Hi Boreham-lovers

STOP PRESS: October 2014: I am no longer trading in Borehams, but I do have some duplicate volumes of his books (no booklets at present) – [email protected]

Best to put a notification request into ABE books or Alibris…

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The Rev Dr F W Boreham OBE: A Profile

By the Rev T. Howard Crago

This address was presented to the Victorian Baptist Historical Society by F W Boreham’s biographer, the Rev T. Howard Crago, and was published by the Baptist Union of Victoria, Victorian Baptist Historical Society in 1986.

At the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh in.1928, the Moderator introduced the speaker, the Rev. F. W. Boreham, as “the man whose name is on all our lips, whose books are on all our shelves and whose illustrations are in all our sermons.”

For the sake of any who did not know him, we might ask, ‘Who was this person of such note?’ A short reply would be that he was one of us, whose name was for some 40 years on the Ministerial List of the Baptist Union of Victoria. A complete reply would require volumes.

Frank William Boreham was born at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on March.3, 1871, the son of devout Anglican parents. He left primary school at 14, attended night classes for a few months afterwards then went to work as a clerk in London at 17. Soon after arriving in the metropolis, he was converted to Christ – an experience that changed his life’s direction and led to a sense of call to the ministry.

He occupied but three pastorates. After graduating from Spurgeon’s College in London in 1895 he accepted a call to a small country Baptist church in Mosgiel, New Zealand – in a farming district inhabited largely by Scottish immigrants and their families. He was approaching 24 years of age. A reporter described him about that time as ‘tall, slim, with a drooping moustache and deep, dreamy eyes,’  but did not draw attention to the young preacher’s walking with a limp, aided by the walking stick that was his invariable companion. The limp was a legacy of a railway accident in which Frank Boreham had lost a foot when he was 15.

Although of such limited education, not being physically impressive and handicapped by an artificial limb, Frank Boreham was endowed with compensating gifts, which he cultivated to the full. He possessed an observant eye, a penetrating mind, vivid visual memory, keen imagination, and an earnest evangelistic zeal.

A voracious reader, on settling in Mosgiel, he resolved to buy and read at least a book a week. He made marginal notes to help his memory, and compiled his own index in the back of each book.

He early realized that his voice was unusually high-pitched and monotonous, and that his delivery in preaching was too fast: people could not get on to his train of thought. He would therefore shut the study door and exercise his voice up and down the scale. When holidaying at the beach he would stand alone and preach to the waves. He visited law courts in nearby Dunedin at which the best barristers were addressing the jury, to study their arts of persuasion.

Thus he cultivated his slender gifts and a preaching style that was unique, and in which every distinctly uttered word carried the maximum content of meaning, clear mental imagery and feeling.

He learned to preach from but a few sermon notes. On one occasion when he had been using a large sheet of notes, wind blowing through an open window carried the notes away. Ever afterwards he would reduce the sermon outlines to a dozen words, write them boldly on a 10 cm by 15 cm paper slip, and attach it to a similar-sized piece of polished plywood. No wind was strong enough to blow that from the pulpit.

During those eleven years in Mosgiel he was storing his memory with incidents of pastoral life, many amusing, others deeply tragic, but all highly entertaining – stories he would later share with millions of readers of whom he did not at that time dream.

The congregation in the little weatherboard church at Mosgiel had never heard such interesting preaching and soon filled it to overflowing, necessitating doubling its size. Not only was the preaching entertaining, it was also helping them, and leading many to commitment to Christ.

During Mosgiel’s formative years he also came to hold certain principles he was to carry right through his ministry. He would never condemn anything but always present a positive aspect. As he put it, ‘the best way to prove a stick is crooked is to lay a straight one beside it.’

He also became convinced that if a sermon was to grip and retain the hearers’ attention it must possess an ‘entertainment value’. That did not mean, he said, that it should be humorous, nor entertain only for its own sake, for tragedy could be as entertaining as comedy. He realized that people are interested in people more than in abstract ideas. Therefore he used endless stories from experience, biography, history, literature –anywhere – believing that the best way to communicate an idea is to wrap it up in a person. For example he told me he could never preach nor write on, say, ‘Friendship’, in the abstract. But he thought he could retell Dickens’ story of David Copperfield and Agnes so that it portrayed some aspects of friendship in concrete, personal terms.

When Frank Boreham was a baby back in Tunbridge Wells, an old gipsy crone noticed him in the arms of his nanny as she nursed him in a park. She picked up the little hand, scrutinized it, and said to the nurse, ‘Tell his mother to put a pen in his hand and he’ll never want for a living.’

Only a psychologist could decide whether or not that prognostication, which his mother often repeated to him, influenced his future. But soon after arriving in New Zealand he began supplying manuscripts of his sermons to the Mosgiel newspaper. As time went by, before submitting them, he would rewrite them in condensed form, more like essays, and in a more entertaining and readable format. He was developing the unique style that was to characterize a stream of books that were to bear his name during the ensuing years.

Soon after his arrival in Mosgiel in 1895 his sweetheart of college days, Miss Stella Cottee, had accepted his proposal of marriage and sailed to join him in New Zealand. They had five children, three of whom survive [in 1986] – Mrs. Ivy McDonald in Bendigo, Mrs. Joan Lincoln in Hobart, and son Frank, an officer of the Baptist Church at Kew.

After eleven years or so sharpening his skills with words and cultivating his preaching gifts, Frank Boreham accepted a call to the Hobart Baptist Tabernacle.

He confounded the welcoming Hobart deacons as they streamed up the ship’s gangway at the Hobart dock, by greeting each one by name. He was not clairvoyant but had simply memorized their faces and names from a group photo which the secretary had sent to him.

After Mosgiel’s humble sanctuary, Hobart’s spacious tabernacle seemed to stretch away into infinity. His striving after excellence, practiced on the farmers and small townsfolk, blossomed under the challenge and inspiration of the larger Hobart congregation.

Close to his fortieth birthday, Frank Boreham considered that his public might welcome a volume of his essays, so from a pile of cuttings, submitted a selection of 32 to Hodder and Stoughton in London. After several weeks, a rejection slip arrived, accompanying the returned essays saying that Hodder and Stoughton did not consider the articles suitable for their publication. However, during the following years they would come almost cap in hand, begging him to supply them with the manuscript of a book.

Nothing daunted, he looked over his library for the name of another publisher who handled essays, and sent his parcel of papers to London again: to C. H. Kelly, not knowing then that Kelly, afterwards known as The Epworth Press, was the publishing house of the Methodist Church. Kelly said, yes, they would publish the book on a royalty basis, if he would personally buy 300 copies himself at half price. But what would an author do with 300 of his own book? He was about to drop his letter declining the proposal into the mail box when he bumped into a well-known Hobart bookseller to whom he confided the contents of the letter. The bookseller saved the situation and ensured Boreham’s literary future. He would jump at the chance to obtain 300 copies at half price, he said. So the first Boreham book of essays, The Luggage of Life, was launched, to be followed by some fifty other titles. Within the next few years his name was a household one throughout the Christian world.

While involved in pastoral activities, he made time to write several essays a week. On receiving proofs of an essay from the periodical in which it was to appear, he would cut the proof into sections and paste each one on a book-page-sized sheet of paper. From this mounting accumulation of paste-ups would be selected a sufficient number for the next book. There was a time when 20 such embryo books were awaiting their turn for publication.

One reviewer wrote in the Age, ‘Through these volumes stride many of those old Scottish friends of Mosgiel days. Tamis, Wullie and Gavin, officers of that little church, and many others, have delighted thousands who have listened to their quaint talk and followed their romantic ways. In almost every volume are intimate tales of John Broadbanks, minister at Silverstream, whose wise words and kind actions had a peculiar charm. Not only those remarkable people form the subjects of Boreham’s studies. He also found lessons in the most commonplace things of life. Ordinary creatures like asses and magpies, or mad dogs and mosquitoes attract his fancy and under the touch of his pen take their place among the great teachers. It is surprising what he sees in “smoke” and gets out of “pockets”, whether he is writing on “Cranks” or “Kisses” he pours his vast variety of ideas into a mould of colorful words.’

Other demands also occupied his pen. It all began back in his Mosgiel days when the young pastor had been carried away by the four volumes of Gibbons’ “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and references to Gibbon were cropping up in almost every address he delivered. Then a casual incident was to have life-long consequences. One night in an address to a Christian Endeavour Society in Dunedin, he contrasted the reluctance of young men in the days of Rome’s decline and fall to rally to the empire’s defense, and the eagerness with which New Zealand young men were volunteering for the South African War which had recently started.

Following the meeting, he walked to the railway station to catch the 9.30 train back to Mosgiel only to find he had missed it and had to fill in two hours till the next. Wondering what to do with himself, he glanced up and saw the windows of the offices of the “Otago Daily Times” ablaze with light. He would go across and interview the editor! He asked that gentleman whether he could use any free-lance contributions in his newspaper.

The editor replied that he used only material written by staff specialists. As the disappointed Frank Boreham rose to leave, the editor casually mentioned that the editorial for the next morning’s issue had yet to be written, and asked, “What would you say if you were to write it?” Without hesitation his visitor replied, “I would establish a contrast between the patriotic eagerness of New Zealand young men to sail for South Africa and the shameful reluctance of Rome’s young men to answer the empire’s call in its declining years.”

Pointing to a table and chair, the editor invited his visitor to write it. Within the next 90 minutes, with the Endeavour address still echoing in his mind, Frank Boreham dashed off 1100 words, sprinkled with quotes from Gibbon, Tennyson and R. L. Stevenson. F.W.B. had missed the train to Mosgiel, but had caught the literary train. That night’s composition, which he was excited to read in the next morning’s editorial column, led to numerous similar contributions to the Otago Times and thousands of editorials, biographical profiles and other articles for leading newspapers, such as the Hobart “Mercury” every week for 46 years – and later, the Melbourne “Age” for 14 years until his death.

Soon after arriving in Hobart, Boreham had begun regular contributions to the “Southern Baptist” published in Melbourne, the forerunner of the “Australian Baptist”. When the “Australian Baptist” replaced the “Southern Baptist” in 1912, its first editor arranged with him to provide a fortnightly essay for its pages. This series also continued until some time after his death 50 years later, for he had already sent a parcel of contributions – as his custom – well in advance of their publication date.

At the same time, “The Australian Christian World”, published in Sydney, was reprinting by arrangement what he wrote for the “Australian Baptist”. Later, after removing to Armadale, he accepted an invitation to write the Saturday leading article for the “Age”, now entitled “A Saturday Reflection”, which he did until his death. His sermons were still the seeds from which all these essays grew.

Under his ministry the Hobart church membership flourished. Although his preaching was evangelistic he felt unable to follow the then popular evangelistic method of appealing for public confessions of faith. In each of his pastorates evangelization was on a more personal basis, arising from what today we would call pastoral counseling, and the regular classes he conducted for candidates for discipleship and church membership.

Whether he was preaching in Wesley’s Chapel, or the City Temple, or the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, or Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, crowds flocked to hear him. Of few other Baptist ministers may that be said. Nor did they come simply because he was one of the most interesting preachers they ever heard, but because those messages gently awakened in so many of them a deep sense of being loved by God – a love revealed in the Cross of Christ.

Boreham was not what you might call “a straight from the shoulder preacher”. His kind of preaching was what the commercial world would call the “soft sell”. By simply showing how all truth led to Christ, he showed people the way without trying to push them into it, and that many people chose that way is seen in the fact that during his three pastorates he was the means of doubling the membership of those churches. Later, in his 30 years of itinerating preaching among all denominations hundreds of people found the Savior.

This may sound as though Boreham’s ministerial life consisted only of writing essays and preparing and preaching sermons. But he was also immersed in the wider work of the denomination. He was elected President of the Baptist Union of New Zealand. He was twice President of the Tasmanian Union during his eleven years in Hobart and visited the churches throughout the State. He also gave a lead in social issues, especially the temperance cause. Overseas missions were dear to his heart wherever he served. In Victoria he was elected Chairman of the Victorian Committee of the Australian Baptist Missionary Society. He was keenly interested in ministerial training and served on Candidates Boards and Theological College Councils.

At the peak of the Hobart pastorate came a call to Armadale in Victoria. It was 1917, the nation was at war and he was 46. After this memorable 11 years pastorate, remembered by many still among us, the grateful church elected him Pastor-Emeritus.

In 1928 Frank Boreham retired from Armadale to devote his remaining years to a wider ministry among all the churches and in other countries. The family moved to a home they had bought in Kew, and joined the membership of the Kew Baptist Church. F.W.B. was then 57.

Later that year, with the world as his new parish, Boreham and his lady sailed for Britain for the first leg of a four months preaching tour arranged for him by his publishers. His books were selling well around the world and his name was well-known, as Dr. Lamont so picturesquely put it to the Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

It was during this year 1928 that the McMaster University of Canada conferred upon Mr. Boreham its honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity, “in recognition of his contribution to Christian thought.” An extensive preaching tour of Canada and the United States followed the British itinerary.

On returning home, the Doctor said that he had to pinch himself to make sure he was not dreaming as he had preached in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Wesley’s Chapel, the City temple and other famous pulpits.

We might have expected that what the world calls success would have gone to the Doctor’s head, but those who remember him know that he remained a modest and humble person to the end.

Perhaps Dr. Boreham’s most important ministry in many ways was the Wednesday lunch-hour services he conducted in Scots Church, Collins Street, Melbourne, which began in 1940 and continued for the next 18 years.

His ministry had brought not only considerable fame but, from the royalties on the books, considerable income. Over a million books had sold at this stage. About the time he began the services at Scots, the Doctor and Mrs. Boreham therefore offered what in today’s terms, would be about $15,000 to the Australian Baptist Missionary Society to establish a dispensary at Birisiri, in India, and to contribute a similar amount for the next five years towards its support. The benefaction was to remain anonymous and be called the Broadbanks Dispensary. But readers of Boreham’s books may have wondered if it was only a coincidence that the dispensary should bear the same name as a character named John Broadbanks whom F. W. Boreham had made famous in his pages for many years. From now on all remuneration from his preaching passed on to the A.B.M.S. towards maintenance of the dispensary.

A second world preaching tour followed in 1936 even more successful, if we may use that term, than the one in 1928.

But for all the crowds who followed Boreham’s preaching appearance whether at home or abroad, he was essentially a lonely man. His close ties to his study desk, meeting the demands for the output of his pen – he did not use a typewriter – left him little time to socialize, although he was an ardent cricket fan and a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club. He was not one to stand about after meetings just chatting with people nor was he ever seen to hurry. His colossal memory for names and faces served him well, and he seldom forgot anyone he had any dealings with.

Coinciding with the publication of his new book, “Dreams at Sunset” in 1954 came the announcement that, among the birthday honours, Queen Elizabeth II had conferred on Frank William Boreham the Order of Officer of the British Empire. His reaction was expressed in a letter to the author of this tribute, in reply to congratulations, “I appreciate the honor for its own sake, and especially for the sake of the citation, ‘In recognition of his distinguished services to religion and literature as preacher and essayist.’ It seems to show that I have kept first things first – always a matter of concern to me.”

After his death on May 18, 1959 aged 88, a grateful denomination perpetuated his name by establishing the F. W. Boreham Hospital at Canterbury.

The Doctor was a ‘polished’ individual, and although truly Australian, never lost his Englishness. Whether his style of preaching would appeal to today’s generation with its casual approach to worship is a moot point, for he was a man of his time.

Nevertheless, the past few years have brought a revival of interest in the man and his ministry, numerous articles on his life and appreciations of his books have appeared in magazines around the world. Most of his books, however, have become collectors’ items. Perhaps that fact may answer the question, ‘Is Boreham relevant to this vastly different age?’

 

Reproduced with permission from Dr. Geoff Pound and the Victorian Baptist Historical Society.