Boreham on Wedge Bay

Boreham always thought of himself as a generalist yet in the following quotes from one of his early books he boasts of being an expert:

“There is just one spot on God's fair earth that I fancy I know better than
anyone else...It is a landlocked bay a couple of square miles across. I have
spent about six months of my life poking about this solitary place trying to woo
its favour and win its golden secrets and I really think that if one of the
trees about the waters edge were to fall in my absence I should miss it and
mourn it next time I go…”

“I rowed one day recently into a shady little inlet and was surprised to find it exactly as I had left it a couple of years before..... It was here, as it was in the beginning it is now and ever shall be world without end and it is restful to saturate oneself in the brooding silence of the primeval forest. I like to sit in this quiet cove where I picknicked two years ago and to reflect that it is today exactly as it was in the days of Caesar. It is like closing your tired eyes when at the cinematograph you can bear the flicker no longer....”

“The local inhabitants have never awakened to the charms of the beauty-spots around them.”[1]

These excerpts are further illustrations of the way F W Boreham took time out for leisure and silence. It reveals his love of nature which he possessed from childhood. These lines contain some of his signature themes‑the importance of beauty to the world, the way nature links us to the ages, his disdain for the artificial (viz. the cinema) and the importance of cultivating an appreciation for the commonplace and the familiar.

Geoff Pound

Image: One of Boreham’s photos of Wedge Bay, Tasmania, Australia.

[1] F W Boreham, The Golden Milestone, 109.

Boreham the Biographer

F W Boreham was an essayist, an editorialist, a sermon writer, a poet, a hymn writer and also a biographer. It is interesting that Boreham, a Baptist, wrote his full length biography on an Anglican, the famous Bishop to New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn. The book illustrates Boreham’s love of biography and his ecumenical spirit.

Boreham finished the book while he was in Tasmania but he said that in moving around New Zealand, “I had ample opportunities of observing the supreme veneration in which the people of these romantic islands have enshrined the illustrious memory of Bishop Selwyn.”[1] [The old black, wooden churches in Auckland’s Howick and Mission Bay and Selwyn College in Glendowie, are all reminders of Selwyn’s amazing influence]

Boreham attributed Selwyn’s influence to his ability to identify with his people whether they were European settlers or Maori. He took the time to learn the Maori language and “this was a master stroke in identifying with his people.”[2]

A major stuff up had been caused in England before Selwyn was sent out to New Zealand. His superiors got their latitude and longitudes mucked up and instead of making Selwyn responsible for New Zealand he found out that he was the Bishop for the whole of the Pacific! Undaunted, he set about visiting the islands and he established an important strategy of inviting one representative from every island country to come and train at the Theological College in Auckland.

Selwyn was a person who worked for justice and reconciliation. The Maori were literally in a battle with the government over land rights. The indigenous people incorrectly thought the Bishop was siding with the British troops so Selwyn called a conference with the Maori leaders, saying he would come and visit them on their land. The Maori leaders agreed among themselves that if the bishop came they would not let him onto their marae (meeting place). When he arrived near evening they barred him from their meeting house but said he could spend the night in the pigsty. That is exactly what he did and where he slept! This act of humility had such an impact on the Maori that the next day they agreed to talk but for years afterwards they said, “You cannot ‘whakatatua’ this man or in English, “You cannot degrade the dignity of this man.”

F W Boreham wrote many times about Selwyn[3] and in one essay he told this story and then went on to recall the way Jesus of Nazareth was draped in mock purple and given a mock crown and a mock scepter. Boreham concluded that Jesus did not have his dignity degraded as he led the procession.[4]

Geoff Pound

Image: George Augustus Selwyn

Because of its theme this posting appears today on these two web sites:
The Official F W Boreham web site: http://www.fwboreham.blogspot.com/
Stories for Speakers web site: http://www.storiesforspeakers.blogspot.com/

[1] F W Boreham, George Augustus Selwyn, 5.
[2] Boreham, George Augustus Selwyn, 52.
[3] F W Boreham, Mountains in the Mist, 125; F W Boreham, The Crystal Pointers, 118.
[4] F W Boreham, Cliffs of Opal, 135.

The Mistress of the Manse

F W Boreham lovingly referrred to his wife as 'The Mistress of the Manse'.

Reference has been made in an earlier posting to the fact that Stella Boreham got severe post natal depression after having each of her five babies and almost died after the birth of one of their children.

The church at Mosgiel released the Borehams so that they were able to spend months away from ministry recuperating in Piripiki Gorge (Taieri Mouth). It was here that they realized how nature is such a tonic.[1] After that the Borehams spent a month each year holidaying and “exploring this panoramic paradise.”[2] When they went to Hobart they made the same practice, but this time at Wedge Bay. In Melbourne they often holidayed in the Dandenong Mountains.

Stella Boreham was a quiet retiring person and from accounts did not appear to take an upfront, leading role in church or community life. Perhaps Boreham’s chapter on ‘The Minister’s Wife’ reveals how they both understood this role.[3]

Many people who knew her have said to me that she was a lovely person with a beautiful nature. The photo indicates that Stella and Frank had lots of fun and laughter.

Geoff Pound

Image: Photo taken by F W Boreham of Stella dressed in a kimono.

[1] F W Boreham, The Blue Flame, 160.
[2] F W Boreham, Home of the Echoes, 36.
[3] F W Boreham, The Silver Shadow, 50.

Mrs Stella Boreham

Frank and Stella met when he was the student pastor at Theydon Bois. Stella Cottee was only sixteen and her parents invited him home for lunch. She came from good evangelical stock. In his Bunch of Everlastings F W Boreham wrote of visiting William Cottee (Stella’s grandfather) who was over ninety years of age at the time. Boreham must have found him rather daunting for the student pastor said: “He had no respect for any theological opinions of mine. He was a sturdy old hyper Calvinist, my doctrines were milk and water.”[1] What did Frank and Stella do in their courtship in their Theydon Bois days? Who knows but one of the things they did was read to each other. In some of Boreham’s books that he had acquired he wrote (with the date), ‘Read to Stella & Mrs Cottee’ or ‘Read to Stella and Mr Cottee.”[2]

Stella was young when she arrived in Christchurch, NZ to get married to Frank and set up their new life together. Reading between the lines it seems that they both experienced extreme homesickness. Writing more than fifty years later Boreham lets down his guard and speaks honestly of how they felt and the most painful times:

“Although I have spent nearly three score Christmases under the Southern Cross,
I have never completely resigned myself to celebrating Christmas at midsummer
and have never quite recovered from the shock that I sustained when that strange
experience first befell me.”

“As we approached the first Christmas after our wedding, my second Christmas in
New Zealand, my wife's first thought of spending the festive season by our two
homesick selves grew increasingly intolerable. But whom could we invite?”[3] They sought to alleviate their homesickness by inviting
friends such as J J Doke.[4]

In this posting there is a photo taken by Frank of Stella posing as a nun!

Geoff Pound

[1] F W Boreham Bunch of Everlastings, 173.
[2] These books are in the F W Boreham Collection, Whitley College, Melbourne and include a book of sermons by F B Meyer.
[3] F W Boreham, My Christmas Book, 12.
[4] F W Boreham, The Man Who Saved Gandhi, 3

Boreham the Photographer

Boreham Family Photos
Helen, a regular reader of this site, asked a question about the availability of photographs of the Boreham family. Her question has prompted this posting and some others to follow. I mentioned to her that there are portraits of Frank Boreham in many of his books and My Pilgrimage contains one of his wife Stella. Boreham tried to keep his wife (The Mistress of the Manse) and his children out of his books. Apart from his autobiography he is very restrained in writing about what he gets up to.

Life Through a Lens

“The photographs hanging here and there around the room transport my mind
to
other days and other places .... the pictures transform it [the
apartment] into
an observatory and I am able to survey the entire
universe."
F.W. Boreham, Rubble and Roseleaves

For F.W. Boreham there were no uninteresting subjects, only uninterested persons. He had an observant eye which took in every detail and stored them in an unusually retentive memory. It was as if he saw life through a camera lens which concentrates on its subject and ignores the rest.

In recent years, some boxes of glass negatives that were taken and developed by F.W. Boreham have come to light and are now part of the Tasmanian Baptist historical records. Among the plates are shots of the Hobart Tabernacle and its officers, many family pictures, scenes of his much loved Wedge Bay on the Tasman Peninsula and some trick photography which includes a portrayal of a ghost on the steps of the Hobart manse! I will continue to post these on this site.

His children, Joan Lincoln of Hobart and Frank Boreham of Templestowe, remember their father's hooded camera requiring a black sheet so that the image could be clearly seen in the glass plate on top of the camera and the shutter was operated by a length of string. In this way and by using a tripod, Dr. Boreham took several self-portraits and group photographs with him in the frame. Joan and Frank remember their father developing the glass plate negatives in the cellar under the Armadale Baptist church manse. The cellar had a small window which he covered with red paper when making prints. Once he started work the children were not allowed in. [Joan and Frank junior are now dead but these insights were passed on to me when I interviewed them in the mid 1990s]

Photographer and editor of the Tasmanian Baptist Advance, Laurie Rowston says:
"Boreham's photographic work is all the more compelling when we consider that the business of photography in the early years of the twentieth century was a very different affair to that of the present day. There were no point-and-shoot automatic cameras then. A photographer needed a high degree of skill which included knowing how to measure the light and develop and print the film. All this before even considering what he wanted to photograph. Boreham must have been a perfectionist because he chose to use a photographic method (the dry glass plate) which was far more complex than what was being offered when he commenced and which became popular. In taking photographs Boreham also became a wordless writer. But more importantly his photographs, like his books, make you see."

(These notes are adapted from an article written by Laurie Rowston for the Tasmanian Baptist Advance. Appreciation is expressed to Laurie for his willingness for this to be reprinted).

Geoff Pound

Image: Boreham’s photo of his wife and two ghosts!? He found these human skulls on the Otago (NZ) beach of Taieri Mouth and kept them through his Tasmanian days.

Boreham at Scots' Church

I have recently returned from Melbourne where during my travels I revisited some key sites connected with the ministry of F W Boreham. One of these is Scots’ Church on the corner of Russell and Collins Street. Let me quote from a chapter I wrote elsewhere about the emergence of Boreham’s significant ministry at Scots’ Church:

“At his farewell address to Spurgeon’s College Boreham said, “I should like to go out to the ends of the earth, to hold three pastorates, and then to be in a position to preach, as I might be led, in all lands and among all denominations”.[1] His dream was fulfilled accurately when after twelve years at Armadale Boreham retired in 1928, at the age of fifty-seven, to undertake an itinerant ministry across many denominations and in different parts of the world. Fulfilling a lifelong dream that had probably been fired through his contact with Hudson Taylor and “Dr Meyer, the ubiquitous”, Boreham toured Great Britain and North America in 1928 and 1936 preaching in distinguished pulpits and visiting many sites that related to people about whom he had written.[2] When in Melbourne he regularly served as a guest preacher in city and suburban churches. By 1945, the Age reported that “Dr Boreham has preached for almost every Protestant denomination here and overseas, helping to emphasize the fundamental unity of the churches”.[3] His one long-standing commitment was his weekly sermon at the Wednesday lunch hour service at Scots’ Presbyterian Church in Melbourne, a task that he commenced in 1936 for a month but “was impelled to carry on for the next eighteen years”.[4] With Boreham’s fame and international reputation these services were judged to be “one of the most effective religious influences in the city”.[5] The services attracted large congregations which frequently included many tourists from overseas and interstate who had learned of the preacher through his books. Boreham’s sermons were reported in the columns of the Age and the Argus and such was his drawing power that the Collins Street Independent Church dismissed the idea of scheduling their own mid-week service, claiming that the Scots’ mid-week service was for the entire city of Melbourne and that Boreham “belongs to every denomination”.[6]

When I moved to Melbourne I encountered so many people who regularly spent their lunch hour at Scots’ Church being nourished by the brief period of worship and the sermon by Dr Boreham. I also met many people who could remember stories that Boreham told and sermon themes he delivered from the Scots’ pulpit sixty years earlier!

Boreham saw himself as a shuttle weaving different denominational threads together to create something of unity and beauty. Some Baptist pastors were peeved that Boreham was not as available to speak in their pulpits because he was in churches of other denominations. They also were irritated by Boreham’s preaching fee that was too steep for many of the Baptist churches but within the capacity of churches of other denominations. They thought Boreham was rather mercenary in this request but little did they know that his preaching fees (and royalties from his books) went to fund the John Broadbanks’ Dispensary in Birisiri, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which is still operating today.

Of great significance is that F W Boreham preached at the Scots’ Church throughout the years of the Second World War. Whatever did Boreham say to the people who flocked to that packed church every week in those difficult and dark days? You would be surprised! I wish someone would research this further and write about Boreham’s preaching ministry at Scots’ Church. There is a thesis waiting to be written on this topic. Anyone interested?

Geoff Pound
geoffpound@yahoo.com.au

For more information about Scots’ Church see:
http://www.scotschurch.com/

Image: Scots’ Church, taken during the recent Commonwealth Games, March, 2006.

[1] Age, 26 March 1955.
[2] Fullerton, F B Meyer: A biography, 196. This description was given by Dr John Clifford, a prominent English Baptist minister of the day.
[3] Age, 15 March 1945.
[4] New life, 17 July 1986.
[5] Scots’ Church Leaflet, February 1946.
[6] Scots’ Church Leaflet, November 1947.

Boreham Blog Update from Geoff Pound

I am having to return to Melbourne for a family funeral (my son-in-law's sister died tragically in London a few days ago) and then to NZ where my mother is facing heart surgery this week.

Consequently, my blogs will be off air or rather not added to until I return on the end of the month.

Sorry about this. I hope to commence again early in April.

Geoff Pound

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 9

The amazing thing is that, in defiance of the physical frailty that had dogged his days, Mr. Doke laid his bones in a missionary grave after all! His brother's resting-place on the banks of the Congo always held a conspicuous place in the landscape of his life. I cannot stifle a suspicion that it was one of the factors that lured him to the adventure that glorified the close of his career.

He conceived the idea that it would enormously enrich the spirituality and increase the effectiveness of his own church at Johannesburg, and of all the South African churches, if they had a specific missionary objective, and especially an African objective. He talked it over with Fred Arnot, the renowned explorer and evangelist. Arnot told him of a lonely mission-station away up in the interior‑not far from the upper reaches of the Congo‑that might be taken over by the South African churches and made the centre from which a vast unevangelized territory might be worked. The idea captivated Mr. Doke's imagination, and he felt sure that it would appeal to all the heroic instincts in the young men and women of the churches. With boyish excitement he resolved to set out on a great trek into the heart of the continent. Clement, his son, agreed to, accompany him. “We are off for the Congo Border,” he wrote enthusiastically. “Is it a holiday trip? It seems a long way to go for a holiday. I would claim that we are prospectors, but it would be misunderstood. Yet that is really what we are‑prospecting for missions.” They set out on July 2, 1913. Infected by his ardour, his people crowded down to wave their affectionate farewells, and eagerly anticipated the stirring story that he would have to tell on his return.

His journal, carefully kept to the last, reads like a section of Livingstone's Missionary Travels or Stanley's In Darkest Africa. Here, as in those classics, we have the swamp and the jungle, the long grass and the winding trails, the lions and the hyenas, the zebras and the impalas, the mosquitoes and the tse-tse flies. His attempts to make the natives of the various villages understand his message are strangely reminiscent of Livingstone. The travellers reached their objective and were given a boisterous welcome: “Clement was almost overpowered and our ears tingled with the noise.” They spent some days in conference with the missionaries; explored the entire area; and Mr. Doke formulated his plans for the establishment of his new scheme.

The return journey was more trying. But they bravely survived the ordeal of the long march, and, on August 5, reached the railway. Here father and son separated. Mr. Doke had promised, before terminating his travels, to visit a mission-station at Umtali, in Eastern Rhodesia. At Bulawayo, therefore, the two reluctantly parted, Clement taking the train home to Johannesburg and Mr. Doke turning his face towards Umtali.

And at Umtali he suddenly collapsed and died. “This is the time,” he murmured, “when a man wants his wife.” “Yes,” replied Mr. Wodehouse, his missionary-host, “but One is near you who is better than wife or mother.” “Yes,” he replied. “I know that the Everlasting Arms are around me.” He asked Mr. Wodehouse to pray with him; then to stroke his hair; and, later still, to hold his hand. And on Friday evening, August 15, 1913, he quietly and peacefully passed away.

His life-work was, however, splendidly complete. His dream was more than realized. The work of that mission-station in the far north‑to which his own children were among the first to dedicate their lives has prospered and developed in most unexpected ways. And, to this day, his memory, like a fragrance, pervades hundreds of homes on all five of the world's great continents.

F W Boreham

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 8

It was after he left New Zealand‑to the great sorrow of us all‑that he made history. And, characteristically, he did it in such a way that, to this day, very few people realize the effect of his behaviour on world affairs. He settled as minister at Johannesburg; and it so happened that, shortly afterwards, Mr. Gandhi went to South Africa as the legal representative of the Indian population, who, just then, were involved in a serious clash with the authorities. Mr. Doke's sympathies were with the Indians, and he immediately got into touch with Mr. Gandhi. Each were astonished at the other's diminutive stature. They did not look like a pair of champions. Mr. Doke says that he expected to see ‘a tall and stately figure and a bold masterful face’. Instead of this, a small, little, spare figure stood, before me, and a refined, earnest face looked into mine. “The skin was dark, the eyes dark, but the smile which lighted up the face, and that direct, fearless glance, simply took one's heart by storm. I judged him to be about thirty-eight years of age, which proved correct. But the strain of his work showed its traces in the sprinkling of silver hairs on his head. He spoke English perfectly, and was evidently a man of great culture”.

On the wall of Mr. Gandhi's office hung a beautiful picture of Jesus; and the moment that Mr. Doke's eyes rested upon it, he felt that he and his new friend were bound by a most sacred tie. “I want you,” he said to Mr. Gandhi, “to consider me your friend in this struggle. If,” he added, with a glance at the picture on the wall, “if I have learned any lesson from the life of Jesus it is that one should share and lighten the load of those who are heavenly laden.”

The days that followed were full of anxiety and even of peril. Indeed, they almost culminated in a tragedy that would have shocked the world. “I distinctly remember,” Mr. Doke says, “that, as I went through the streets that morning, I was led to pray that I might be guided completely to do God's will; but I little thought what the answer would be.” A few minutes later, a young Indian dashed up, gesticulating excitedly: “Come quick!” he cried. “Coolie, he hit Mr. Gandhi!” Following the Indian's footsteps, Mr. Doke found Mr. Gandhi lying in a pool of blood, looking half dead. It turned out that a party of Pathans, taking it into their heads that Mr. Gandhi was seeking to betray the Indian cause, had plotted to destroy him. After bathing and bandaging his wounds, Mr. Doke asked the wounded man whether he would prefer to be taken to a hospital or to the manse. Mr. Gandhi gratefully accepted the latter alternative.

“Mr. Doke and his good wife,” writes Mr. Gandhi, in telling the story, “were anxious that I should be perfectly at rest. They therefore removed all persons from near my bed. I made a request that their daughter, Olive, who was then only a little girl, should sing for me my favourite English hymn, Lead kindly Light. Mr. Doke liked this very much. He called Olive and asked her to sing in low tone. The whole scene passes before my eyes as I recall it. How shall I describe the service rendered me by the Doke family?

“Every day marked an advance in our mutual affection and intimacy. Naturally, after I was injured, all classes of Indians flocked to the house, from the humblest street-hawker, with dirty clothes and dusty boots, to the highest Indian officials.”

“Mr. Doke would receive them all in his drawing-room with uniform courtesy and consideration. The whole family gave their time, either to nursing me or else receiving the hundreds of Indian visitors who came to see me. Even at night Mr. Doke would twice or thrice tiptoe into my room to see if I wanted anything.”

Some years later, J.J.D. having died in the interval, Mr. Gandhi revisited South Africa in the company of the Rev. C. F. Andrews. “As we approached Johannesburg,” says Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gandhi turned to me and said: “Charlie, I want to take you on a pilgrimage.” “What do you mean?” I asked him, not following his line of thought.” I want you,” he said, “to go with me to the house of Mrs. Doke, where I was nursed back to life.”

“When we came to the house it was difficult for him to restrain his emotion, as he for the first time saw Mrs. Doke in her widow's dress and tried to comfort her. She, on her part, treated him with all the tenderness of a mother, forgetting her own sorrow in her anxiety about his health and that of Mrs. Gandhi, who was very ill.”

“Mrs. Doke then related to us the story of the death of her husband in the interior of Africa.” And the story that Mrs. Doke unfolded to her visitors is the story that I must myself set down before I lay aside my pen.

F W Boreham

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 7

Mr. Doke was a natural humorist. I shall never forget the triumphs that he achieved by his faculty for fun. I never knew a man in whom holiness and humour blended as they did in him. I have known many good men who loved to laugh; but the goodness and the laughter seemed somehow to dwell in separate compartments of their being. When they were laughing you temporarily forgot their devoutness; and when they were praying you forgot their peals of merriment. But with Mr. Doke it was quite otherwise. The ingredients, both of his humour and of his piety, were such that they blended most perfectly, and you could never tell where the one ended and the other began. And this remarkable trait was used by him for all it was worth. It happened that Mr. Doke's sojourn in New Zealand synchronized with a trying period of storm and stress in the history of our Missionary Society. It was a most grave and anxious time for all of us, and I shall never forget how, time after time, his tactful wit would save a most delicate and threatening situation. Mr. Chesterton says that the discovery of nonsense was the greatest revelation of the nineteenth century. That being so, Mr. Doke deserves to be ranked as one of our greatest discoverers, for he saw, as few men saw, the inestimable value of that magic and potent force.

I can recall occasions when we had been sitting for hours anxiously discussing a depressing and apparently impossible situation, until our patience was. exhausted, and our nerves unstrung. Out of sheer weariness and vexation we might easily have committed any sort of indiscretion. But over there in the corner sits Mr. Doke. He is taking out his pencil. In a moment or two, he has finished his work. With a few deft strokes he has, struck off an irresistibly comical cartoon, caricaturing some ridiculous phase in the trying affair, and focusing, in the drollest possible way, the humorous side of the knotty question. The cartoon was handed round, and we laughed immoderately over the product of Mr. Doke's captivating genius. A new atmosphere straightway enveloped the debate. The interruption was as refreshing as an hour's sleep or a delicious cup of tea. It was as though, a window having been opened in a stuffy room, the place had suddenly been filled with fresh and perfume-laden air. We settled down to work again with clearer brains, cheerier hearts and sweeter tempers.

This was in Committee; but he waved the same magic wand over the assembly. I remember a very painful debate that took place in those trying days. The question was as to whether or not certain letters should have been written. Some telling speeches had been made, and feeling was running very high. At length the time for voting arrived, and it looked as though the assembly would not only censure its officers, but perhaps precipitate a cleavage that many years would scarcely heal. The chairman rose to put the motion. The atmosphere was distinctly electrical and charged with tensest feeling. In the nick of time, Mr. Doke cried, “Mr. President,” and came striding down the aisle. I can see him now as he turned to address us. “Mr. President,” he said, “is it not possible that both sides are right? Is it not possible that we are each reading into these troublesome letters our own strong feeling? Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time a man had two children, a boy and a girl. In course of time, the boy became refractory and ran away from home. He was not heard of again for many years. The girl remained at her father's side and was his constant stay and comforter. Just as the old man had given up all hope of again hearing from his son, a letter arrived. But neither father nor daughter had been to school and they could not read it.”

“Let us take it down to the butcher, father!” the daughter suggested. “He can read, and he will tell us what Tom say.” To the butcher they accordingly hastened. Now, the butcher was a gruff, sour, surly old man, and they were unfortunate enough to find him in one of his nastiest moods. He tore open the letter with a grunt, withdrew it from its envelope and read: “Dear father, I'm very ill; send me some money, Yours, Tom.” “The rascal!” the old man exclaimed indignantly, “he only wants my money. He shan't have a single penny!” They turned away sorrowfully, and set off towards home. But, on the way, another thought visited the daughter. “Father,” she said, “What do you say to going to the baker? The butcher may have made a mistake. The baker can read, too; and he is a kind, Christian man. Let us go to him!” And to the baker's they went. Now the baker was a genial, gracious soul, with a voice tremulous with feeling and resonant with sympathy. He gently took the letter from its envelope and read: “Dear father, I'm very ill; send me some money, Yours, Tom” “The poor boy,” the old man cried, brushing away a tear, “how much can we send him?”

The whole assembly was in the best of good humour at once. The application was obvious. It was as though the lowering thundercloud had broken in refreshing summer rain. The air was cleared, and the flowers were exhaling their choicest fragrance in the sunshine that followed the storm. Mr. Doke's beautiful personality had cast its spell over us all. We felt that we wanted an interval in which to shake hands with each other. He made a suggestion in closing that would obviate all risk of further complications. Both sides snatched at it eagerly; and the painful episode closed with expressions of the most cordial goodwill.

He was a past master at this sort of thing. His sword, as the prophet would say, was bathed in heaven. He could rebuke in such a way that the person corrected felt as if a compliment had been paid him. I remember how, at Wellington, when he was President of the Conference, a deputation from the other churches of the city attended to convey fraternal greetings. It was at the end of a long session. I suppose we were weary and off our guard. Anyhow, we kept our seats as our visitors walked up the aisle to the rostrum. Mr. Doke was, of course, standing to receive them, shaking hands with each as they mounted the dais. “Brethren,” he then exclaimed, “every man in this standing assembly welcomes you!” We sprang to our feet feeling very much ashamed of ourselves, and profited by the reproof on every similar occasion in the days that followed.

I once accompanied him to a social function to which a young minister had brought the girl to whom he was engaged. The minister was walking about the hall chatting to his numerous friend,: his prospective bride was sitting with a group of ladies in a corner. The minister, being well-known, was quickly supplied with a cup of coffee. He was just about to lift it to his lips when Mr. Doke intervened. Taking his hand, Mr. Doke gently led him to the corner in which his lady-love was seated. “Oh, Miss Pemberton,” he exclaimed, “I'm afraid they're a little slow in serving the coffee, but Mr. Swain has managed to secure you a cup. And how are you enjoying yourself?” And so on. He did this kind of thing with such perfect ease and such natural grace that a rap on the knuckles from him felt for all the world like a caress.

F W Boreham

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 6

One lovely morning we were sitting together on the veranda, looking away across the golden plains to the purple and sunlit mountains, when I submitted to him a very pertinent question: “Can a man be quite sure,” I asked, “that, in the hour of perplexity, he will be rightly led? Can he feel secure against a false step?” I shall never forget his reply. He sprang from his deck chair and came earnestly towards me. “I am certain of it,” he exclaimed, “if he will but give God time! Remember that as long as you live,” he added, entreatingly. “Give God time!”

Ten years later‑Mr. Doke having left New Zealand in the interval‑my wife and I found ourselves in the throes of a terrible perplexity. I had received a call to Hobart in Tasmania. It took us completely by surprise: I knew nobody in Tasmania and nobody in Tasmania knew me. The thought of leaving Mosgiel nearly broke my heart: I loved every stick and stone about the place. But I was compelled to recognize that Hobart, being a city, offered opportunities of influence that Mosgiel could never boast.

The call came in 1906. In 1903 the Mosgiel Church had presented us with a delightful trip to the dear Homeland‑a heavy undertaking for so small a congregation. Could I, after accepting such munificence at their hands, think of leaving them? If my call to Hobart had been public property, I could have consulted my officers on the point. But not a soul knew of it, and we thought it best to keep the secret to ourselves until our decision had been taken.

For reasons of their own, the officials at Hobart had asked me to let them have my decision not later than a certain Saturday, three weeks distant, and I had promised to respect their wishes in that matter. As that day drew nearer, the issues narrowed themselves down to one. Did the acceptance of the English trip commit me to a prolonged ministry at Mosgiel?

When that Saturday dawned, we were as far from finality as ever. The post office closed at five o’clock in the afternoon and I was determined, come what might, to hand in my reply by then. In my confusion I recalled for my comfort that memorable conversation on the veranda ten years earlier. Give God time! But I had not much more time to give. That Saturday afternoon, to add to our distress, a visitor arrived. She stayed until half-past four. “Come on,” I then said to my wife, “put on your hat and we'll walk down to the post office. We must send the telegram by five o'clock, whatever happens.”

At five minutes to five we were standing together in the porch of the post office, desperately endeavouring to make up our minds. We were giving God time: would the guidance come? At three minutes to five, Gavin, the church secretary, rode up on a bicycle. He was obviously agitated.
“What do you think I heard in the city this morning?” he asked eagerly. I assured him that I could form no idea.
“Well,” he replied, his news positively sizzling on his tongue, “I heard that you have been called to Hobart!”
“It's true enough, Gavin,” I answered, “but how can we consider such an invitation after your goodness in giving us a trip to England?”
“A trip to England!” he almost shouted. “Man alive, didn't you earn your trip to England before you went? Why, you're very nearly due for another!”

I begged him to excuse me a moment. The clerk at the counter was preparing to close the office. I handed in my telegram and rejoined Gavin, who insisted on taking us home to tea. At his house I wrote out my resignation, asking him to call the officers together at ten o'clock next morning. And although the emotional strain under which I found myself choked my utterance and compelled me to leave to Gavin the task of explanation, I felt, beyond the shadow of doubt, that the promised guidance had not failed me and that Mr. Doke's assurance had been amply vindicated.

F W Boreham

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 5

Nine times out of ten, before we rose from our chairs after these heart-to-heart talks, J.J.D. would strike a deeper note. How can a minister keep his soul in rapt communion with God? How can he inflame his personal devotion to his Saviour? How can he ensure the indwelling of the gracious Spirit? How can he prevent the evaporation of his early consecration, the fading of his youthful ideals? How can he keep his faith fresh, his passion burning, and his vision dear? When my companion turned to such topics, as he so often did, his eyes lit up, his soul shone in his face; he would lean forward in his chair in an ecstasy of fervour; he would talk like a man inspired.

For J.J.D. represented in his own person the most engaging and most lovable type of masculine saintliness of which I have ever had personal experience. He literally walked with God. He dwelt in the secret place of the Most High and abode under the shadow of the Almighty. God was never far away when he was near. To him the study of the Bible was a ceaseless revelry. During his earlier ministry he read it, from cover to cover, four times a year.

I recall a day on which the three of us‑the Mistress of the Manse, Mr. Doke and I‑had just finished afternoon tea on the lawn. We were still toying with our cups when a young fellow rode up on a bicycle. Taking me aside, he told me that Nellie Gillespie, a member of my young people's Bible class, was sinking fast: it was unlikely that she would last the night. As soon as the messenger had left, I explained the position to Mr. Doke, and begged him to excuse me. “Of course,” he replied, “but, first, come and sit here beside me.” He threw himself full length in the lounge chair, his body almost horizontal. “See,” he said, “I am Nellie Gillespie. I am just about to die. I have sent for you. What have you to say to me?”

Entering into the spirit of the thing, I leaned towards him and unfolded to him the deathless story that I shortly intended to pour into the cars of the real Nellie Gillespie. “Oh, my dear sir,” he moaned, “you're saying far too much. It's almost as bad as a theological lecture. Remember I'm utterly exhausted, months of languishing consumption ... I shall be gone in an hour or two. Make it very short and very simple.”

I began again, condensing into a few sentences all that I had said before. “Shorter still,” he demanded; “shorter and simpler! Remember, I'm dreadfully tired and weak. Shorter and simpler!”

I made a third venture, telling in just a word or two of the eternal Love and the eternal Cross. “Splendid!” he cried, springing suddenly to his feet and .clasping my hand. “Now away you go, as quickly as you can; and remember, whilst you are praying with Nellie Gillespie, I shall be praying for you! God bless you!” And the next day he assisted me at Nellie's funeral.

F W Boreham

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 4

Nothing contributed more to the happiness and enrichment of our lives at Mosgiel than his visits to our manse. I was ten years his junior. Whilst never making me feel that he was presuming upon his seniority, he always impressed me as being intensely anxious that I should acquire, without the toil of patient and laborious search, the intellectual and spiritual wealth that he had gathered in the course of those extra years of pilgrimage. Seated on the broad and sunlit veranda of my Mosgiel manse, he would pour the golden treasure of his mind and heart into my hungry ear. All that he had learned about the choice of books, about systems of study, about the conduct of public worship, about the art of preaching, and about the best method of pastoral visitation, he endeavoured, in its entirety, to impart to me.

He was particularly anxious about my library and the use I made of its contents. In the absence of a college education, he owed everything to the books that he had privately purchased and devoured. “Read, my dear man,” he exclaimed, one day, springing to his feet in his excitement and pacing the veranda in his characteristic way, “Read; and read systematically; and keep on reading; never give up!”

“But give me a start,” I pleaded, “be definite; what shall I read first?” He walked the whole length of the veranda and back without replying. Then, approaching me with eyes that positively burned, he cried with tremendous emphasis: “Begin with Gibbon! Read Gibbon through and through! Don't drop it because the first volume seems dry! Keep right on, and you'll soon have no time for bed and no inclination to sleep even if you go there!”

I bought Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the very next day. I would give a king's ransom‑always assuming that I possess such a thing‑to recapture the wild excitement of that magnificent adventure. It was my first serious incursion into the world of books. In my boyhood and youth I had read hundreds of books; books, for the most part, about pirates, Red Indians and grizzly bears, followed by a shelf or two of love stories and other romances of a sentimental kind. But what was this to the glory of Gibbon? I have the volumes still; and if, one of these days, I have either to sell them or starve, I tremble to think that I may by that time have fallen so low as to consent to their sacrifice. None of the tales of smuggler caves, or escapes in the jungle, or fights with sheiks and cannibals had ever fired my fancy as Gibbon did. Every chapter seemed to be a more gorgeous painting and a more spacious canvas than the one that preceded it. My imagination was so captivated by the swaying hordes of Goths and Huns, Vandals and Saracens that I started in my sleep as this imposing and variegated pageant of martial movement swept majestically through my dreams. My unfortunate and long-suffering little congregation was dumbfounded by the discovery that, whether the text were taken from Psalm or Gospel or Epistle, it could only be effectively expounded by copious references to the Avars, the Sabians, the Moguls and the Lombards, and could only he successfully illustrated by romantic stories about the hermits, the caliphs, the crusaders and the monks. Roman emperors stalked majestically through every prayer meeting address. Mosgiel was as astonished as ancient Gaul had been at finding itself suddenly invaded by the Roman legions! Poor little congregation! They did not suspect that their young minister had burst upon a new planet and that his brain was all in a whirl at the splendour of the discoveries that he was daily making!
For me, this intensive study of Gibbon, under Mr. Doke's supervision, led to a sequel that has coloured all my days. For, before I had finished the final volume, I found myself late one night in the office of Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Fenwick, the editor of the Otago Daily Times. I discovered that Mr. Fenwick was toying with the idea of inviting me to write leading articles on special subjects, for his paper. “Tomorrow's leader has yet to be written,” he remarked; “if you had to write it, what would you say?”

It chanced that, at that moment, all the young men in New Zealand were struggling to join the contingents that were being dispatched to South Africa. This historic development exactly synchronised with my excitement over Gibbon. “If I were writing to-morrow's leader,” I replied, with confidence, “I should establish a contrast between the patriotic eagerness of these young men to serve in South Africa and the shameful reluctance of young Romans to defend the Empire in the days of its decline and fall.” “That sounds promising,” Mr. Fenwick replied; suppose you sit down and write it!”

Next morning, in the big kitchen of the Mosgiel manse, a young minister and his wife gazed upon the leading article in that day's paper with a pride such as Lucifer can never have known. Thus Gibbon‑my first purchase under Mr. Doke's scheme‑paid for himself, as most of my books have done. For, from that hour, at Mr. Fenwick's invitation, I wrote leading articles for the Otago Daily Times on all kinds of historical scientific and literary themes. And, after leaving New Zealand I found ample scope for similar service on other daily papers. I have written more than two thousand leading articles in all.[1] Many of these have become the germs from which the essays published in my books have subsequently developed. When Mr. Fenwick received his knighthood, he assured me, in acknowledging my sincere felicitations, that he had often smiled over the recollection of our chat in his office on that bitter winter's night in the long, long ago.

F W Boreham

[1] Boreham wrote this book in 1948 so by the time his editorial writing finished (1959) he had written more than 3,000 editorials,GP.

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 3

At last, convinced that two years spent in the dry air of the African Karoo had patched up the holes in his lungs, he married a very charming girl at Graaf-Reinet and returned to England to succeed his father at his birthplace. After two years at Chuddigh and five at Bristol, he turned his face to the Antipodes. And so we met. At first glance we felt sorry for him. He was so small and so frail; he looked at times as if a puff of wind would blow him away. His asthma racked him pitilessly, day and night. Yet he never behaved as a sick man; never, if he could possibly help it, referred to his weakness. In all his movements he was brisk, vigorous, sprightly. He thought health; assumed health; radiated health. He emerged from his room every morning with the sunniest of smiles; whilst, long before breakfast was over, his clever witticisms and excellent stories would have everybody in the best of humour. His comments on the morning's paper represented a liberal education. His mind was so richly stored that every item in the news drew from him striking comparisons and dramatic contrasts gathered from the storied past.

The outlook from each window captivated him. As often as not, he would draw his sketch-book from his breast pocket and limn some pretty peep that particularly took his fancy. His home was luxuriously beautified by the multitude of his oil-paintings. When he slipped out into the garden, every flower, insect and bird awoke his enthusiasm. He loved life -life in every form and phase. In his later days he established a little zoo of his own and filled the house with the strangest pets. He would tell me in his letters of his lemurs, his meercats and his monkeys, and of the many-coloured birds in his aviary. And, as though real life failed to satisfy him, he invaded the realm of fiction. He wrote two novels ‑stories of the Karoo, ‑ that, for mystery and adventure, have been compared with the fancies of Rider Haggard. His lust of life was insatiable. I seldom saw him without his camera. He was eager to perpetuate every scene that confronted him, every experience that befell him.

[To be continued]

F W Boreham

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 2

J.J.D., as we affectionately called him - although the natives of Central Africa knew him as Shikulu Dolcowas one of two brothers, the sons of the first minister of the Baptist Church at Chudleigh in Devonshire. Both boys early imbibed a sincere faith in Christ and a fervent enthusiasm for the evangelization of the world. The elder volunteered for the Congo, and, almost as soon as he arrived, laid down his life there. The tragic circumstance profoundly affected the mind of the surviving brother. He remembered how, when Thomas Knibb died at the very inception of his missionary venture in Jamaica, his brother William, who had cherished no overseas ambitions, immediately took the vacant place. But the cases were not parallel. With the Knibbs, it was the weaker brother who died, leaving the stronger to succeed him. But, with the Dokes, it was the more robust brother who perished, leaving the other unequal to the coveted task. Joseph would gladly have gone out to the scene of his brother's sacrifice, but, though possessed of the essential spirit and the requisite gifts, his health was far too frail. Notwithstanding his alert mind, his hunger for knowledge and his winsome personality, the doctors would not hear of his taking a college course. He abandoned with a sigh his African dream; but the fact that, years afterwards, he named all his children after heroes of the Congo mission field, indicate unmistakably the emotions that still held all his heart.

But although the colleges were closed against him, no power on earth could have kept him out of a pulpit. He was a born preacher. Looking back over a fairly long life, I affirm deliberately that, for the natural eloquence that can stir men's deepest emotions and sweep an audience off its feet, I have never known his equal. For some years he held his brittle body and his shining soul together by occupying a pulpit for a few months, saving every penny that he possibly could, and then spending the proceeds on an excursion or a cruise.

On all these gipsyings, he became the idol of his fellow-travellers. He was lounging one evening on the deck of a P. and O. liner in the Mediterranean when the captain, taking the empty chair beside him, asked him if he was on his way to the Holy Land. Mr. Doke, who had only saved enough money for the return trip to Port Said, explained that he was going straight back. Guessing the reason, the captain ridiculed the idea. “Nonsense!” he laughed, “you're going on! Now look at me! I'm the skipper of a liner, having nobody on earth on whom to spend my salary! You go on; see all that there is to be seen in Palestine; and you'll make me happy for the rest of my life!”

I remember, too, his telling me of a bitterly cold night that he was forced to spend on a lonely wayside station in India. “My only companion,” he said, “was a tall Bengali, rolled up in a rug on a wooden seat, fast asleep. I paced the platform to keep warm. At last I was compelled to lie down for a minute and must have dozed. For, when I awoke, I was snugly wrapped up in the rug and the Indian was walking up and down to keep warm!” In the fine biography of my old friend, written by Mr. W. E. Cursons, we catch glimpses of him in South Africa, in Ceylon, in America and in many odd corners of the planet; and, everywhere, he exercised his resistless magnetism on everyone he met.[1]

F W Boreham

[1]Joseph Doke the Missionary-Hearted, by W. E. Cursons, F.I.C.S., published Christian Literature Depot, Johannesburg

The Man Who Saved Gandhi: Part 1

As a small boy I took for granted that Paul's famous phrase about entertaining angels unawares was a piece of pure hyperbole, a poetical expression coined as an incentive to hospitality. Soon after our marriage in New Zealand, however, my wife and I discovered that this glittering gem of apostolic diction represents a nugget of stark and sober fact.

We were ridiculously young, she and I, when we built our first home at Mosgiel in New Zealand: she was still in her teens. New Zealand, too, was young: we were able to chat, every day of our lives, with men and women who had come out on the very first emigrant ships. Strangers in so strange a land, we struggled bravely to make ourselves at home. And, on the whole, we managed fairly well until Christmas came. But when Christmas came in the hot blaze of midsummer, the fields around us aglow with golden harvests, it was too much for us. We felt wretchedly lonely and horribly homesick. Well meaning people wished us a merry Christmas. As if anybody could be merry under such conditions!

In those far-off days, however, it was our ineffable delight to welcome to our manse one happy guest who invariably brought his Christmas with him. Whenever he entered our Mosgiel manse, every room echoed with the Glory to God in the Highest of the Bethlehem angels; and, whenever the front-door bell rang, we half suspected that, out in front of the house, we should see the Wise Men with their train of camels.

The man who set the angels singing in the Mosgiel manse was Joseph John Doke, Although one of the most dynamic and colourful personalities who ever spent a few years beneath these mistral stars, he was of so modest and unassuming a disposition that those within whose minds the mention of his name now awakens any responsive vibrations must be exceedingly few. And of those who were privileged to enjoy his companionship, scarcely anybody suspected that his whole life was an epic of romance and adventure.

It chanced that in 1894, two churches in New Zealand needed ministers. The city pulpit at Christchurch was vacant; and the little church at Mosgiel, that had never indulged in a minister before, resolved with great trepidation to venture on the momentous experiment. Both sent to England. Mr. Doke was appointed to Christchurch, and I, fresh from college, was allocated to Mosgiel. And so we met in Maori-Land; and, as the first of the many notable services that he rendered me, he officiated at my wedding.

(To Be Continued)

F W Boreham

Blog Site Update

Since posting the article on Boreham and Mentoring which features Boreham's mentor, J J Doke, I have been asked where readers might get to read this hard-to-get little book.

Over the next few days I will be posting this book, The Man Who Saved Gandhi, in instalments.

I acknowledge that this book was originally published by Epworth Press. Permission to reprint this book has been granted by Whitley College, which holds copyright authority for all the books written by F W Boreham.

So to the first instalment of the book on J J Doke, one of the unsung heroes of the faith.

Geoff Pound

Boreham on Mentoring

Nothing New
Many people these days speak about mentoring as if it is a new phenomenon about which modern leaders are or should be engaged. It has been called by different names (supervision, curacy etc.) but the practice has been around forever.

Relationship Begins
It is instructive to note the many times in which F W Boreham pays tribute to his mentor, J J Doke and in such words to reflect on what this mentoring involved. This partnership it seemed was neither arranged by the seminary nor established by denominational leaders. The link was birthed in friendship. A year after Boreham commenced his ministry in New Zealand his young fiancée from Theydon Bois, arrived by ship in Christchurch. Boreham had asked the Rev J J Doke of the Spreydon church if he would conduct the wedding and along with the help of J J North, who served as best man, the knot was tied.

Pastoral Mentoring
J J Doke forged a strong friendship with both Stella and Frank and often made the long trek to Mosgiel to visit them on their home soil. On hearing the news of Doke’s untimely death in 1913 Boreham wrote, “He married me and helped me in more ways than I can tell. His friendship in our New Zealand days is one of my most cherished memories.”[1] Frank and Stella were to go through some difficult days of depression and ill health when Stella almost died so the pastoral care exercised by Doke through his visits and his letters was a lifeline.

Mentoring With Mutual Respect
After a month of formal ministry, this man who was fresh out of Spurgeon’s College felt totally inadequate and therefore receptive to any help that he could get. He wrote, “I was just beginning and was hungry for any crumb of wisdom that he, out of his rich experience, could impart.” It was this cry for help and his utmost respect for J J Doke that deepened the relationship. Boreham observed that Doke was “a born preacher”[2] and on another occasion, “I have never known his equal as a preacher.”[3] What amazed Boreham was that his mentor never received a College education, yet, “thanks to an indomitable will and tireless application, he was one of the most cultured and capable ministers I have ever known.”[4]

Different Style of Teaching
Doke was ten years older than Boreham but the younger man was never made to feel the lesser partner. In his essays and book about his mentor (The Man Who Saved Gandhi), F W Boreham attributed his ‘conversion’ to books to the encouragement of J J Doke. As he advised Boreham to read widely and commit himself to studying at least one serious book a week, J J Doke was responsible for prizing Boreham out of his narrowness and broadening him in all dimensions. He increased Boreham’s appreciation of nature (Doke was seldom seen without his camera) and he enlarged his world view. Doke was “an incorrigible traveler”[5] who undoubtedly passed on the travel bug to Boreham and reminded him of the way travel can make one a more interesting person. Like Doke, Boreham became a prolific letter writer and a regular contributor to newspapers.

The Broadening Role of the Mentor
It is remarkable to read the articles and correspondence that arose from Doke’s period in Africa, especially concerning the close friendship that developed between Gandhi and Doke.[6] As pastor of the Johannesburg Baptist Church the Rev Doke championed the rights of the Chinese and the Indians in their struggle for more humane conditions. The letters between Gandhi and Doke reveal that the Baptist pastor did much to negotiate on behalf of the Indians and he highlighted their cause prophetically in his weekly contributions to the Indian Observer and other papers.[7] This gives a glimpse into the way J J Doke was probably responsible for helping Boreham to understand the important social dimensions of the Christian faith and ministry, aspects that had been lacking through his early spiritual tutelage.

Geoff Pound

Image: Photo of J J Doke and front pages of F W Boreham's The Man Who Saved Gandhi.

[1] F W Boreham, The Golden Milestone, 50.
[2] F W Boreham, The Man Who Saved Gandhi, 5.
[3] F W Boreham, I Forgot To Say, 134.
[4] F W Boreham, The Ivory Spires, 28-29
[5] F W Boreham, The Passing of John Broadbanks, 200.
[6] Joseph John Doke Biography, http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=11685, viewed 20 February 2006. Gandhi and South Africa http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/people/gandhi/1-4.htm, viewed 20
February 2006.
[7] The C M Doke Collection of Letters from M K Gandhi (1907-1970)- Inventory http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=11322, viewed on 20 February 2006.

Boreham On Letter Writing

Letters in War Zones
An article by Sabrina Tavernise from Baghdad reports on the heroism of the train drivers who carry the mail despite frequently being attacked, the postmen who bravely ride mopeds through gun battles to deliver letters in Dora and the sheer joy of receiving a hand-delivered letter. “It's something wonderful to get a letter,” said Ibrahim Ismail Zaiden, a postman in Dora. “The paper, the stamp, the envelope. It is not just a piece of paper. It is something sacred.”[1] The sacredness of letter writing and reading is also an important theme in the essays and editorials of F W Boreham.

Ministry of Letter Writing
In an age when emails are dashed off often just for pragmatic means of communication it is valuable to reflect on the ministry of letter writing. Frank Boreham had been the recipient of such a ministry. Aubrey Price, a Christian leader in London took Boreham under his wing and continued to write when the young pastor shifted to the southern hemisphere. About these Boreham wrote, “I treasure his letters still.”[2] Reference has already been made to the weekly letters Boreham received from his mother and the vigorous correspondence from his mentor, J J Doke. Influential people such as the New Zealand author Dr Rutherford Waddell and the British Baptist leader, Dr John Clifford wrote letters of encouragement to Frank Boreham early in his writing ministry.[3] In time Boreham exercised a similar ministry to young pastors and youth leaders and put much thought into it. Writing to newly ordained pastor, the Rev Payton, Boreham said: “I shall waft you a heartful of benedictions.”[4]

The Slow Process of Letters
Being a public figure it was inevitable that Boreham would receive some critical letters from his readers. In one essay he wrote about a person who saw the Hobart newspaper advertising Boreham’s Sunday sermon title and sent a letter of two words to the preacher saying, “PREACH CHRIST.”[5] F W Boreham said that his practice in this instance and in responding to other difficult letters was to follow Abraham Lincoln’s practice which was to write a letter, sign a response and then burn it![6] Frank told of one occasion when he got a letter from a crank who had pestered him for some time. Boreham wrote a stinging attack but delayed his reply. As he was going to post the letter he learned that the man had just died.”[7]

Reflective Reading
One of the benefits of a traditional letter (compared to email) is that it can easily be stored, preserved and carried for further reading. This seemed to be Boreham’s practice with special letters. He writes, “I was resting under the shadow of a notable old cypress on a seat to which I make it a practice to repair once a week or so [he is referring to his Thursday afternoon habit of visiting Melbourne’s Botanical Garden]. To this charming retreat I steal away from time to time to read, carefully at leisure, the letters of a certain kind…”[8] Boreham wrote of the enduring ministry of letters and cited the letters of the Bible and Johnson’s impassioned letter to his mother. Many times Boreham declared that the reading of a letter had been the source of inspiration for an essay or sermon.[9] The value he placed on many of the letters is evident when he writes, “Whenever I received a characteristic letter from a friend, a letter that seems saturated in his spirit and echoing with it the merriment of his laughter, I have found it impossible to destroy it.”[10] The letters of literature that have an enduring quality find their endorsement from Boreham when he said, “Many a man does his best work after he is dead.”[11]

The Artistry of Letter Writing
F W Boreham wrote creatively and quirkily about the purpose of envelopes and the role of stamps.[12] At a time when letter writing was losing its appeal, he regularly sought to raise the profile of this ministry. There are at least six editorials in which Boreham asks, Can we write letters?[13] In other articles he calls for “a revival of the high art of letter writing.”[14] In an essay he distils much of his thinking when he writes:

“There is something sacramental about letter writing… You seldom do any harm and often do a world of good by committing to paper the best that is in you…. Like
every well-written letter it is essentially a self-revelation.”[15]

The sacramental quality of letter writing and this exercise in self-expression is hinted at in Boreham’s question, “Who would dream of clicking off a love letter on a typewriter?”[16]

Geoff Pound

Image: The old Letter Box near the Boreham household in Kew, Melbourne. How many letters from FWB did this box receive?

[1] Sabrina Tavernise, ‘Neither War Nor Bombs Stay these Iraqi Couriers’, New York Times, 22 February 2006.
[2] F W Boreham, I Forgot To Say, 79.
[3] Letters from Rutherford Waddell and John Clifford are kept in the F W Boreham Collection, Whitley Colege, Melbourne.
[4] F W Boreham, Cliffs of Opal, 104.
[5] F W Boreham, Rubble of Roseleaves, 93.
[6] F W Boreham, The Fiery Crags, 221; F W Boreham, ‘The Science of Humbug’, Hobart Mercury, 30 March 1940.
[7] F W Boreham, The Crystal Pointers, 40.
[8] F W Boreham, The Three Half-Moons, 43.
[9] F W Boreham, The Silver Shadow, 241.
[10] F W Boreham, The Golden Milestone, 49.
[11] F W Boreham, ‘The Tales That Dead Men Tell’, Hobart Mercury, 10 October 1942.
[12] F W Boreham, ‘Peels and Pods’, Hobart Mercury, 4 September 1954.
[13] F W Boreham, ‘Can we write letters?’ Hobart Mercury, 3 February 1923.
[14] Boreham, Rubble of Roseleaves, 223.
[15] F W Boreham, When The Swans Fly High, 117-123.
[16] F W Boreham, ‘The Personal Touch’, Hobart Mercury, 25 July 1942.

Boreham Pays Tribute To His Mother

Woman of Strong Opinions
Like many famous people Frank Boreham often paid tribute to his mother for the way she encouraged and inspired his gifts. Frank was the eldest child and felt that he had a special bond with his mother in that his advent signaled the commencement of mothering for Fanny Boreham.[1]

Frank’s mother had an influential shaping role on him and his nine brothers and sisters. He said, “Mother was a woman of strong opinions and prejudices. She knew her own mind and seldom gave a reason for any judgments that she formed. If any of us asked her why we were not allowed to go with other girls and boys to Sunday School she simply told us that she liked us all to go to church with father and herself on Sunday morning; that she liked us to spend Sunday evening with herself; and that she thought that this was quite enough.”[2]

Storyteller Supreme
Boreham wrote many times of the impact of storytelling on his own life and his mother’s ability to hold her children spellbound:

“And we loved to gaze upon the old church at night. It seemed strange to see the stained-glass windows showing their glories to the passer-by instead of to the worshippers within. Yet, pleasant as all this was, it was costly. For it meant forsaking the circle around the fire. There mother gathered her boys about her; read with us the collects and the lessons that were being used in church; and then held us spell-bound with a chapter or two of some delightful book. It is wonderful how many books we got through on those Sunday evenings. Then, before we said good night, we turned out the gas and just sat and talked by the light of the dying embers. Most of us were sprawling on the hearth-rug, sitting on hassocks, or kneeling around the fender. It always ended with a story. And, of all the stories that I have since heard and read, none ever moved me like those stories that in the flickering firelight, Mother told.[3]

Many times his mother gave the account of a gipsy woman who saw baby Frank in his pram and predicted that he would become a writer. He also acquired a special bond with Charles Dickens who had a memorable encounter with Fanny when she was a young girl.[4]

In Touch Through Letters
Frank Boreham left England at the age of twenty-four and spent most of the rest of his life in Australasia. Throughout his ministry he was always grateful for his rich upbringing and the blessing his parents gave to him in responding to a call that separated the Boreham family:

“Never a day comes to me under these clear Australian skies but I am touched to tears at the memory of the goodness‑the self-sacrificing goodness‑that my father and mother lavished upon me in the dear old English home.”[5]

In the days before effective phone calls and email F W Boreham was wonderfully sustained by regular letters from Tunbridge Wells:

“It is getting on for twenty years since I exchanged the Old World in the north for this new World beneath the Southern Cross. And never a single mail has reached Australia through all these years that did not bear a letter from my mother.”[6] Frank kept these letters throughout his life but most were destroyed upon FWB's death. A letter from Mrs Boreham has been found, preserved in one of Frank's books.[7]

Through an Arch of Roses
Frank and Stella Boreham made many trips back to England. Early in the 1930s on one of the visits home it was clear that Frank’s mother would not last long. It was a time for reminiscing, a memorable communion in the home and the final farewells. Boreham in an essay entitled, An Arch of Roses describes the last time he saw his mother as he and Stella left the family home to return to Australia:

“We saw [her] through an arch of roses, her tall and stately form at the bay-window...and a strange medley of smiles and tears playing across her brave and wrinkled face. Good-bye, dear Mother mine! I do not know how you will appear when I see you again; but I am certain that you will not look less sweet than you looked in that early summer morning when, in your pretty blue robe and your dainty lace cap, I saw you for the last time through a riot of red, red roses.”[8]

Upheld By Memories
Upon arriving back in Australia it was not long before the telegram arrived to say that, “Mother passed peacefully.” The news arrived at Christmas time. This news took the shine off the celebrations but unloosed waves of sustaining memories.[9]

Geoff Pound

Image: One of the earliest photos of the Boreham family in Tunbridge Wells. Frank at the back next to his father. Fanny Boreham seated.

[1] F W Boreham, A Witch’s Brewing, 100
[2] F W Boreham, A Late Lark Singing, 23.
[3] F W Boreham, Arrows of Desire, 3.6
[4] Boreham, A Witch’s Brewing, 100.
[5] F W Boreham, The Other Side of the Hill, 107.
[6] F W Boreham, The Golden Milestone, 51.
[7] This is held in the F W Boreham Collection, Whitley College, Melbourne.
[8] Boreham, A Witch’s Brewing, 108-109.
[9] Boreham, A Witch’s Brewing, 100-109.

Boreham On His Conversion

F W Boreham felt it was important to often recall his own faith journey and the time when he sensed Christ put his hand on him. He commended this practice to young ministers as a way of re-warming their spiritual passion.

While Frank had been brought up in the church ‑ the St John’s Anglican Church in Tunbridge Wells and then the Immanuel (revivalist) church ‑ he marked his conversion experience to a phase in London. He later wrote several times about being dreadfully lonely when he moved to the big smoke at the age of sixteen.[1] In one of his earliest books (and now one of the most expensive to buy!), he describes his experience.[2]

In a sermon, The Ultimate Centre of Gravitation, he pictures the judge of all the earth … surrounded by the countless throng...reading the secrets of each heart as though He and the judge were there alone:

"The very magnitude of that drama of the ages shall only make each heart feel more fearfully lonely. I shall never forget the day when, at the age of sixteen, I left home and found my way up to the roar and din of London. I had never seen such crowds anywhere else, jostling and shoving for every inch of pavement. And yet I remember standing that day in the heart of the world's metropolis, under the very shadow of St. Paul's, and shivering in the thick of the crowd at my utter loneliness. Amid the hops and the clover and the orchards of my Kentish home one could often shout to his heart's content, and never a soul would hear him. Yet that was a delicious and tranquil loneliness that one loved and revelled in, but the loneliness of that awful surging crowd seemed an intolerable thing. That will be the loneliness of the Judgement day, the indescribable loneliness of standing in the midst of myriad millions, all in the regal presence of the King of kings, and each most dreadfully alone before him."

Geoff Pound

Image: St Paul’s Cathedral

[1] F W Boreham, Mountains in the Mist, 221; F W Boreham, A Reel of Rainbow, 20
[2] F W Boreham, The Whisper of God, 137.

Boreham On Acorns and Oaks

Aussie Soil
In his early years Boreham expressed his abhorrence at the thought of dying in Australia and being buried away from British soil. However his gradual love affair with this great brown continent led him to rescind his earlier statement. Perhaps in some way his prayers were granted when his body was finally laid to rest nearby, in the Kew cemetery - in Australian soil under an old English oak!

Under The Old Oak Tree
The old oak, though much taller than in the 1950's, still shelters the grave in a graceful manner. Frank and Stella used to picnic at this family grave from the time their daughter Wroxie died, in 1953. Frank loved the way that the possums left their marks all around. Today, if you visit, there's still ample evidence to suggest that possums persist in playing in the oak and dancing on Boreham's grave.

An abundance of acorns adorn this grave - seeds that are pregnant with life and potential. Frank Boreham understood that those who live effective lives are those who like oaks have taken years to develop into fruitfulness.

F.W. Boreham once remarked how he rarely returned home from a Sunday of worship services to report to his wife that someone had become a Christian in response to his preaching that day.

However, he was for ever amazed at the many times people said to him, "That sermon that you preached ten years ago was the means by which God turned my life around!"

Invisible Mystery
This is something of the mystery of the ministry? We say or do something that at the time seems small and ordinary yet through an invisible and often a lengthy process of maturing there emerges something that is profound and transforming. This conviction offers hope to all of us when we realize the significant part, often the hidden part that we play in the purposes of God. It’s like acorns becoming oak trees.

Geoff Pound

Image: The Boreham family grave in the Boroondara Cemetery, Kew, Melbourne.

Boreham on Cricket

F W Boreham practiced his theme of 'making time for himself' through his passion for cricket. His wife is quoted in Who’s Who In Australia as saying that “if the house was on fire [her husband] would leave it to burn if there happened to be a cricket match in progress within twenty miles.”[1] His father was a cricket official who organized first class matches in Tunbridge Wells and the county of Kent and must have been responsible for introducing his son to the delights of the game.[2]

F W Boreham must be one of the few people who have shaken hands with W G Grace and dined with Sir Donald Bradman. I wrote to Sir Donald to ask him about this encounter but he gave a courteous reply saying he did not remember the man! Boreham played cricket on the green at Tunbridge Wells. He later was President of the Cricket Club in Hobart, Tasmania.

Boreham devoted so much time to the game because he loved it, he forgot everything apart from the runs and the cricket and he found it a great way to form friends outside the circles in which he normally moved.

Amid the busyness of his ministry in Tasmania Boreham wrote, “There is something wonderfully restful to the eye and strangely soothing to the mind about the very environs of a first class match.”[3] He also marveled at the game itself saying, “The glorious uncertainty of cricket is universally regarded as the greatest charm of the game.”[4] When, as an older man he found it hard to sleep, instead of counting sheep, he counted runs and with his brilliant memory he could replay entire cricket matches in his mind.[5]

There are many wonderful cricketing stories in his books (including an essay of The Middle Wicket),[6] but the cricketing story I like most is this one:

Watching the footy final at the MCG (he sat under the clock in the old Member’s Stand) Boreham and his cricketing friends were speculating at halftime about who would win the Test match in England that would decide the Ashes. Boreham did not say whether any money was put on it but they all wrote down what they thought Australia would make if the Aussies were batting first.

Boreham noted that one of his friends wrote down 250 runs and all the others wrote different scores up to 350. It was all so absurd because they had no idea about the state of the wicket or the outlook for the weather, but in an impish mood Boreham scribbled 475 and passed the paper on.

"475!" said his friend, who then said, "If Australia gets 475 on the board tonight you will be so excited that tomorrow when you enter the pulpit you will announce 475 instead of the proper hymn." Believe it or not, when stumps were drawn that night at the Kensington Oval Australia had made 475!

When on the next morning Boreham turned up to preach at the Paisley St Church at Footscray he was handed the order of service and on it was the opening hymn – ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken!’ No. 475!

Boreham does not try and explain this coincidence but he gets a sermon out of it and says: "If in the ordinary things of life we confront things that are incredible, we should not be surprised that in matters of the faith we sometimes find ourselves out of our depth."[7]

Geoff Pound

Image: Boreham (top left) with his cricket team in Hobart.

Sources:
[1] F W Boreham, The Drums of Dawn, 168.
[2] F W Boreham, Faces in the Fire, 26.
[3] F W Boreham, Luggage of Life, 89.
[4] F W Boreham, The Passing of John Broadbanks, 22.
[5] F W Boreham, Wisps of Wildfire, 241.
[6] F W Boreham, Nests of Spears, 160.
[7] F W Boreham, I Forgot to Say, 90.