HOW DR. F.W. BOREHAM RESPONDED TO A NATIONAL CRISIS
F.W.B. seated in Hobart Baptist Tabernacle
In 1915 F.W. Boreham rallied the young men of Hobart to enlist in the cause of the Empire and join the war effort in Europe. But as the news from Gallipoli reached Tasmania, and FWB set about the task of delivering the telegrams on behalf of the War Department of the Australian Government, his health increasingly began to fail, as did his nerve. In 1916 his doctor advised him to relocate to a warmer and less stressful situation. He resigned from Hobart Baptist, and accepted an invitation to become the pastor of the Armadale Baptist Church in Melbourne. But more significantly, F.W. Boreham determined that he would never speak or write of the war again. But as fresh tensions were brewing once again in Europe he came under increasing criticism for not responding to it. Instead, he chose to deal with “eternity, infinities, and immensities”.
FWB on the Hobart Baptist dais
During WWII, while care-taking Kew Baptist, and conducting the weekly lunchtime service at Scots’ Presbyterian, FWB took his war-time sermons and in 1945 Epworth Press published an austerity volume of these essays: A Late Lark Singing. This collection of essays were wonderful distraction from all of the horror and bleakness of the events of World War Two.
As the world comes to grips with how it deals with an invisible, flag-less, microscopic, enemy, I wonder whether we too need to be distracted by matters eternal, infinite, and immense? If you could do with some positive distraction, you too might enjoy reading some of Dr. Boreham’s war-time essays found in A Late Lark Singing.
Dr. Andrew Corbett
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