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From England to Mosgiel - F.W. Boreham

Hands down, my favorite author is F.W. Boreham. I try to read something from his pen everyday. I even post his thoughts on his behalf on Twitter (@FWBoreham). So, I'm excited to share the news with you that March 9th marked the day when From England to Mosgiel came back into print after more than a 100 year absence.

In it, Boreham writes of his maiden voyage to New Zealand, the site of his first pastorate after completing studies at C.H. Spurgeon's preacher's college.

He could only imagine what awaited him on the ship that took him to his new home. It was there through his pen that readers met the interesting people that would influence his early ministry. Simplicity meets with insight in Boreham’s recollections. It turned his essays into bestselling books.

Though far from home in England, the cross of Christ forever changed his outlook.

Heaven above is softer blue,

Earth around is sweeter green;  

Something lives in every hue,

Christless eyes have never seen.

To purchase your own copy, you may email Michael Dalton. It will also soon become available at AbeBooks, Amazon and eBay.

Birds with gladder songs o’erflow

Flowers with brighter beauties shine,

Since I know as now I know,

I am His, and He is mine.

If you are looking to challenge your heart, expand your vocabulary, meet wonderful characters, and sit in amazement as one of the last century's most prolific author's unfolds the providential hand of God in the ordinary, everyday things of life, why not start reading Boreham? From England to Mosgiel would be a good introduction to the man himself. 

Conquerors of the Heights by F.W. Boreham

It is just a hundred years since survey calculations proved that Mount Everest is the world's loftiest summit.  It is therefore singularly fitting that the centenary should be celebrated by another attempt to scale its dizzy peak. For, all our modern triumphs notwithstanding, the fact remains that nobody has yet stood on the roof of the world.** The real sky-piercers have never been climbed. The tallest pinnacles wrap their clouds about them and stand defiant and triumphant; they have never felt the proud heel of a conqueror.

It is true that men have reached a point within a short distance of the 29,000 ft. summit of Mount Everest. It is barely possible that one or two men have reached the top and been lost on the return journey; but no man has ever invaded that awful solitude and lived to tell the tale. As they confess who have attained the greatest altitude, it is the last pinch that presents the real difficulty. The physical obstacles are almost insuperable; the entire face is frozen; the bedrock is loose and unstable; the atmospheric conditions are at least as insufferable as those prevailing at the Poles.

In his "After Everest," Howard Somervell tells how, with comparative ease, he reached the 28,000 ft. level; but, beyond that point, progress was impossible. "My throat," he says, "was not only extremely painful; it was almost blocked up. I know not why." And so, with the peak scarcely half a mile away, he and his redoubtable companions were forced to descend. It was a heart-breaking experience, but it was inescapable.

The Best Is Yet To Be

It is good, both for our humiliation and our inspiration, that we should lay such pregnant records to heart. There are heights which still ache for conquest. It may be mortifying to be reminded that we have not been everywhere and discovered everything. But it would be simply crushing if we were assured that nothing remained to be discovered. There is a thrill in feeling that the dizziest pinnacles have yet to be climbed; the sweetest songs have yet to be sung; the stateliest poems have yet to be penned; the finest books have yet to be written; the most heroic exploits have yet to be achieved. The peaks still beckon, the topmost crags are calling, the Golden Age has yet to be ushered in.

These exhilarating records demonstrate, too, that there is a social element in mountaineering. The heights must be scaled, not by individuals, but by parties; and, within those groups, the laws of brotherhood are absolutely imperative. The golden rule is nowhere so clamant. On those high and glassy slopes, every task that presents itself has to be faced with a full recognition of its suitability to the capabilities of each member of the party. The slipping of the feeblest foot may easily jeopardise the lives of all. If the mountaineers be roped together, and one climber loses their foothold, the sudden tug may easily drag down the man in front and the man behind, and they, in turn, may tear the others from their grip upon the slippery track. Even if there be no cord, the principle is the same. For, if one member slipping, is hurled into the abyss, the survivor feels themselves in honour bound to institute rescue operations; such operations are extremely hazardous; and, in all likelihood, other lives will be lost in the attempt to retrieve the original victim.

It is only in life's loftier and rarer atmospheres that this sublime and basic law asserts itself so emphatically. The murky mists of the lowlands obscure the fact that we are indeed and in truth members one of another. No man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. It is in giving due consideration to each other's frailties, and in bearing each other's burdens, that we fulfil life's loftiest law.

The Peril Of The Easy Path

One of the most startling revelations made by the men who have created the literature of mountaineering is the astonishing fact that the vast majority of fatalities occur on the easy tracks. A party will come upon a shelf of ice that seems impassable. Its gradient, its narrowness, and its curve threaten certain death, whilst it is so slippery that it glitters in the sunlight. The overhanging rocks add their formidable threats.

Dared by such a situation, each member of the party pulls himself together. Summoning all his resources of caution and vigilance, he plants one foot with scientific exactitude, bringing round the other with mathematical precision. Watching the poise of his body with meticulous care, he concentrates all his powers of mind and muscle so completely upon his task that inch by inch, he edges his way in safety along the apparently impassable track. Then, at the top, he sees nothing but a broad and easy path that a novice could negotiate.

Flinging caution to the winds, he sets out upon that simpler stretch with a gay abandon; and, on that easy track, he meets disaster.

Life is like that. Although we commonly regard youth as the essential period of moral peril, the stark fact is that the most devastating collapses occur in middle life. Men deem themselves beyond the reach of those dangers that, in earlier years, seemed so terrifying. Cardinal Newman used to say that when a man has earned for himself a reputation for holiness, for integrity and for noble living; when he is conscious that all men look up to him, love, honour and trust him; he is in greater moral peril than he has ever before known.

Having made their way with trembling caution through the most crucial period; having successfully resisted the allurements, enticements, and blandishments peculiar to youth, such men set off with a reckless stride along the broader and even more even path that middle age presents. Thinking that they stand, they take no heed lest they fall, and are, in consequence, numbered among the tragic victims of the easy track.

**The "dizzying peak" was scaled on  May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Sir Edmund Percival Hillary and Nepalese Tenzing Norgay. Boreham was thrilled when he learned a New Zealander had reached the summit. He wrote about the feat in a later essay.

 

In Pastures Green

 
Quick: what's your favorite Psalm? Most of us would respond: the 23rd.

If that's the case, then I have great news for you!

John Broadbanks Publishing has just recently released In Pastures Green, by the venerable and prolific author, F.W. Boreham. The publishers write, "This is such a masterful reflection on Psalm 23 that it's hard to believe that F. W. Boreham was 83 when he wrote it. It's Boreham at his best. His wit and wisdom make it a comfort and encouragement ... this will appeal to people of any age."

Michael Dalton writes, "Of all that could be said of F.W. Boreham, remarkable praise came from a non-Christian family friend. After reading Boreham's loving tribute to a mentor, this friend said, 'What I liked so much about the book is that it gets its point across by example rather than preaching. Each chapter leaves its message.'  

Rev. John Woodward of Atlanta says, "I just read Boreham's book, In Pastures Green, and what a delight. The added insight he provides on the 23rd Psalm is profound and to me his Old English style of writing is most enjoyable. No wonder so many of his books and essays are still in demand." 

Writing about Joseph Addison and how he was impacted by this particular psalm, Boreham writes, "He learned the words, innocently and thoughtlessly, at his mother's knee, but they became the song, the strength, and the solace of his later life."  I think the same can be said for Frank Boreham.

The 36-page booklet is one every lover of the Shepherd's psalm will want to have; to read and then re-read again and again. It's that good.

purchase here

On Staying Warm

"If," says Philip Henry to his daughters, "you would be warm in wintertime, seek Christian communion!" In a great room of which you are the only occupant, you may be chilled to the bone; when the same room is crowded with guests, buzzing with conversation and echoing with laughter, you may be as warm as toast.

In his early days, John Wesley conceived the idea that spirituality necessitated continual solitude. His first notion of the Christian life was a stern, austere, ascetic one, and the temper grew upon him. "Entering now upon a new life," he writes, "I should prefer such a retirement as would seclude me from all the world!" Says Fitchett, "the strain of such a religion as that one which Wesley was now trying to live was too much for human nature. Even his tough body broke down."

Fortunately, he took counsel with a good old man who said, "Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone. You must therefore find companions or make them; the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion!"

Wesley never forgot this. As a result of this memorable conversation, he gathered about him his brother Charles, Morgan, Hervey and Whitefield. Thus came into existence the famous Holy Club at Oxford; the great revival followed, and the face of England was changed.

Let those whose chilly spirits are wrapped in the fogs and frosts of Winter pay heed to the old Puritan's counsel. They will experience the heart-warming of Aldersgate Street and the heart-burning of the Emmaus road. The snows will melt; the great frost will break up; they will have left the Winter behind them and tasted the raptures of the everlasting Spring.

- F. W. Boreham, I Forgot to Say

Second Fiddles: Take Heart!

                                           In the book, Second Thoughts, F. W. Boreham writes, "I once preached a long series of sermons on Second Fiddles. I could not help it. Paul makes so much of them. At the end of his very greatest letter, he devotes a whole chapter to Second Fiddles. 'I commend to you our sister Phoebe,' he says; and then he goes on to a long list of people who, none of them great actors, were all of them invaluable in small parts. Take Phoebe herself.

"In days when travelling was particularly hazardous, when means of locomotion or postal services were unknown, she, a woman, carried Paul's letter all the way from Corinth to Rome. Only a first fiddle could have written the Epistle to the Romans; but how would that epistle have benefitted the people to whom it was addressed unless a second fiddle had risked her life to deliver it?

"'Paul had a multitude of noble qualities,' said William Brock, 'and he had one quality which great people do not always exhibit; he never forgot a kindness and never forsook a friend.'

"And everybody knows why. It was because Paul had sat at the feet and caught the spirit of One who takes good care that no cup of cold water given in His name misses its reward. To Him the players of small parts - the Second Fiddles - are precious beyond price." 

Spare That Tree! (Part Two)

Mysticism Is Inherent In Trees

It must have been this subtle consciousness of a sanctity haunting the leafy solitudes that led man to regard the forest with superstitious veneration. Directly or indirectly, the forest seemed to supply all that he needed; it therefore seemed divine. The representation of a sacred tree occurs repeatedly, carved upon the stony ruins of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician temples, whilst Herodotus more than once remarks upon the frequency of tree-worship among the ancient peoples. Pliny, too, marvelled at the reverence which the Druids felt for the oak, and, in a scarcely less degree, for the holly, the ash, and the birch. And what stirring passages those are in which George Borrow describes the weird rites and dark symbolism of the gipsies as they worshipped at dead of night in the fearsome recesses of the pine forests of Spain!

Milton held that the forest, which had played so large a part in the development of this world, will flourish also in the next. There, he says, "the trees of life ambrosial fruitage bear and vines yield nectar." Had he been challenged, the author of "Paradise Lost" would probably have reminded his questioner of the apocalyptic passage which depicts a tree of faceless beauty and of healing virtue waving luxuriously by the side of the river of life. Even on the lowliest plane, there is something sacramental about trees. George Gissing declares that Odysseus cutting down the olive in order to build for himself a home is a picture of man performing a supreme act of piety.

Gene Stratton Porter's Harvester caught his breath as he realised that the trees that he was felling were yielding up their lives in order that he and his dream girl might dwell in security and bliss. And, on a green hill far away without a city wall, another tree was cut down years ago that it might represent to all men everywhere the means of grace and the hope of glory. Even more than all the other trees, the leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations.

Image: Bodhi Tree, Bihar, India

Spare That Tree! (Part One)

Environmentalism is so much at the forefront these days. We are encouraged to bring our own shopping bags to the market so as not to use plastic bags, (which have a "lifespan" in our garbage piles of up to 500 years). Here on Hilton Head Island, we are about to fully enter the recycling world, albeit rather late to the game. 

At work, we are discouraged from printing documents to save paper, thus saving trees. And being a good environmentalist is, in moderation, a very good thing. Christians, after all, have been given stewardship of God's creation and we ought to be the best "environmentalists" of them all.

I recently ran across the following beautiful essay by the late Australian author F.W. Boreham. And in his last sentences, he reminds us of the greatest Tree of all. (I'm sharing this with you in two installments):

"Spasmodic efforts are made from time to time to inspire the people of Australia with a sense of solicitude and reverence for native trees. Few people realise the extent to which these lands have been impoverished by the wanton destruction of their forests. It has been estimated that since settlement began, three-quarters of our timber has vanished, and, of that prodigious quantity, less than 5 percent has been put to any practical use. The huge bulk of it has just gone up in smoke.

"Unhappily, the fight for the forest runs counter to one of our deepest human instincts. Mr. Gladstone used to say that there is nothing on earth so invigorating as the joy of chopping down a tree. A wild delight makes the heart beat faster and sends the blood pounding through the veins as one feels the rhythmic swing of the axe, sees the chips fly, watches the gash grow deeper, and notices at last that the stately monster is about to yield to one's will. Richard Jefferies, the eminent naturalist, who hated to destroy things and often could not bring himself to pull the trigger of his gun, nevertheless felt the fascination of the axe. Why, he asks, is the

felling of a tree so unutterably thrilling?

 

Primitive Man Reveres The Forest

The question is of perennial interest. As we contemplate the fallen tree, the damage done seems so irreparable. It is easy enough to humble the pride of these woodland giants, but who shall restore them to their former grandeur? In their best moments, men, even under the rudest and most primitive conditions, have extended the hospitality of their hearts to such pensive thoughts. In his "Golden Bough," Sir James G. Fraser says that the Ojibwa Indians hate to fell a living tree; it puts the graceful thing, they argue, to such intense pain. Some of their medicine men aver that, with their occult powers of hearing, they have been horrified by the wailing and

the screaming of the trees beneath the axe.

"In East Africa the destruction of the coconut tree is regarded as a form of matricide, since the tree ministers life and nourishment to men as a mother does to her child. The early Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Plutarch, watching the swaying of the beautiful branches, came to the conclusion that trees are sentient things, possessed of living souls. And, in his 'Tales for Children,' Tolstoy makes as pathetic a scene out of the death of a great tree as many a novelist makes out of the death of a gallant hero."

Part two tomorrow...

F.W. Boreham on Twitter

My favorite author of all time, (outside of the Biblical ones), is F.W. Boreham. He wrote 48 books, numerous essays and sermons, and thousands of newspaper articles. He had an incredible way of bringing slices of infinity (one of his terms) down to us. As one of my college professors said, "He placed the cookies on the bottom shelf."

And although he met Jesus face-to-face in 1959, he is twittering! Exactly who is behind this will be our little secret. But every day or two there will be a thought or quote from the good doctor Boreham.

Why shouldn't he Twitter? He's already on Facebook.

If you would like to follow F. W. Boreham on Twitter, simply click here.

The Glory of an Island

I love living on an island. It has its own peculiararities and blessings (evacuating during a hurricane, however, is not one of them!). I was reading my favorite author,
F. W. Boreham, this morning and ran across his thoughts below. He writes about the glory of an island and ends with a beautiful picture of our Savior. Enjoy!

 

"[Alexander Selkirk was the adventurous man whose  experiences as a castaway suggested 'Robinson Crusoe.] Islands have drawbacks and difficulties peculiar to themselves; but, for all that, there is something to be said for insularity. How, otherwise, are we to explain the fascination that islands-and especially small islands-hold for us all?

 

"To a schoolboy there is nothing more tantalising, more challenging, more alluring, than a tiny islet in midstream. The creek near his home broadens out ... and divides itself into twin channels, encircling a little speck of land some 30 or 40 feet in diameter. He will never be happy until, by fair means or by foul, he has landed on that lonely spot. His favourite classics have to do with romantic experiences on islands only a few sizes larger. "Robinson Crusoe," "Treasure Island," "The Blue Lagoon," "Enoch Arden," "The Swiss Family Robinson"- such works have an extraordinary hold upon his affections. And, as long as he lives, his emotions are stirred to a remarkable degree whenever he happens to find himself standing on some solitary rock or jagged reef with a waste of water surging all

around him.

 

"It is largely the instinct of lordship, the instinct that leads a boy to revel in the companionship of his dog. The boy, exulting in the sense of authority, loves to command; the dog delights no less in being commanded; the partnership is perfect. On a desert island, whatever its size, one is master of all and subject to none. He declaims with heartfelt fervour Cowper's lines concerning Alexander

Selkirk:

 

'I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none, to dispute;

From the centre all round to the sea

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.'

 

"One man, all alone, on one acre of isolated soil, feels himself to be a monarch; a thousand men on a thousand acres are mediocrities; a million men on a million acres are little better than so many mice.

 

The Insulating Force of Individuality
"We all live island lives. The essential splendour of humanity lies in the intensity of the personal equation. The stars, Paul says, differ from one another in glory; but not as men do. The difference between this star and that star is as nothing compared with the difference between this dog and that dog; whilst the difference between this dog and that dog is a negligible quantity compared with the difference between this man and that man.

 

"And, just because man's individuality is the hallmark of his superiority, it follows that, by that very individuality, he is doomed to an isolation such as stars and dogs never know. Every man has been made to feel at some time or other that the idiosyncrasies incidental to his personality place an unbridgeable chasm between

himself and his most intimate friends. Each separate ego is dreadfully alone in the universe. Each separate "I" is without counterpart in all the ages. In the deepest sense we are each fatherless and childless; we have no kith or kin.

 

"Life is strangely contradictory. In a way, we are gregarious creatures; we are extraordinarily sensitive to the magnetism of the crowd; like the animals, we go in herds, and packs, and flocks; we club together; we form our cliques and groups and parties; we marry and surround ourselves with offspring and kinsfolk. All this tends to the continental rather than the insular; it destroys all sense of solitude by incorporating us in the general community. The individual thread is woven into the common fabric.

 

"Yet experience shows that, the more successful a man is and the more ties he forms, the more he becomes conscious of a certain intellectual and spiritual isolation. By a law that is as final as the law of gravitation, we pay a price for all the progress that we make; and those who attain the loftiest eminence pay the heaviest penalties of all. Men achieve the splendour of their destinies by constant processes of elimination and segregation.

 

Elevation: The Complement Of Isolation

"It is a commonplace of human speech that there is always room at the top. That being so, it follows that the crowd is always at the bottom, and that, the higher we ascend, the more solitary we become. Rove among the foothills and you will find them dotted with busy little towns and villages; but clamber to the snowclad height above and you will have the dizzy pinnacle all to yourself.

 

"In a dainty poem, Wordsworth compares the skylark with the nightingale. The nightingale is content to remain amidst the shades of the leafy wood and has no lack of company. All .. the finches and the robins and the wrens are twittering and whistling and singing in the branches around her. The lark, on the contrary, soars skyward, and the blue is all her own. If, however, it is true that exaltations have their isolations, it is also true that isolations have their compensations. Solitude leads to vision and contemplation and self-realisation. The snowclad peak may be solitary, but look at the spread panorama unrolled at the climber's feet!

 

"Isolations are designed as illuminations. The Bible closes with the story of an exile on an island, but his incarceration gave us an apocalyptic revelation. The most radiant Figure earth has known had hosts of friends; then seventy; then twelve; then three; then none. But it was when all His disciples forsook Him and fled that He achieved His divine ambition and became the Saviour of the world."

Things On the Other Side

One of my favorite essays, from my favorite author, is "The Other Side of the Hill" by F. W. Boreham. In re-reading it today, I ran across a brief passage I wanted to share with you. Boreham challenges us in the to look at the larger, the grander, the things that are more immense, than that which is contained in our little world. And in so doing, we fulfill God's call and command on our lives.

"On a pinnacle in South America, at the very summit of a lofty range of mountains, an immense statue of Jesus was recently placed. There is a deeper significance in the incident than the sculptors themselves saw. For Christ is always on the hilltops pointing His Church to the immensities beyond. The Church has always inclined towards parochialism; she has contented herself with those few miles that lie between herself and the distant foothills. But the Master has stood ever on the sunlit summit pointing to the infinities beyond. It is the story of Kipling's `Explorer':

"There's no sense in going further—it’s the edge of cultivation!
So they said, and I believed it—broke my land and sowed my
crop—
Built my barns and strung my fences on the little border station,
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and
stop.
Till a voice, as bad as conscience, rang interminable changes,
On one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated—so:
'Something hidden! Go and find it! Go and look behind the
ranges!
Something lost behind the ranges! Lost, and waiting for
You—GO!'

"'Go,' said the Master. `Go ye into all the world.' In that tremendous 'Go,' the Church has caught a glimpse of the other side of the hill, and has herself been saved from narrowness by the discovery."
                                                    _____________________
Special thanks to my friend, Dr. Geoff Pound for posting the essay in its entirety recently. Click on the Boreham link above to read the entire essay (it's not too long and totally worth it).
- The Other Side of the Hill was published by Charles H. Kelly, London, in 1917.
- Image: Mosgiel, N.Z., where Boreham lived and ministered with Saddle Hill in the background. He often referred to Saddle Hill in his writings. Photo by David Wall.