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Faces in the Fire
It was a chilling experience, that first glimpse of New Zealand! Hour after hour the great ship held on her way up the Cook Straits amidst scenery that made me shudder and that scowled me out of countenance. Rugged, massive, inhospitable, and bare, how sternly those wild and mountainous landscapes contrasted with the quiet beauty that I had surveyed from the same decks as the ship had dropped down Channel! I shaded my eyes with my hands and swept the strange horizon at every point, but nowhere could I see a sign of habitation—no man; no beast; no sheltering roof; no winding road; no welcoming column of smoke! And when, in the twilight of that still autumn evening, I at length descended the gangway, and set foot for the first time on the land of my adoption, I found myself—twelve thousand miles from home—in a country in which not a soul knew me, and in which I knew no single soul. It was not an exhilarating sensation.
153 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 1916
21 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
F.W. Boreham
126 books57 followersRev. Dr. Frank W. Boreham
(March 3rd 1871 – May 18th 1959) Served, and wrote, in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia.
(March 3rd 1871 – May 18th 1959) Served, and wrote, in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 16, 2018
"We only exist by being continually startled. We are kept alive by the everlasting bursting of bombshells." Mr. Boreham and I are fellow mystics, I am coming to understand and I believe that is why his work resonates so with me. He has offered me, yet again, a fresh perspective on both scripture and works of literature and I am terribly grateful that I have found him as my companion for my final reads of the day.
I cannot quote everything I loved, but here are a few...
"What a sensational world this would be if I could only contrive to retain unspoiled that childish capacity for wonder!"
"His wonder was not the outcome of ignorance; it was the outcome of knowledge. Depend upon it, the more I learn, the more sensational the world will become. If I can only become wise enough, I may recapture the glorious amazement of the baby among the bombshells."
"In one of his books, Harold Begbie gives us a fine picture of John Wycliff reading from his own translation of the Bible to those who had never before listened to those stately and wonderful cadences. The hearers look at each other with wide-open eyes, and are almost incredulous in their astonishment. Every sentence is a sensation. They can scarcely believe their ears. They are like the baby on the floor. The simplicities startle them."
"It the beginning, we are told, God created man in His own image, male and female created He them. It is not so much a matter of male AND female: it is MALE AND FEMALE, just as it is strawberries and cream."
"It was a titanic struggle, and the waters won. That is the extraordinary thing - the waters won. The water seems so soft, so yielding, so fluid, and the rocks seem so impregnable, so adamantine, so immutable. Yet the waters, the living waters, always win...Job saw it. No elusive secret, lurking in the universe around him, escaped his restless eye. 'The waters we are the stones!' he cried, and it was a shout of victory that rose from his heart when he said it. 'The waters wear the stones,' he exclaimed, a
'and Thou washes away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth.' It is the death-knell of the material. It is the triumph of the eternal...The quiet waters conquer the frowning cliffs at length."
"I am much more likely to fall in love with somebody for whom I have done something that with somebody who has done something for me."
"John Locke, the great philosopher, used to say that, in the hour of temptation, he preferred any company rather than his own. If possible, he sought the companionship of children."
"Anthony Trollope feared that we were losing the art of letter writing. And this lamentation was penned, mark you, years and years ago, before cheap telegrams and picture post cards had become the normal means of communication!"
"A man mus twin his self-respect; and you can only learn to respect yourself by being very gentle and very considerate and very patient with yourself. A man should be as gentle with himself as a gardener is with his orchids; as nurse is with her patient; as a mother is with her troublesome child."
"It is almost better to become criminal than to become cynical. To be criminal implies an evil hand; but to be cynical reveals a very evil heart."
I cannot quote everything I loved, but here are a few...
"What a sensational world this would be if I could only contrive to retain unspoiled that childish capacity for wonder!"
"His wonder was not the outcome of ignorance; it was the outcome of knowledge. Depend upon it, the more I learn, the more sensational the world will become. If I can only become wise enough, I may recapture the glorious amazement of the baby among the bombshells."
"In one of his books, Harold Begbie gives us a fine picture of John Wycliff reading from his own translation of the Bible to those who had never before listened to those stately and wonderful cadences. The hearers look at each other with wide-open eyes, and are almost incredulous in their astonishment. Every sentence is a sensation. They can scarcely believe their ears. They are like the baby on the floor. The simplicities startle them."
"It the beginning, we are told, God created man in His own image, male and female created He them. It is not so much a matter of male AND female: it is MALE AND FEMALE, just as it is strawberries and cream."
"It was a titanic struggle, and the waters won. That is the extraordinary thing - the waters won. The water seems so soft, so yielding, so fluid, and the rocks seem so impregnable, so adamantine, so immutable. Yet the waters, the living waters, always win...Job saw it. No elusive secret, lurking in the universe around him, escaped his restless eye. 'The waters we are the stones!' he cried, and it was a shout of victory that rose from his heart when he said it. 'The waters wear the stones,' he exclaimed, a
'and Thou washes away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth.' It is the death-knell of the material. It is the triumph of the eternal...The quiet waters conquer the frowning cliffs at length."
"I am much more likely to fall in love with somebody for whom I have done something that with somebody who has done something for me."
"John Locke, the great philosopher, used to say that, in the hour of temptation, he preferred any company rather than his own. If possible, he sought the companionship of children."
"Anthony Trollope feared that we were losing the art of letter writing. And this lamentation was penned, mark you, years and years ago, before cheap telegrams and picture post cards had become the normal means of communication!"
"A man mus twin his self-respect; and you can only learn to respect yourself by being very gentle and very considerate and very patient with yourself. A man should be as gentle with himself as a gardener is with his orchids; as nurse is with her patient; as a mother is with her troublesome child."
"It is almost better to become criminal than to become cynical. To be criminal implies an evil hand; but to be cynical reveals a very evil heart."
February 24, 2016
Written in the curiously sentimental style of the period, which now appears terribly dated; I really can’t say that I particularly enjoyed this book, because I absolutely did not warm to the gushing style and treacly sentiment with which it is written.
For exactly that reason I felt very ‘wrong’ within myself. How arrogant I should be to expect a Victorian minister to write, during the First World War, in a style that I am comfortable with in 2012!
So I paused to consider how odd it feels that in the present day I can happily read the Book of Common Prayer (1549), Shakespeare, The King James Bible, and Milton. But not this particular text which was published only a whisker under a hundred years ago. If I stop to listen, I think that maybe this book is telling me far, far, more about the reality of that cataclysmic period of English history than any twenty-first century ‘Downton Abbey’ soap opera?
For exactly that reason I felt very ‘wrong’ within myself. How arrogant I should be to expect a Victorian minister to write, during the First World War, in a style that I am comfortable with in 2012!
So I paused to consider how odd it feels that in the present day I can happily read the Book of Common Prayer (1549), Shakespeare, The King James Bible, and Milton. But not this particular text which was published only a whisker under a hundred years ago. If I stop to listen, I think that maybe this book is telling me far, far, more about the reality of that cataclysmic period of English history than any twenty-first century ‘Downton Abbey’ soap opera?
May 14, 2018
Some very nice essays on theological topics and just plain human interest topics.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews