The last known photo taken of Dr. F.W. Boreham. Here he is sitting at his roll-top desk, with his trusty fountain pen in hand.
F.W. Boreham has brought inspiration and comfort to millions of people, even long after his passing; but, toward the end of his life and long preaching career he himself needed what he had for decades been giving freely to others. Howard Crago tells us that in the twilight years of his life FWB told him that he had become dry spiritually and found just what he needed in something he had possessed for most of his life. Some ten or so years earlier, Dr. Boreham had paid tribute to Matthew Henry in his essay, An Epic of Concentration. In his introduction to great commentator he stated, “On the bottom shelf of my library there stands, like a foundation stone, a block of nine enormous volumes. As a matter of fact, they are a foundation stone, for they were the first theological tomes that ever came into my possession, and I can never look upon them without a little flutter of emotion” (A Late Lark Singing, 1945, page 121). The normally, and very English, stiff-upper-lipped, Boreham confessed to “a little flutter of emotion” at the thought of these precious nine volumes. But why?
THE STREETS OF CLAPHAM
Frank W. Boreham as a teenager. He was 15 years old when he moved to London.
After Boreham had moved to London as a 15 year old, he was overcome with loneliness. Despite having been raised as a church-goer, Boreham had not yet been converted. As he settled into London, he writes that his conversion came later without fanfare or any singular moment. But he knew that he had met the Saviour and that his soul was now alive. He soon became associated with the London City Mission and got involved in their outreach on the streets of Clapham. Around the age of twenty, his street preaching had caught the attention of two particular people. The second was Charles Spurgeon, and the first was Mr. Powe of the Park Crescent Congregational Church (My Pilgrimage, p. 88-89). One early Sunday morning, Mr. Powe presented himself at Frank’s door and explained to him that they were without a pastor, and that their supply preacher had taken ill and couldn’t fill their pulpit this Sunday. “I know it’s short notice, but would you be so kind as to step into the breach?” he asked. FWB wrote:
More than fifty years ago—on Sunday, May 31, 1891, to be precise—the Secretary of the Park Crescent Congregational Church, Clapham, called on me at about ten o’clock in the morning to say that the church was without a minister; that the pulpit supply for that particular morning had failed: would I step into the breach? How I contrived to sustain so vast a responsibility at such meagre notice, I cannot imagine, especially as I find that I took for my text the words: He, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. To-day I should need weeks of careful preparation before attempting so abstruse a theme.
This was Boreham’s first church sermon. He ended up filling this pulpit for the next five months. In gratitude, the church invited him to a special dinner in his honour and presented him with a nine-volume, leather-bound edition, of Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible. Boreham read these 9 volumes from cover to cover. However, when I was putting the documentary on FWB together, this mysterious nine-volume edition of Matthew Henry presented a problem to me because I could find no record of there ever being any such an edition of Matthew Henry ever printed! Generally, publishers had only ever produced these commentaries in 6 volumes, not 9. Yet, the presentation of these commentaries to the 20-year Boreham was such a significant moment in Boreham’s formation as a preacher and writer that it warranted showing them in the documentary. I needed to find someone who could help me solve this mystery.
I wrote to the late Iain Murray, of The Banner of Truth Trust Publishers (London), for whom I had done some scouting work for a book he was writing on Archibald G. Brown, and he told me he had only ever seen Matthew Henry in 6-volumes as well. I wondered whether there had been a mistake in the recollection of Dr. Boreham, or, perhaps some errata had been made by Epworth Press? But then, a few years ago, the mystery was solved when I was contacted by Dr. Geoff Pound informing me that Dr. Boreham’s roll-top desk and his 9-volume set of Matthew Henry’s commentaries had been donated to Whitley College. I flew over to Melbourne, and sure enough, there they were – all nine volumes of Matthew Henry’s Exposition of the Old and New Testaments.
The 9 Volume Set of Matthew Henry’s Commentary which the Park Crescent Congregational Church presented to FW Boreham in 1891
THE DUSTY TWILIGHT YEARS
T. Howard Crago’s tribute to Dr. F.W. Boreham
T. Howard Crago became something of a confidant to F.W. Boreham in his latter years. We owe him a great debt for many of the insights we have into what FWB was really like away from the pulpit. Boreham had strictly charged Crago not to publish his biography of him until after his death. FWB also went through Crago’s draft manuscript and crossed things out of it, telling Crago not to tell anyone about these omitted episodes (such as what happened when he arrived in London in 1924 to speak at the London City Mission’s Annual Conference). But one of the insights he allowed to remain in Crago’s biography was about how he was feeling after he had retired as a pastor. He shared with Crago how he had felt spiritually dry for the first time in his life. The man who had refreshed millions now himself needed refreshing.
It was at this time that Dr. Boreham returned to those 9 volumes, and once again, read them from cover to cover. In them, he told Crago, he once again found water for his dry soul. It must have also been a blessed reminder of that day May 31, 1891, when he began to pour out his soul, through preaching, to dry and weary pilgrims who were among the first people in history to witness the emergence of one of the world’s greatest preachers and devotional writers. Boreham never aspired to be a theologian. Initially he saw his pastoral role as largely evangelistic. While he never forsook his attempts to see people come to the Saviour, he came to see that the work of the pastor also involved encouraging the faithful – and that this could be done very effectively with his pen. As he read through Matthew Henry once again, now in his twilight years, it surely helped him to reap what he had been sowing for the past five decades. Little wonder then, in 1945, just as the tumult of the Second World War was coming to end, that Boreham could turn and look from his roll-top desk over to his book case at these precious 9 volumes and have “a little flutter of emotion.” And if Dr. Boreham could have ever known how many more millions of faithful readers he would encourage since his promotion to glory, I dare say he would have had a more than a little flutter of emotion once again!
Andrew Corbett
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