Best Boreham Book for a Beginner

Somebody recently asked me, “If I was to read one Boreham book, which one would you recommend?” I said this was like trying to nominate your favorite child, a practice I wasn’t wanting to commence. As I thought about this question further I thought this was more about suggesting a good place to begin.

My suggestion to this person was to begin with F.W. Boreham’s autobiography, My Pilgrimage (which was subsequently published after his death with the title, Pathway of Roses). One cannot separate the person from his style. Although sentimental in places (typical of his age), My Pilgrimage has passion and through the pages Boreham connects powerfully with his readers.

This is a good book for pastors to read. As I wrote in an earlier posting Leslie Weatherhead described My Pilgrimage as, “the most inspiring ministerial autobiography I have ever read.” But any person would find the reading of this book to be interesting and rewarding.

When the first draft reached his old friend, J.J. North in New Zealand, North identified Boreham’s propensity for linking, which occurs in the opening paragraph of the book:

“Dr F. W. Boreham is publishing an autobiography. His first chapter tells of his birthday. Salvoes of cannon (by chance) were fired in every capital in Europe. It was not, however, because of his birth, but because in Europe the Franco-German War end coincided with an interesting friend's arrival on this planet.”[1]

Six months later New Zealand Baptist editor, Dr. North, added this article entitled, ‘Dr. Boreham's Honour’:

“We are delighted to hear that a fresh honour has befallen Dr. F. W. Boreham. It will be remembered that having completed somewhere about 25 volumes [it was 36], each with a considerable circulation both in U.S.A. and in Britain, he concluded (rashly it seems) that he had nothing else to say to his world. His last book, he said, had been published. But ideas continued to visit his receptive mind, and last year he broke his vow with a volume called "I Forgot to Say." This "paraleipomena" has been a great success, and the Religious Book Clubs of Britain have selected it as their book for January, and they have ordered a special edition of 5000.”

North continues:
“Dr Boreham is now producing his autobiography, and it is appearing in A.C. World every fortnight, and is to be published both in U.S.A. and in Britain. The last chapter we read described his unusual courtship. His lady, his "Stella," caught his eye when she was fifteen. He kissed her on the wharf when she was seventeen as he was sailing for New Zealand. She came out to this country when she was barely nineteen, and has been his "star" ever since, a woman greatly beloved by all who have known her, and (if we may say so) by this writer also, who was "best man" at the wedding in Kaiapoi in 1896. What a career the past editor of the New Zealand Baptist has had!”[2]


Six months later, when the book had come off the presses, North writes this commendation:

“The old and much-remembered editor of the New Zealand Baptist, Dr F. W. Boreham, has published the most dangerous sort of book, an autobiography. In no region of literature is failure more easy. The dangers imposed by natural egoism and triviality threaten shipwreck. This is the more probable in the case of a minister, whose whole life is immersed in the comparative obscurity of pulpit and pastoral work. Yet Boreham has made a success. He has developed an unstrained and lucid style, and he tells the simple details of his life with unfailing charm.”[3]

The major New Zealand bookshop chain printed this advertisement:

"MY PILGRIMAGE"—By F. W. Boreham. An Autobiography.
This is a choice book that every Baptist should read, full of memories that stretch back into Victorian England with its Spurgeon and its F. B. Meyer, and brings us across the Seven Seas to Australia and New Zealand, whose life he has done so much to mould. 7s 6d.
——Postage Extra——
WHITCOMBE AND TOMBS, LIMITED,
CASHEL STREET, CHRISTCHURCH.[4]

And another advertisement later in the year:

"MY PILGRIMAGE." By F. W. Boreham.
An autobiography full of irrestible inspiration. 7/6.
— POSTAGE EXTRA —
WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED
CASHEL STREET, CHRISTCHURCH.[5]

It is a pity this good book is no longer available for such a price.

Geoff Pound

Image: Stella, “a woman greatly beloved by all who have known her.”

[1] J. J. North, New Zealand Baptist, August 1939, 234.
[2] J. J. North, New Zealand Baptist, February 1940, 37.
[3] J. J. North, New Zealand Baptist, August 1940, 247.
[4] New Zealand Baptist, July 1942, 206.
[5] New Zealand Baptist, December 1942, 325.

Republishing Boreham Books

I received a letter recently from a new F. W. Boreham fan whose enthusiasm for reading books by FWB has been stimulated by Ravi Zacharias.

He wrote: “Where can I get a copy of Boreham’s Boulevards of Paradise?

Michael Dalton and I have lots of ideas about reprinting Boreham books but would like to hear from you.

What Boreham book would you like to see reprinted and why?

Geoff Pound

F. W. Boreham and J. J. North

F. W. Boreham was a prolific letter writer and although he had friends in different parts of the world he sought to maintain these relationships through regular correspondence.

One of his friends was J. J. North, who served as the Principal of the New Zealand Baptist Theological College and trained an entire generation of pastors.

This first letter F.W. Boreham wrote to Dr. North on the occasion of North’s seventieth birthday. Although North was the editor of the NZ Baptist, Boreham managed to get this letter printed in that magazine for all to see:

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
My Dear Dr North,—On the 26th of July you will be 70! Will you allow an old friend, who has himself attained that venerable age, to offer you affectionate felicitations and to wish you a wonderfully rich and radiant eventide? Lives like yours are capable of the most glorious sunsets. I extend these fond wishes not only on behalf of Mrs Boreham and myself, but in the name of thousands of people beyond the shores of New Zealand, who have been incalculably enriched by your brave and stimulating ministry.

The strands of our two lives are closely interwoven. We were born at about the same time. You were at my ordination at Mosgiel, in company with your honoured father, who delivered the charge to myself—a copy of which I still treasure. You were best man at my wedding. In my early days you were my cruellest, kindest critic, and during all the years we have preserved an inspiring sense of comradeship, which has been robbed of none of its charm by the physical fact that we have seldom seen each other's faces. It is particularly pleasant, too, to reflect that our wives, who were girls when they first formed each other's friendship, have been mercifully spared to us.

The good people of New Zealand, whom I still remember with gratitude and admiration, will deluge you with richly merited congratulations; but, whilst the crowd surges tumultuously around you on the great day, you must allow an old friend to press you hand, look into your eyes, and breathe upon you heaven's choicest benedictions.

The Lord bless thee and keep thee: the Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace!
[1]

On the fiftieth anniversary of J. J. North’s ordination, this snippet is found in the publication of North's reminiscences:

These Fifty Years.
A DOSE OF ANECDOTAGE. VALEDICTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED ON COLLEGE NIGHT BY DR J. J. NORTH.

In 1895 three men entered the ministry of the Church. F. W. Boreham, R. S. Gray and myself. It was given to all three of us to render long service. Boreham, after a ministry in the then remote township of Mosgiel, transferred his large literary talents to Australia. Gray, a very vital man, after two distinguished ministries became the first permanent secretary of the Union and Missionary Society. You have chosen at this Assembly to honour my poor doings, at which I shall be the first to throw a stone.

It was the good fortune of both Boreham and myself to live among pioneers, for the southern provinces were very young in our day. Boreham has written his romances on the old identities of the Taieri. I have failed the equally interesting folk among whom I settled on the Canterbury Plains.[2]

The final letter is written by F.W. Boreham on the occasion of the death of J. J. North:

DR. F. W. BOREHAM WRITES.
It is in my heart to tell my old friends in New Zealand of our own deep sorrow at the passing of my dear old comrade, and of our intense sympathy with them in their irreparable loss. Dr. North, then a theological student, sat beside me on the platform at Mosgiel on the night of my induction, early in 1895. His father delivered the charge. A year later J. J. North officiated as best man at our wedding, assisting the Rev. J. J. Doke at that memorable service.

My wife feels as sad to-day as I do. Although we parted when we were both about five and thirty, he remaining in New Zealand and I crossing the Tasman, we corresponded regularly to the end. His last letter, written on Good Friday, is scarcely legible, but it told me, as clearly as though it were inscribed in copperplate, that my dear old friend was preparing to cross the stream and that the trumpets would soon be sounding for him on the other side.

Near my home in Melbourne is a lovely green bank sloping gently down to the river. Among the trees is a pleasant seat. When Dr. North was here a few years back, he and I sat chatting on that seat during the last hour that we were to spend on earth together. We still call it "Dr. North's seat," and, whenever I occupy it, he seems wonderfully near.

I wave my hand to him in loving and grateful farewell, and I wave my hand to any in New Zealand who remember me, in affectionate greeting and benediction.[3]

Geoff Pound

Image: A picture of FWB at sunset.

[1] F. W. Boreham, New Zealand Baptist, July, 1941, 199.
[2] J. J. North, New Zealand Baptist, December 1945, 303-304.
[3] F. W. Boreham, New Zealand Baptist, September 1950, 265.

Boreham and "Are you his daughter?"

When the Boreham family arrived in Hobart they spent a month in Ivy Lodge before moving to their first Hobart address in Jordan Hill Rd.

Howard Crago recounts a humorous incident:

“F.W.B. and his young wife had interviewed a solicitor in the city regarding this house, and received by the next mail a letter informing them that the place was available, which began, ‘With reference to the conversation which I had today with your daughter and yourself…’”

Crago says: “Nor would it be the last time the girls would chuckle over their mother being mistaken for their sister!”

Source: T Howard Crago, The Story of F.W. Boreham (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1961), 120.

Image: Stella, wife of F.W. Boreham, looking glamorous on the steps of their first home at Jordan Hill Road, Hobart.

Boreham and this Photograph

This photograph was valuable in tracking down one of the Hobart homes in which the Boreham family lived. The Hobart church initially lleased at house in Elizabeth Street, just over from the church. This home has since been demolished and has been replaced by a petrol station.

I visited Tasmania (about 1996), with Frank Boreham (Junior) and his wife Betty, to look up the F. W. Boreham sites. During the visit we looked up and down a road to spot the second Boreham family home in Hobart but we did not have the street number. We looked in vain.

About two hours before we had to be at the airport we decided to have another try at finding the home. Walking up and down the street, this photograph and another one taken on these steps and against this wooden paneling provided us with the clue.

I knocked on the door and told them of our mission. They said, “When we purchased this home we were told that it once belonged to a famous author.”

They welcomed us in and we discovered that they were New Zealanders who had previously lived in Mosgiel! The old kitchen table and other furniture that came with the home had been made from beautiful New Zealand kauri wood.

Geoff Pound

Image: Family photo in Hobart.

F.W. Boreham Blogged

Google offers a useful facility if you want to know what other bloggers are writing about F.W. Boreham or the people who are quoting him. It is called Google Blog Search.

By entering F.W. Boreham’s name you are able to discover the most relevant results and you are given the option of searching by date. Sometimes you will find flogs (a place for selling Boreham books) rather than blogs.

If you really want to be advanced you can search for the postings that have been posted in the last hour, 12 hrs, day, week etc.

If you are writing about F.W. Boreham (or any topic) and your postings are not being listed in the Search or you have other questions, the answer might be discovered in the page entitled About Google Blog Search.

FWB would have been amazed!

Geoff Pound

Image: Google Blog Search logo.

Boreham the Editor

F W Boreham was the sixth editor of the New Zealand Baptist and he served from 1899 until he left for Australia in 1906.[1]

New Zealand Baptists were proud of their newspaper. Writing at the time of the NZ Baptist Union’s Jubilee, Dr. J. J. North said:

“No Church has been more consistently served by its denominational organ than has ours. The New Zealand Baptist is the oldest religious paper in this country, with the possible exception of the Catholic Tablet. Every other Church has seen its paper rise and fall and rise again. Ours has kept steadily on.”[2]

Editorial Rating
F.W. Boreham’s contemporaries judged that he maintained and increased the high standard of this publication. Stanley Jenkin said:

“When the century was yet very young, F. W. Boreham, with his journalistic flair and his wealth of literary illustration began to make the "Baptist" conspicuous.[3]

J. J.North wrote of the contribution that the editorial role made to Boreham’s career when he said, “That very brilliant journalist, F. W. Boreham, then of Mosgiel, succeeded to the chair in 1899, and carried his duties with entire success till 1906. He began to find himself as a writer by writing leaders for the New Zealand Baptist.”

“He had a new and novel touch. We remember how he shocked some sober brows by making test cricket a subject for a "leader." "Ipecacuanha" was another. As "Wrox" he wrote the cleverest description of Conference that we have ever had. Some entirely important articles written for the paper by ministers and laymen during his and Dewdney's reigns have their value still.”

“In 1906 F. W. B. went to Australia, to our lasting loss, and the editorial pen was entrusted to H. H. Driver.”

Boreham’s Self-Evaluation
It is interesting to note that in retrospect F. W. Boreham did not think he did a very good job as an editor. He shares his reflections in this published essay (1916) entitled, ‘The Editor.’

THE EDITOR by F. W. Boreham

I APPROACH my present theme with considerable diffidence, for reasons obvious and for reasons obscure. For one thing, I was for some years an editor myself, and I cannot satisfy myself that the experiment was even a moderate success. Everything went splendidly, so far as I was concerned, as long as I wrote everything myself; but I was terribly pestered by other people. They worried me year in and year oat, morning noon, and night. They would insist on sending me manuscripts that I had neither the grace to accept nor the courage to decline. They wrote the most learned treatises, the most pathetic stories, and the most affecting little sonnets. The latter, they explained, were for Poet's Corner. They actually deluged me with letters, intended for publication, dealing with all sorts of subjects in which I took not the slightest glimmer of interest. They sometimes even presumed, in some carping or captious way, to criticize or review things that I had myself written-as though such things were open to question! At other times they wrote to applaud the sentiments I had expressed—as though I needed their corroboration! They were an awful nuisance. The stupid thing was only a monthly, and how they imagined that there would be any room for their contributions, by the time I had been a whole month writing, passes my comprehension. Then came the awakening, and it was a rude one. I suddenly realized that I was a fraud, a delusion, and a snare. I was not an editor at all. I was simply masquerading, playing a great game of bluff and make-believe. As a matter of fact, I was nothing more than an objectionably garrulous contributor who had gained possession of the editor's sanctum, usurped the editor's authority, and commandeered the editor's chair. I felt so ashamed of myself that I precipitately fled, and, although I have several times since been invited to assume editorial responsibilities, I have shown my profound respect for journalism by politely but firmly declining. It does not at all follow that, because a man can make a few bricks, he can therefore build a mansion. A chemist may be very clever at making up prescriptions, but that does not prove his ability to prescribe.

During the years to which I have referred, that paper really had no editor. An editor would have done three things. He would have written a few wise words himself. He would have pitilessly repressed my unconscionable volubility. And he would have given the public the benefit of some of those carefully prepared contributions which I, with savage satisfaction, hurled into the waste-paper basket. It would have been a good thing for the paper if the editorials had been so few and so brief that people could have been reasonably expected to read them. They would then have attached to them the gravity and authority that such contributions should normally carry. And it would have been good for the world in general, and for me in particular, if liberal quantities of my manuscript had been substitutionally sacrificed in redemption of some of those rolls of paper, whose destruction I now deplore, which I consigned to limbo with so light a heart. Since then I have had a fairly wide experience of editors, and the years have increased my respect. `O Lord,' an up-country suppliant once exclaimed at the week-night prayer-meeting, 'O Lord, the more I sees of other people the more I likes myself!' I do not quite share the good man's feeling, at any rate so far as editors are concerned. The more I have seen of the ways of other editors the less am I pleased with the memory of my own attempt. The way in which these other editors have treated my own manuscript makes me blush for very shame as I remember my editorial intolerance of such packages. Very occasionally an editor has found it necessary to delete some portion of my contribution, and, nine times out of ten, I have admired the perspicacity which detected the excrescence and strengthened the whole by removing the part. I say nine times out of ten; but I hint at the tenth case in no spirit of resentment or bitterness. I am young yet, and the years may easily teach me that, even in the instances that still seem doubtful to me, I am under a deep and lasting obligation to the editorial surgery.

The editor is the emblem of all those potent, elusive, invisible forces that control our human destinies. We are clearly living in an edited world. We may not always agree with the editor; it would be passing strange if we did. We may see lots of things admitted that we, had we been editor, would have vigorously excluded. The venom of the cobra, the cruelty of the wolf, the anguish of a sickly babe, and the flaunting shame of the street corner; had I been editor I should have ruthlessly suppressed all these contributions. But my earlier experience of editorship haunts my memory to warn me. I was too fond of rejecting things in those days. I was too much attached to the waste-paper basket. And I have been sorry for it ever since. And perhaps when I have lived a few eons longer, and have had experience of more worlds than one, I shall feel ashamed of my present inclination to doubt the editor's wisdom. Knowing as little as I know, I should certainly have rejected these contributions with scorn and impatience. The fangs of the viper, the teeth of the crocodile, and all things hideous and hateful, I should have intolerantly excluded. And, some ages later, with the experience of a few millenniums and the knowledge of many worlds to guide me, I should have lamented my folly, even as I now deplore my old editorial exclusiveness.

And, on the other hand, we sometimes catch a glimpse of the editor's waste-paper basket, and the revelation is an astounding one. The waste of the world is terrific. And among these rejected manuscripts I see some most exquisitely beautiful things. The other day, not far from here, a snake bit a little girl and killed her. Now here was a curious freak of editorship! On the editor's table there lay two manuscripts. There was the snake—a loathsome, scaly brute, with wicked little eyes and venomous fangs, a thing that made your flesh creep to look at it. And there was the little girl, a sweet little thing with curly hair and soft blue eyes, a thing that you could not see without loving. Had I been there, I should have tried to kill the snake and save the child. That is to say, I should have accepted the child-manuscript, and rejected the snake-manuscript.

But the editor does exactly the opposite. The snake-manuscript is accepted; the horrid thing glides through the bush at this moment as a recognized part of the scheme of the universe. The child-manuscript is rejected; it is thrown away; have we not seen it, like a crumpled poem, in the editor's waste-paper basket? How differently I should have acted had I been editor! And then, when I afterwards reviewed my editorship, as I today review that other editorship of mine, I should have seen that I was wrong. And that reflection makes me very thankful that I am not the editor. We shall yet come to see, in spite of all present appearances to the contrary, that the editor adopted the kindest, wisest, best course with each of the manuscripts presented. We shall see

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Everybody feels at liberty to criticize the Editor; but, depend upon it, when all the information is before us that is before Him, we shall see that our paltry judgement was very blind. And we shall recognize with profound admiration that we have been living in a most skilfully edited world. For, after all, that is the point. The Editor knows so much more than I do. He has eyes and ears in the ends of the earth. His sanctum seems so remote from everything, and yet it is an observatory from which He beholds all the drama of the world's great throbbing life.

When I was a boy I was very fond of a contrivance that was called a camera-obscura. I usually found it among the attractions of a seaside town. You paid a penny, entered a room, and sat down beside a round white table. The operator followed, and closed the door. The place was then in total darkness; you could not see your hand before you. It seemed incredible that in this black, hole one could get a clearer view of all that was happening in the neighbourhood than was possible out in the sunlight. Yet, as soon as the lens above you was opened, the whole scene appeared like a moving coloured photograph on the white table. The waves breaking on the beach; the people strolling on the promenade; everything was faithfully depicted there. Not a dog could wag his tail but there, in the darkness, you saw him do it. An observer who watched you enter, and saw the door close after you, could be certain that now, for awhile, you were cut off from everything. And yet, as a fact, you only went into the darkness that you might see the whole scene in the more perfect perspective. What is this but the editor's sanctum? He enters it and, to all appearances, he leaves the world behind him as he does so. But it is a mere illusion. He enters it that he may see the whole world more clearly from its quiet seclusion.

In the same way, when I look round upon the world, and see the things that are allowed to happen, the Editor seems fearfully aloof. He seems to have gone into His heaven and closed the door behind Him. `Clouds and darkness are round about Him,' says the psalmist. And if clouds and darkness are round about Him, is it any wonder that His vision is obscure? If clouds and darkness are round about Him, is it any wonder that He acts so strangely? If clouds and darkness are round about Him, is it any wonder that He rejects the child-manuscript and accepts the snake-manuscript? And yet, and yet; what if the darkness that envelops Him be the darkness of the camera-obscura? The psalmist declares that it is just because clouds and darkness are round about Him that righteousness and judgement are the habitation of His throne. It is a darkness that obscures Him from me without in the slightest degree concealing me from Him.

So there the editor sits in his seclusion. Nobody is so unobtrusive. You may read your paper, day after day, year in and year out, without even discovering the editor's name. You would not recognize him if you met him on the street. He may be young or old, tall or short, stout or slim, dark or fair, shabby or genteel-you have no idea. There is something strangely mysterious about the elusive individuality of that potent personage who every day draws so near to you, and yet of whom you know so little.

One of these days I shall be invited to preach a special sermon to editors, and, in view of so dazzling an opportunity, I have already selected my text. I shall speak of that Ideal Servant of Humanity of whom the prophet tells. `He shall not scream, nor be loud, nor advertise Himself,' Isaiah says, `but He shall never break a bruised reed nor quench a smouldering wick.' That would make a great theme for a sermon to editors. "There He is, so mysterious and yet so mighty; so remote and yet so omniscient, so invisible and yet so eloquent; so slow to obtrude Himself and yet so swift to discern any flickering spark of genius in others. He shall not advertise Himself nor quench a single smouldering wick.

There are two great moments in the history of a manuscript. The first is the moment of its preparation; the second is the moment of its appearance. And in between the two comes the editor's censorship and revision. I said just now that I had noticed that editorial emendations are almost invariably distinct improvements. The article as it appears is better than the article as it left my hands. Now let me think. I spoke a moment ago of the child-manuscript and the snake-manuscript; but what about myself? Am not I too a manuscript, and shall I not also fall into the Editor's hands? What about all the blots, and the smudges, and the erasures, and the alterations? Will they all be seen when I appear, when I appear? The Editor sees to that. The Editor will take care that none of the smudges on this poor manuscript shall be seen when I appear. 'For we know,' says one of the Editor's most intimate friends, 'we know that when we appear we shall be like Him—without spot or wrinkle or any such thing!' It is a great thing to know that, before I appear, I shall undergo the Editor's revision.

Charlie was very excited. His father was a sailor. The ship was homeward bound, and dad would soon be home. Thinking so intently and exclusively of his father's coming, Charlie determined to carve out a ship of his own. He took a block of wood, and set to work. But the wood was hard, and the knife was blunt, and Charlie's fingers were very small.
`Dad may be here when you wake up in the morning, Charlie!' his mother said to him one night.

That night Charlie took his ship and his knife to bed with him. When his father came at midnight, Charlie was fast asleep, the blistered hand on the counterpane not far from the knife and the ship. The father took the ship, and, with his own strong hand, and his own sharp knife, it was soon a trim and shapely vessel. Charlie awoke with the lark next morning, and, proudly seizing his ship, he ran to greet his father; and it is difficult to say which of the two was the more proud of it. It is an infinite comfort to know that, however blotted and blurred this poor manuscript may be when I lay down my pen at night, the Editor will see to it that I have nothing to be ashamed of when I appear in the morning.

F.W. Boreham, ‘The Editor,’ Faces in the Fire (London: The Epworth Press, 1916), 57-67.

[1] The editors of the New Zealand Baptist who preceded F. W. Boreham were: Rev. W. C. Spencer (1881-82); Rev. C. Bright (1883,-84); Rev. A. North (1883-87); Rev. L. Shackleford (1887-89); Rev. A. Dewdney (1889-99) in L. A. North, ‘We Editorial Succession,’ New Zealand Baptist, August 1966, 201.
[2] J. J. North, ‘The New Zealand Baptist: Jubilee Retrospect,’ New Zealand Baptist, October 1932, 304-305.
[3] Stanley Jenkin, ‘A Bit from the Heart of a Friend and Fellow-Worker,’ New Zealand Baptist, January 1949, 3.

Image: One editor under pressure and still looking for a story.

Boreham and the Lamplighter

The following is the text of an essay by F W Boreham that appeared in a brochure distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society [now The Bible Society].

A LAMPLIGHTER

By the Rev. F. W. Boreham, D.D.

How heartily and incredulously Harry Walsh would have laughed if some little bird had whispered in his ear that, in centuries to come, men would speak of William Tindale as a grave and austere scholar, a stern and gloomy reformer, a severe and unbending controversialist! And Humphrey Monmouth would have felt very similarly. For Harry Walsh, a sunny little fellow of six, living at Little Sodbury, and Humphrey Monmouth, an alderman and well-known merchant of the city of London, knew Mr. Tindale as one of the most winsome, one of the most genial and one of the most lovable of men. Their happiest hours were spent in his society. Harry was the elder son of Sir John Walsh, a knight of Gloucestershire, and Mr. Tindale was his private tutor. Here they are, sitting together beside a stile under a giant chestnut tree, surveying from this green and graceful hillside the quaint little hamlet nestling in the hollow! Harry, in all the bravery of his trim velvet suit, with silk stockings and silver buckles, is perched on the top of the stile. His tutor, a young man of thirty, of well-knit frame and thoughtful but pleasant face, with nut-brown hair and deep-set hazel eyes, is seated on the foot-step below him. A little brown squirrel eyes them suspiciously from a branch overhead and a cuckoo is calling from the copse near by. Harry carries an armful of bluebells.

"What wonderful times we are living in" exclaims Mr. Tindale, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "Why, you and I ought to thank God every day, Harry, that he has sent us into the world just now! Every morning brings news of some fresh wonder!"

It was no exaggeration. The air literally tingled with sensation and romance. The world was being made all over again. The very planet was assuming a fresh shape. It was an age of thrills! One day Bartholomew Diaz gave Africa to the world; the next, Columbus presented it with America, and then Vasco da Gama unveiled India! Continents were springing up like mushrooms! And, whilst Columbus was discovering a new world in the West, Copernicus was discovering a new universe in the skies, and William Caxton was introducing a new age with his printing presses! It was the age, too, of the Renaissance and the Reformation!

"What wonderful times we are living in!" exclaimed Mr. Tindale, partly to himself and partly to his young charge perched on the rustic stile. Harry's golden hours are the hours that he spends rambling across the fields or through the woods in Mr. Tindale's delightful company. For he knows that, as soon as they warm to their stride, his tutor will tell him the latest wonder of which the coach from London had brought word.

He goes to London
All things come to an end, however, as Harry discovers to his sorrow. As long as he lived he always declared that the deepest shadow that darkened his happy boyhood was his tutor's resignation. He never forgot the evening on which Mr. Tindale told him that he must leave Little Sodbury.

The candles having been lit, Mr. Tindale, as is his custom, read to the two boys—Harry and Richard—a few verses from his Greek Testament, translating and commenting as he goes along.

"We must read our favourite verses tonight," he had said, with a smile of singular sweetness in which, however, a suspicion of sadness seemed to linger. The boys know exactly the passage to which he refers. They know how dear to him are the verses that he has taught them, too, to love.
"You are of God, little children," he begins, and reads on till he comes to the words We love Him because He first loved us." Those words, he used to tell the boys, were the pearly gate through which be entered the kingdom.
"I used to think," he said, "that salvation was not for me, since I did not love God; but those precious words showed me that God does not love us because we first loved Him. No, no; we love Him because He first loved us. It makes all the difference!"
The familiar passage having been read once more, Mr. Tindale tells them that he is leaving them. The boys are soon in tears and the tutor's voice is husky.

“But why,” demands Richard, in a passion of childish grief, "why must you go?" He draws them to him and attempts to explain.
“I must go," he says quietly, "because I have found the work that God has sent me into the world to do. You have heard the things that have been said at dinner. Great and wise men, even preachers and prelates of the Church, come to dine with your father and mother, and say things that they could not possibly say if they knew aught of the Scriptures. If learned doctors and eloquent preachers are so ignorant of the Divine Word, is it any wonder that the people are it in darkness? A new day is dawning, the people are reading and thinking , it is time they had the Bible in their own tongue; and so, as I told your father and Doctor Hampton at dinner last night, I have resolved that, if God spare my life, I will cause every ploughboy in England to know the Scriptures better than the priests and prelates know them now; but it cannot be done here. I must go to London, and there, I trust, Bishop Tunstall will counsel and assist me." And so, after taking a sorrowful farewell of the household at Little Sodhury, Mr. Tindale turns his face towards London.

He becomes an Exile
But London receives him with a scowl. He soon discovers that he has poked his hand into a hornet's nest. On his first appearance at the palace, the Bishop gives him the cold shoulder; and, when he persists in his overtures, he is threatened with all the thunderbolts that the Church can hurl. By every ship that glides up the Thames, the writings of Martin Luther are being surreptitiously imported into England, and men are being hurried to prison and to death for reading them. The disappointed young tutor never dreams that, in centuries to come, his statue will hold a place of honour on the Victoria Embankment, and that, at its unveiling, princes and peers will bare their heads in reverence to his illustrious memory

And yet, while Church and State frown upon his project and eye him with suspicion, those who come into intimate touch with him are captivated by his charm. From his old employer at Little Sodbury he brings letters of introduction to some of the merchant princes of the metropolis, and in their homes he soon becomes a loved and honoured guest. With Alderman Humphrey Monmouth he stayed for more than six months. On week days he worked quietly at his translation. "But," as an old chronicler says, "when Sunday came, then went he to some merchant's house or other, whither came many other merchants, and unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture, the which proceeded so sweetly, gently and fruitfully from him that it was a heavenly comfort to the audience to hear him read the Scriptures. He particularly loved the writings of St. John." Harry and Richard Walsh must have smiled knowingly if that last sentence ever came under their notice: "He particularly loved the writings of St. John." They would see again the glowing face of their old tutor and hear him repeat with rapture the words: We love Him because He first loved us.

Two things, however, are now clear. The first is that the people of England are hungry for the Word of God in their mother tongue; the second is that it is out of the question to attempt such a publication in London. This being so, he must brace himself for another painful wrench. Tearing himself from the homes in which so many delightful hours have been spent, he sets sail for the Continent.

He Translates the Scriptures into English
And on the Continent he knows of at least one kindred spirit. Martin Luther is hard at work translating the Scriptures. "Would to God," Luther cried, "that this book were in every language and in every home!" Mr. Tindale decides to hasten to Wittenberg and talk things over with the man who was shaking the very foundations of Europe. It is a pity that we have no classical painting of their historic meeting.

Luther and Tindale! The German Bible of today is the most enduring and most glorious monument to Martin Luther; the English Bible of today is the most enduring and most glorious monument to William Tindale! And here, in 1524, we see the two men spending a few memorable days together!

The rest of the story is well known. We have all chuckled over the way in which Tindale outwitted his old antagonist, the Bishop of London. The New Testament in English is at last complete. But how is it to reach England? The ports are closed against it! The book is contraband! Yet, in crates and casks and cases, in boxes and barrels and bales, in rolls of cloth and sacks of flour and bundles of merchandise, the Testaments come pouring into the country!

“Very well!" retorts the Bishop, "if we cannot ban the books, we'll buy the books and burn them!" He does so, only to discover, as soon as the flames of his famous fire have died down, that, in buying them, he has provided Tindale with the wherewithal to print a larger and better edition!

We have all experienced the thrill of this brave adventurous career. He was harassed; he was excommunicated; he was driven from pillar to post; he was hunted from country to country; he was shipwrecked he was betrayed; he was imprisoned; he was tortured; and, at last, he was sentenced to a shameful death.

And we have all felt the pathos of that last letter of his. He is still in the prime of life; but he is worn out and decrepit. Lying in his damp cell at Vilvorde, awaiting the stroke that is to emancipate his soul for ever, he reminds his friends that the date of his execution has not been fixed and that winter is coming on. "Bring me," he begs, "a warmer cap, something to patch my leggings, a woollen shirt, and, above all, my Hebrew Bible!"
"Above all, my Bible!

The words are eminently characteristic. He lived for the Bible; he died for the Bible; and he mounted the scaffold, and, looking forward into the future, he saw the time when the Bible would be read in every city, town and village throughout the land.

Tindale died a martyr's death on 6th October, 1536, and at the four hundredth anniversary of his passing we do well to honour his glorious memory.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY
146 QUEEN VICTORIA ST., L.C. 4
GREAT BRITAIN
No. 686 June 1938

Source: This essay is a slight adaptation of F. W. Boreham's ‘William Tyndale’s Text’, A Temple of Topaz (London: The Epworth Press, 1928), 262-272. [Tyndale is the spelling used in this essay while the brochure uses Tindale].

Image on pamphlet: The Manor House, Little Sodbury, where Tindale was tutor.

Thanks to Michael Dalton for sending me a copy of this pamphlet.

Boreham Book Contest

Your Chance
Here’s you chance to win a free, postage-paid copy of Lover of Life: F. W. Boreham’s Tribute to His Mentor. This is the new book published by John Broadbanks Publishing.

John Broadbanks publisher, Michael Dalton says: “The word “romance” comes to mind when I think of Boreham’s writings. He has such a wonderful and fanciful way of expressing himself. Though this might be considered a religious book, I think that anyone could appreciate the winsome spirit in which he writes.”

“This is a story of how one man played a pivotal role in the life of a young minister starting out. There are lessons here for everyone.”

Your Task
All you have to do to win a copy is tell the publisher in your own words what books or authors have meant the most to you and why. If you are familiar with Boreham’s writings, let us know what they have meant to you. Anyone can enter.

The entry (or entries) we like the most get a free copy of the new Boreham book.

Timetable
Just submit your entry by the end of March. Our favorite entries may be posted on line along with the name of the winner (or winners) at The Official F. W. Boreham Blog Site: http://fwboreham.blogspot.com/.

You can send your entries directly to:

Mike Dalton
2163 Fern Street
Eureka, CA 95503
Email address: dalton.michael@sbcglobal.net

Boreham and The Total Eclipse

I am grateful to Jeff Cranston who has sent me his reflection on a recent television program which recalled for him, F. W. Boreham’s essay on The Total Eclipse [this follows].

The Discovery Channel recently stepped into the realm of the fantastic, claiming through its recent broadcast, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, that the graves of Jesus Christ and his family have been uncovered.

The program was watched by over four million viewers, the highest ratings for the network since September 2005.[1] The New York Times stated in a review entitled, Leaning on Theory, Colliding with Faith:

“The documentary, which carries the seal of approval from its executive producer James Cameron (‘Titanic’), has already caused some ado, however, with bold assertions that clash with conventional Christian doctrine. Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had a son, Judah, according to the filmmakers. And all three were laid to rest in a family tomb that is now buried deep beneath a Jerusalem apartment complex. And, of course, the filmmakers’ claim that they identified the burial remains of Jesus of Nazareth — including traces of DNA — suggests that he was not bodily resurrected, after all.”[2]

In recent days the propositions of these claims have been met with skepticism and opposition from scholars of all stripes. Historians and archeologists, Christian and non-Christian, have called into question everything surrounding the fanciful assertions of the producers.

Dr. Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), expressed irritation that the claims were made at a news conference rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific article. By going directly to the media, she said, the filmmakers "have set it up as if it's a legitimate academic debate, when the vast majority of scholars who specialize in archaeology of this period have flatly rejected this," she said.[3]

This reminds me of F. W. Boreham’s essay, “A Total Eclipse” in his book Dreams at Sunset. He relates a fictional story about a man caught in a web of financial bondage who treks off to the Middle East, purportedly discovering a tomb containing the words of Joseph of Arimathea which relate that he took Jesus' body and hid it in the tomb. In a matter of weeks, the resurrection of Christ is soon pronounced a hoax. The indebted man has created this hoax to pay off his debt to a powerful man who wanted to destroy Christianity. As the news spread around the world, Boreham wrote, "Those whose religion is of the formal, superficial kind abandon it; the bubble has burst; they feel ashamed of their gullibility.”

Similar sentiments have been echoed in recent days as many read about the find of the ossuary supposedly containing the bones of Christ. Someone once said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” As we face yet another heresy storming the gates of Faith, Boreham’s essay reminds us that the Scriptural account of Christ’s’ resurrection is an anvil that has worn our yet another hammer.

A Total Eclipse by F. W. Boreham

AMONG the minor sensations of the nineteenth century were the thrillers of Guy Thorne. His most dynamic and explosive production, When It Was Dark, was proclaimed as the most daring and original novel of the period, and enjoyed the distinction of being glowingly commended by the Bishop of London from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey.

I

It tells how Constantine Schuabe, a millionaire, loathing Christianity with a venomous hatred, resolves, at any cost, to destroy it. Discovering that Professor Sir Robert Llwellyn, the most brilliant antiquarian and archaeologist of his day, is leading a double life and is up to his ears in debt, Schuabe cultivates his acquaintance, lends him fourteen thousand pounds, and, shortly afterwards, demands repayment under penalty of having the whole vile story of Llwellyn's private life exposed.

Whilst Llwellyn is grovelling at the feet of the plutocrat, begging for time, Schuabe startles him by remarking that it would be easy for him to wipe out the debt and become a wealthy man. How? Schuabe tells Llwellyn that he must, on the excuse of ill-health, get a year's leave from the British Museum; he must then go to Palestine and discover that the record of the Resurrection is just a pious fraud.

Backed by his unimpeachable reputation, his verdict will be readily accepted, and Christianity will be an exploded myth. What could be more simple?

II

A few months later the world learns with speechless amazement that a new cave has been unearthed in the Holy Land. It contains a slab inscribed, 'I, Joseph of Arimathea, took the body of Jesus from the tomb and hid it in this place.' On a ledge nearby a slight mould is spread, probably all that remains of a decomposed body.

The announcement creates a sensation such as the nation has never previously known. Llwellyn's name carries weight. Press, Parliament and people are alike dumbfounded. Stocks and shares collapse. With the decline of public confidence, commerce is reduced to stagnation and industry is paralysed. Bankruptcy and unemployment become the order of the day. Depression reigns everywhere.

When Cyril Hands, whom Llwellyn had employed to do the spadework of the expedition, returns to England, he is overwhelmed by remorse. A servant finds his body on the hearth rug: a newspaper, with its terrifying columns of wretchedness, desolation and ruin, is clutched in his dead hand.

Those whose religion is of the formal, superficial kind, abandon it: the bubble has burst: they feel ashamed of their own gullibility. But there are others. In churches, chapels and mission—halls up and down the country, there are thousands of simple souls whose personal experience of the Saviour's transforming grace has been so vivid, so profound and so convincing that the wave of unbelief fails to affect them.

Among these immovable optimists is Gertrude Hunt, the pretty dancing-girl with whom Sir Robert Llwellyn had become involved. Just before Llwellyn's departure for Palestine, she was taken ill. To Sir Robert Llwellyn's ineffable disgust, Basil Gortre, a young curate visited her, leading her to repentance and faith.

Later on, her sickness having taken a more serious turn, she confronts the bombshell in the newspaper. But it makes no difference. How, with a life as radically changed as hers had been, can she possibly doubt?

Later still, strange thoughts occur to her. Llwellyn was given leave to go to Palestine on the grounds of failing health; yet she, who knew him so intimately, saw no signs of weakness. Why, too, did he brag, before going, that he would startle the world by his discoveries? And why, instead of worrying about his debts, as he used to do, was he now so affluent and reckless of expense?

Moved by a sudden inspiration, she goes to him, pretends that she is tired of being good, and wants everything to be as it once was.

In the surprise of this unexpected denouement, he flings to the winds the forebodings that have increasingly oppressed him, and, in a burst of half-drunken confidence, tells her everything.

As soon as Gertrude leaves him, Llwellyn realizes the enormity of his indiscretion. To relieve his own mind of the intolerable agony, he rushes to Schuabe, the millionaire, and confesses his incredible folly. The two men stare aghast at one another. What is to be done? Nothing can be done: for Gertrude has gone straight to Basil Gortre, the curate who had been the instrument of her regeneration, and put it in his power to hurl into the world a second bombshell.

The general relief is indescribable. Humanity is emancipated. But in the universal rejoicing the principal actors in the drama have no share. Gertrude dies of the malady that has so long afflicted her. Llwellyn, wretched beyond words, completely collapses and passes away whilst confessing to his wife his sordid infidelity. And Schuabe, his immense fortune wrecked by the depression that he has himself created, loses his reason and vanishes from sight. But the world at large is once more bathed in the brightness of the Easter triumph.

F. W. Boreham, ‘A Total Eclipse,’ Dreams at Sunset (London: The Epworth Press, 1954), 27-30.

Image: Total eclipse of the sun.

[1] TV Week.com, James Hibberd, March 8, 2007.
[2] The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley, March 3, 2007.
[3] The Washington Post, Alan Cooperman, February 28, 2007.

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:

-------------------------------

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.