle to secure meat for the pot, as well as to buy meal for the carriers. The country inhabited by the Lamba tribe, extended over 30,000 square miles of forest—and this was our parish!

The Language
The first thing was to learn the language and as there was no written one it had to be reduced to writing by the early missionaries. Journeys were invaluable for language, being out amongst the people. The Message was delivered, falteringly at first, in every village passed through, and as time went on there were little groups of converts, or rather those who were willing to hear more, with whom we stayed longer on subsequent journeys to teach and help them on the way.

As soon as we had sufficient grasp f the language, translation work was tackled and in 1921 the first edition of the New Testament was in print. From the beginning we had a boarding school on the station for the teaching of reading and writing. This work later grew to big proportions with out-schools dotted all over the country preparing the folk to be able to read for themselves the Word of Life. Translation on the whole Bible was finished in 1957 and in 1960 we were able to put it into the hands of the people with humble praise and thanksgiving that we had been privileged to complete this great and responsible work.

The Church
Meanwhile there was the gradual building up of the Lamba Church as the Holy Spirit worked in the lives of these people. There have been wonderful trophies of grace and strong and dedicated leaders have emerged who are now able to shepherd the flock. A New Testament Church is established under the leadership of the Nationals whom God has called out; and it in turn is going out to others. Church government and finance is in the hand of the African himself, and God is blessing the work. There has been medical work going on through all the years, sometimes under most difficult circumstances, but now on the two European stations there are hospitals with trained staff, yet the need is greater than we can cope with. Work among the lepers will be more efficiently done when the leper station is established.

Education and Evangelism
A boarding school for girls functions at Kafulafuta and for boys at Fiwale Hill—these are invaluable for the training of the future generation of leaders. The evangelistic work in the villages is now carried on by the African evangelists themselves and much more effectively than can be done by the European. Our task is in the Bible school teaching the leaders and workers how to use the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. The two ordained ministers are doing a grand work as they have the oversight of the many village churches. They still need much teaching and the Bible school is to some extent meeting this need with its 30 students doing a three-year course. As on every field, increased staff is needed—may He thrust out labourers into His harvest field.

His Power
It has been a wonderful experience to see the gradual working of the power of God through His Holy Spirit in the lives of those with darkened minds and hearts, and to witness their awakening. To God be the glory, great things He hath done. "Not I, but Christ."

O. C. DOKE. M.B.E

P.S.—It has been a great experience to have the fellowship of the Baptist Assembly and to meet the Baptist stalwarts of New Zealand, and I thank you all for the way in which you have included me in your company and made me feel one of you.

Source: N.Z. BAPTIST—JANUARY, 4 1963 page 4.

Image: “long journeys of hundreds of miles on foot through the African forest.”

An Interview with F. W.Boreham

This article is the result of an interview by J. S. A. Worboys with F. W. Boreham in 1923. It was first published in London’s Sunday at Home Magazine.

We are privileged to print in most numbers of THE SUNDAY AT HOME an article by F. W. Boreham. Mr. Boreham is one of the most brilliant of living essayists, and his work, as we know, has been of great help and stimulus to many of our readers. Collected in due course into volumes, these articles are ministering to ever - widening circles of admiring and grateful readers. Mr. Boreham, though English-born, left these shores twenty-eight years ago, and has lived throughout that period in New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia, and his personality, except through his articles and books, is not familiar to us on this side. On these grounds we are confident that the article which follows will be welcomed by our readers. Ed.

NO sooner had we touched the latch of the garden-gate of Wroxton Lodge than the front door opened, and, hastening down the garden path, smiling welcome and right good-will, came my friend and former "chief" the Rev. F. W. Boreham.

It was characteristic—that welcome! To all his friends Mr. Boreham is a friend, full-hearted, unconventional, self-forgetful, the soul of friendship and courtesy. Popularity and fame have not made him one inch taller than he is! (True sign of a big man.) He may have traveled far ahead of his friends on the road of achievement, but he walks with them side by side on the road of friendship.

About ten years ago it was my privilege to be associated with Mr. Boreham in Tasmania as assistant minister. I was then not much more than a boy, quite inexperienced, a 'prentice hand at every part of a minister’s work. Now I suppose there is nothing which shows up more quickly and surely the weakness or strength of a man's character than his dealings with his subordinate. Well, from the first, Mr. Boreham treated me as a colleague and friend, and never once was I made to feel the "assistant" part of the relationship in the odious sense of that word.

I have by me a gift-copy of The Luggage of Life, which is inscribed as follows: "To my colleague and friend ... as a slight memento of a year's happy comradeship." "Colleague and friend"—that was how he treated his assistant and understudy! “A year’s happy comradeship”—that was what he made our relationship to be. I went to his home again the other day, after nine years' absence, and found him unchanged—a man with a genius for friendship, one of God's, own gentlemen.

As Mr. Boreham came down the garden walk, I caught sight of the inevitable button-hole of flowers. Morning, noon or night, weekdays or Sundays, at home or at church, reading, writing or preaching, it matters not when or where you see him Mr. Borcham always wears a button-hole! There seems to be but one exception—when he goes to a photographic studio. That exception is a mystery and an offence that his friends find it impossible to explain and difficult to forgive, If, for no other reason than that they invariably show the button-hole, I prefer snapshots of Mr.Boreham to the most finished studio portraits.

After tea we retreated to the study. It was there that I acquainted Mr. Boreham with the fact that the editor of THE SUNDAY AT HOME had commissioned me to interview him with a view to this article.

“I don't envy you your job!" was Mr. Boreham's laughing reply. "You won’t have much to write about! I wish you had a better subject."

The interviewer, however, did not feel in the slightest degree in need of sympathy on that score. The wealth of material is his only embarrassment.

"Well, there are the bare facts!" Mr. Boreham, at last convinced that I was in earnest, handed me a biographical portrait of himself, printed in an English paper some years ago. "The bare facts!" They were very bare. It only proved that a man is infinitely bigger and more interesting than his biography. But still, the bare facts, however bare, are facts, and make at any rate a sort of frame in which to put the living picture of the man.

“The bare facts" are that Mr. Boreham was born at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England—the eldest son of a large family. His parents were both devout members of the Church of England (as indeed they still are) and Mr. Boreham cherishes the memory of the days when, as a boy, the family pew at church used to be filled every Sunday. He still possesses the Prayer Book he used to use in those early days. In season and out of season he speaks with gratitude of his father and mother: it was to them that his first book was dedicated.

From Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Boreham went up to London to launch out, as he then thought, upon a commercial career. But while in London he became associated as a lay-helper with the London City Mission, and, responding to the call to the ministry, was admitted to the Pastor’s College in 1892 as a student for the Baptist ministry. Mr. Boreham cherishes the conviction that he was perhaps the very last student whose admission to the college was decided by the college founder himself, the late C. H. Spurgeon.

In 1894, on the recommendation of the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon, Mr. Boreham left England to take the oversight of the church at Mosgiel, New Zealand. His pastorate at Mosgiel extended over twelve years and was in every way eminently successful. Mr. Boreham himself is never tired of acknowledging the debt that he owes to Mosgiel. In all his books there are stories of Mosgiel things and Mosgiel people.

"The little place," he says in one of them," must always be to me a riot of memory. I have sometimes wondered whether, during the twelve years that I spent there, I missed any strange experience that might conceivably have come my way. In looking back across the past at that first pastorate of mine, it really seems to me that, from being summoned to attend a shuddering felon on the gallows to being commissioned by a bashful lover with the responsibility of proposing to a blushing maid on his behalf, I tasted every pain and pleasure, sounded every deep and shallow, of the ministerial life."

In the quiet manse among the farms Mr. Boreham made his first literary ventures. He conducted a weekly column in the local paper and another in the city paper a few miles away. In 1896 [it was 1899-1906] he became editor of the denominational journal; and many of the essay's that are now appearing in his books were first drafted in those secluded days. He was Mosgiel’s first minister and they were his first people. "I spent twelve happy years among these simple but sturdy souls," he says, "learning at their hands to be a minister of the Everlasting Gospel." In 1902 he was called to the chair of the New Zealand Baptist Union, and in 1903, with his wife and children, visited Great Britain.

From New Zealand, Mr. Boreham went to Tasmania to become the minister of the Hobart Baptist Church, the leading Baptist church in the island. As secretary of the Free Church Council for Hobart and President for the whole of Tasmania, Mr. Boreham served a great ministry beyond the limits of his own denomination, of which also he became President in 1910.

It was while at Hobart that Mr. Boreham began to publish those volumes of essays which have made his name so widely known not only through the Commonwealth, but, also in England and America. Up to the present there are eleven volumes in the series: The Luggage of Life, Mountains in the Mist, The Golden Milestone, Mushrooms on the Moor, Faces in the Fire, The Other Side of the Hill, The Silver Shadow, The Uttermost Star, A Reel of Rainbow, The Home of the Echoes, and Shadows on the Wall. Two other volumes by Mr. Boreham, A Bunch of Everlastings, and A Handful of Stars are of a distinct character, dealing with great Bible texts in a unique way.

With the later ones of these volumes we come across Bass Strait from Tasmania to Melbourne, where, for the past six years Mr. Boreham has been the minister of the Armadale Baptist Church.

So much then for the bare facts. It is time we got nearer to the man himself. But first a peep into his home! In his home Mr. Boreham is singularly happy. He won his wife in his student days and she—a lassie in her teens—voyaged alone from her village home in Epping Forest to the remote solitudes of New Zealand to be the mistress of the newly-erected Mosgiel manse. She loves to talk of Grannie, Wullie, Peggy, and all the other Mosgiel folk with whom her husband has familiarised his readers. The people at Mosgiel, Hobart and Armadale have all been very fond of her. The latest published report of the Armadale Church says that "the prestige of the manse has been faithfully preserved by Mrs. Boreham, who always has a smile for young and old, and is ever ready to do with her might what her hands find to do." It is easy to see at a glance that to Mr. Boreham himself her comradeship is one of life’s choicest joys. They have five children—four girls and a boy.

Everybody who knows anything at all about Mr. Boreham knows that he is not only an author, but a bookman. His own books disclose the fact quite plainly. In his essays the whole realm of literature is put under tribute. There is scarcely a corner of the field of books left ungleaned. It was natural then, that our conversation should turn to the subject of books and reading. “To buy and read at least one book a week” has been Mr. Boreham’s unbroken rule for many years. If he reads a borrowed book, which he rarely does, he immediately adds a copy of it to his library. The reason, I believe, is mainly utilitarian. Every book is read, not only for pleasure, but also with an eye open for illustrations and ideas. These are noted in the margin and carefully indexed for future use.

In a confidential manner Mr. Boreham showed me a pile of notes representing suggestions and material for several hundreds of articles and addresses waiting only to be written up! In addition to these unwritten articles, I was also shown finished essays ready for the press at the rate of one a week for at least two years.

“I still keep on writing,” explained Mr. Boreham, “at the rate of one essay a week: but nothing I am writing now will go into print in any form for at least two years. You see I keep a long way ahead of myself. There is no imperative need, of course, to keep at it so regularly, but it is all in the line of my work, and I get a lot of fun out of it. It also gives me ample time to revise and polish the manuscripts before they are published."

A question as to his plans for the future in the way of book publication led to a further surprising revelation of Mr. Boreham’s amazing fertility and productiveness. He opened another drawer and produced the finished and revised manuscripts of new volumes to he published at the rate of one a year for the next six years.

It must not he supposed, however, that these are written off at great speed, with machine-like ease. The subject and scheme of every essay are carefully thought out, and not a line is written until, after long brooding over the theme, expression comes inevitably and spontaneously as a tiring joyful process. But even then there is nothing quick or easy about it. "The essay, throughout, as a literary form is the product of careful, artistic, workmanship. Illustrations are selected; phrases coined and polished; words—especially adjectives—chosen with all insight and discrimination which makes them pictorial; time and care taken to give just the right turn to an expression, and to let the light shine upon the truth at just the right angle to reveal its beauty. Every essay is read many times—once, at least, aloud, before it is permitted to leave the author’s hands. In all these things we see genius taking pains.

But with all their polish and finish these essays are true essays—“expressions of personal emotion.” They are intensely personal documents, and alive. They are a revelation of the writer’s own character and spirit. His chivalry, his love of fun, his joie de vivre, his instinct for the centre of things which never forsakes him even at the circumference, his spirituality and sympathy, his personal loyalty to Jesus Christ, his passion for souls—these things in the writer's rich, many-sided personality are manifest in every page of the author's works.

It must also be remembered that nearly all these articles are also addresses, and were written with a congregation in view. They are not the mere literary exercises, literary hobby or literary "side-line" of a Christian minister. They are on the main line of his work. Prepared with the pulpit in view as well as the press, conceived and executed with a direct view to ministering to the full human and spiritual needs of a present day congregation, they give voice to the soul of a preacher and pastor, speak the words of a Gospel, and find their way surely to the conscience and the heart.

"How did you come to adopt your own particular style of essay?” was a- question which seemed to surprise Mr. Boreham, and one which he seemed to consider a rather extraordinary question to ask.

When he was quite satisfied as to what exactly I wanted to know, he answered: “Well, how does anyone come to write in his own particular way? I sat down to write and this is how the words came. It was my way; it fitted my thought; I enjoyed it; my readers seemed to approve of it, and so I kept on writing in that way. That is all there is to be said."

In the course of our conversation I ventured to ask, "Is it as a writer or preacher, an author or rninister, that you find the greater joy?” Without any hesitation Mr. Boreham answered, “As a preacher and minister. Of course," he added, "it is like asking a man which of his two children he loves best. I glory in my pulpit—the greatest moments of my life have been spent there—but I am scarcely less fond of my pen. I do not like to choose between them. I want to be a preacher and a scribbler to the end of the chapter."

Mr. Boreham, as I have mentioned, is the minister of the Armadale Baptist Church, one of the leading Baptist Churches in Australia. The fact of crowded congregations, drawn from all parts of the city, testify to his popularity and power as a preacher. For many years Mr. Boreham has made a practice of preaching alternating series of Sunday evening addresses during the winter months. These are always of a most striking and original character. Take for example the current series. The first is called "A Parcel of Personalities" and the second "A Casket of Cameos." The “Parcel of Personalities” contains addresses to a new-born babe, a youth just entering life, a bride and a bride-groom, a young father and a young mother, a man in the thick of things, a master and a man, a mistress and a maid, a grandfather and a grandmother. The “Casket of Cameos" is a series of biographical studies dealing with the faith of a pioneer (David Brainerd), a noblewoman (Countess of Huntingdon), a statesman (John Bright), a reformer (Lord Shaftesbury), a nun (sister Teresa), a Puritan (John Hampden), an evangelist (George Whitefield), and a merchant (George Moore.).

On Sunday mornings Mr. Boreham takes more strictly Biblical themes, but handles them in his own unique way. Some recent courses have been "The Romance of the Infant Church" (studies in the Acts of the Apostles), "The Making of a Prophet" (story of Elijah), and "The Ancient Mandate and the Modern Man" (the Ten Commandments up-to-date).

A consideration of these subjects alone gives an insight into Mr. Boreham’s popular appeal as a preacher. All the qualities that charm us in the essays are brought into the pulpit, intensified and enriched by the living presence of the preacher. In his hand; the Bible becomes a living, human, modern document, with a Divine message eternally significant and up-to-date. Throughout all his messages there is the "blood-streak" of life and experience; the truth of Christ and Scripture is shown alive in authentic illustrations drawn from real life, and the preacher himself manifestly believes what he says, feels it, knows it, lives in it.

J. S. A.Worboys, ‘F. W. Boreham: An Interview and an Appreciation,’ Sunday at Home, 111-114.

Image: Photo of first page and photo of this article.

Grateful thanks to Jeff Cranston for making this article available and Lynn Swanson for doing the scanning.