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The Fiery Crags
The author comments on how life's common places can be illuminated by the radiance of heaven.
273 pages
About the author
F.W. Boreham
138 books59 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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April 20, 2022
From the introduction on, Boreham does it again. There really is no way for me to stress enough just how powerful this man's works are for me. I adore anyone who can make me think and meditate and see the world differently and Boreham does all three in his essays. While there were more instances of entire essays speaking to my heart in this volume than in others, as usual, there are quotes (please, oh, please, at least read the quotes)...
"I have simply attempted to communicate to these pages a few impressions gathered in restful moments when life's commonplaces were illumined by the radiance that sometimes streams upon this world from worlds beyond."
"Eternity! In the light of that word any man may be pardoned for retracting his hasty utterances, reviewing his aims and aspirations, and even recasting and rearranging his whole life. The light of eternity, beating upon a human soul, often renders retreat the only honourable and courageous choice."
"A child is so overflowing with life and consciousness, and the sheer ecstasy of being, that he pours these qualities with a lavish hand into the inanimate objects around him. Esther Summerson does not suspect that she herself is pitying herself, and that she is comforting herself in the hour of her shame and her sorrow. But she is! Although no inkling of it dawns upon her, she is but pouring her own soul into the lifeless image that she calls her doll, and then allowing the soothing sweetness of her own soul to trickle back again to the source from which it streamed. The spiritual mechanism that is capable of such an achievement is the triumph of infancy and the wonder of the world. The genius of childhood proclaims itself, by that one act, to be divine."
"Fredrich Froebel and the Baroness Marenholz-Bulow were laughed to scorn when, as the pioneers of the kindergarten system, they affirmed that play is really the most vital element in the culture of the child. 'Play is not trivial,' declared Froebel; 'it is highly serious and of deep significance. Cultivate and foster it, O mother! Protect and guide it, O father!'"
"The busy child," says Mr. G.H. Archibald, "will grow up to be the busy man. The boy's eagerness to surpass his companions in play will be seen later on in the merchant's eagerness to lead his competitors in the struggle for business supremacy. The boy's enthusiasm as seen in the playground will reappear later on in his enthusiasm as a politician or a missionary; it is the motive that becomes habitual."
"Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart." -Psalm 97
"Would it seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the motherliness of God? On the contrary, is it not possible that the symbolism of the hen and her chicks is employed with such frequency and force in order to stress the vital fact that the Most High is essentially motherly? Unless that be so, whence came the motherliness of all our mothers? How did motherliness get into the world unless there is something essentially motherly about God? Unless, then, there was motherliness in God, how can we explain the motherliness that so wonderfully softened and sweetened the heart of mankind?"
"Since women's husbands cannot mother them as they mother their husbands, they have no way of being mothered save by mothering - and being mothered by - each other. We all need mothering."
"Destroy in the souls of the people the consciousness of the brooding, watchful care of God, and the nation is doomed to disintegration and decay."
"The hen is the most motherly of all mothers. She stakes everything on the motherly appeal. Even dog-mothers and cat-mothers use a certain amount of compulsion; they carry their little ones in their mouths when they wish to move them. The hen simply calls. A whole gospel lies there. The highest motherliness never resorts to force. Love calls, and, to the call of love, love never fails to respond."
"The motherliness of God was never so clearly exhibited as in the amazing love and deathless sacrifice of the Cross."
"When He looked on the multitude, He was filled with compassion. His shepherdly heart went out to these shepherdess sheep - the mob - as a motherly heart goes out to a mitherless bairn. And he had compassion upon them. It is a gem of a word. 'I have been studying the word compassion,' says Dr. Len. G. Broughton. 'It is one of the deepest and most significant words in the New Testament, one of the richest and most expressive words in all our language. Literally, it means: To move toward with an outstretched hand. It is, therefore, a stronger word than love, because it is love in action, love expressing itself in service.' That is the point: Our compassion is usually a vapid sentiment; His was a hand outstretched."
"He had compassion; and, like all true compassion, his compassion meant a hand outstretched. The man who can feel rightly will act rightly as a matter of course."
"The labourers are few; that is the trouble. We have plenty of experts, plenty of overseers, plenty of dreamers and visionaries and talkers; but the labourers are few. We are short of men who DO things. The labourers are few!" (This references Matthew 9:37)
"The loveliest things in life are the things that are not there."
"The more I see of The Merchant of Venice, the more the Casket Scene impresses me as being the most profound piece of practical philosophy that Shakespeare has given us."
"We wish you happiness but you will not find happiness by seeking it. You will find it by scattering it. Let each of you make the other happy; and let both of you endeavour to compass the happiness of everybody about you; and, all unsought, happiness shall be your own!" (The words of counsel from the Archbishop of York to Elizabeth and Philip as they stood at the altar at Westminster Abbey.)
"Into the lands on which Great Britain planted her flag she poured her best blood and her richest treasure, and has built up vigorous young communities that, protected by her power, inspired by her prestige, and bound by her ties of deathless affection, are proud to adopt her ideals and, for weal or for woe, to share her destiny. I have sometimes fancied that the table on which these three caskets stand is the Western World. Spain came first, and, like the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice, chose the gold - the fabulous wealth of Mexico, the treasure-trove of Peru. England, like Bassanio, came later, and chose the vast solitudes and gloomy forests of the far north. But, like Bassanio laying his hand upon the lead, she chose the real treasure, and she and her daughter nation - the United States - have been the envy of the world ever since."
"Whatever my birth certificate may say to the contrary, I am older than Methuselah. I am older than China and Tibet; I am older than Greece and Rome; I ma older than the pyramids and the Sphinx; I am older than the oldest star. I am as old as the universe. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth - and me! Especially me. All through the ages I was coming along. Like an actor who, out of sight of the audience, elbows his way among the loiterers in the wings, in order, at the right moment, to take his place upon the stage, I was for countless centuries groping my way to my place in the sun. The registrar of births has, on this certificate, confused the date of my beginning with the date of my arrival."
"This is why you must exercise a little patience with me. And why I must exercise a little patience with myself. A thousand barbaric generations have poured their greedy lusts and sinister passions into my blood. When the block of marble is raised at last from its oozy bed, nobody expects the sculptor to set the angel free in a single day."
"A child lives in a world, not of things, but of beings. Every sound is a voice, every power a personality. He expects everything to speak, and, when he himself speaks, he takes it for granted that everything listens and understands."
"The sea is cleansing my poor old soul; washing away the dust and defilement of the years; getting me ready for the things that are eternal."
"And, sitting here, I've been thinking that, if I can't understand the sea that comes washing up here at my feet, how can I expect to understand the God who made it? And, somehow, it makes me feel more restful like!"
"The greatest sympathy every extended to sinful men was exhibited by One who, Himself, had never yielded to a single sin; isn't that so?"
"The Bible is packed from cover to cover with things that it never mentions. Sympathy is one of them. The word nowhere occurs; the thing is everywhere."
"I have prayed to be baptized into a sense of all conditions, that I might be able to know the needs and feel the sorrows of all." -George Fox
"For man is moral; that is the greatest thing about him. He is incurably, irretrievably, incorrigibly moral. You may tell me, if you will, that he is incurably, irretrievably, incorrigibly immoral, I shall not argue with you. His immorality proves his morality."
"I have simply attempted to communicate to these pages a few impressions gathered in restful moments when life's commonplaces were illumined by the radiance that sometimes streams upon this world from worlds beyond."
"Eternity! In the light of that word any man may be pardoned for retracting his hasty utterances, reviewing his aims and aspirations, and even recasting and rearranging his whole life. The light of eternity, beating upon a human soul, often renders retreat the only honourable and courageous choice."
"A child is so overflowing with life and consciousness, and the sheer ecstasy of being, that he pours these qualities with a lavish hand into the inanimate objects around him. Esther Summerson does not suspect that she herself is pitying herself, and that she is comforting herself in the hour of her shame and her sorrow. But she is! Although no inkling of it dawns upon her, she is but pouring her own soul into the lifeless image that she calls her doll, and then allowing the soothing sweetness of her own soul to trickle back again to the source from which it streamed. The spiritual mechanism that is capable of such an achievement is the triumph of infancy and the wonder of the world. The genius of childhood proclaims itself, by that one act, to be divine."
"Fredrich Froebel and the Baroness Marenholz-Bulow were laughed to scorn when, as the pioneers of the kindergarten system, they affirmed that play is really the most vital element in the culture of the child. 'Play is not trivial,' declared Froebel; 'it is highly serious and of deep significance. Cultivate and foster it, O mother! Protect and guide it, O father!'"
"The busy child," says Mr. G.H. Archibald, "will grow up to be the busy man. The boy's eagerness to surpass his companions in play will be seen later on in the merchant's eagerness to lead his competitors in the struggle for business supremacy. The boy's enthusiasm as seen in the playground will reappear later on in his enthusiasm as a politician or a missionary; it is the motive that becomes habitual."
"Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart." -Psalm 97
"Would it seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the motherliness of God? On the contrary, is it not possible that the symbolism of the hen and her chicks is employed with such frequency and force in order to stress the vital fact that the Most High is essentially motherly? Unless that be so, whence came the motherliness of all our mothers? How did motherliness get into the world unless there is something essentially motherly about God? Unless, then, there was motherliness in God, how can we explain the motherliness that so wonderfully softened and sweetened the heart of mankind?"
"Since women's husbands cannot mother them as they mother their husbands, they have no way of being mothered save by mothering - and being mothered by - each other. We all need mothering."
"Destroy in the souls of the people the consciousness of the brooding, watchful care of God, and the nation is doomed to disintegration and decay."
"The hen is the most motherly of all mothers. She stakes everything on the motherly appeal. Even dog-mothers and cat-mothers use a certain amount of compulsion; they carry their little ones in their mouths when they wish to move them. The hen simply calls. A whole gospel lies there. The highest motherliness never resorts to force. Love calls, and, to the call of love, love never fails to respond."
"The motherliness of God was never so clearly exhibited as in the amazing love and deathless sacrifice of the Cross."
"When He looked on the multitude, He was filled with compassion. His shepherdly heart went out to these shepherdess sheep - the mob - as a motherly heart goes out to a mitherless bairn. And he had compassion upon them. It is a gem of a word. 'I have been studying the word compassion,' says Dr. Len. G. Broughton. 'It is one of the deepest and most significant words in the New Testament, one of the richest and most expressive words in all our language. Literally, it means: To move toward with an outstretched hand. It is, therefore, a stronger word than love, because it is love in action, love expressing itself in service.' That is the point: Our compassion is usually a vapid sentiment; His was a hand outstretched."
"He had compassion; and, like all true compassion, his compassion meant a hand outstretched. The man who can feel rightly will act rightly as a matter of course."
"The labourers are few; that is the trouble. We have plenty of experts, plenty of overseers, plenty of dreamers and visionaries and talkers; but the labourers are few. We are short of men who DO things. The labourers are few!" (This references Matthew 9:37)
"The loveliest things in life are the things that are not there."
"The more I see of The Merchant of Venice, the more the Casket Scene impresses me as being the most profound piece of practical philosophy that Shakespeare has given us."
"We wish you happiness but you will not find happiness by seeking it. You will find it by scattering it. Let each of you make the other happy; and let both of you endeavour to compass the happiness of everybody about you; and, all unsought, happiness shall be your own!" (The words of counsel from the Archbishop of York to Elizabeth and Philip as they stood at the altar at Westminster Abbey.)
"Into the lands on which Great Britain planted her flag she poured her best blood and her richest treasure, and has built up vigorous young communities that, protected by her power, inspired by her prestige, and bound by her ties of deathless affection, are proud to adopt her ideals and, for weal or for woe, to share her destiny. I have sometimes fancied that the table on which these three caskets stand is the Western World. Spain came first, and, like the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice, chose the gold - the fabulous wealth of Mexico, the treasure-trove of Peru. England, like Bassanio, came later, and chose the vast solitudes and gloomy forests of the far north. But, like Bassanio laying his hand upon the lead, she chose the real treasure, and she and her daughter nation - the United States - have been the envy of the world ever since."
"Whatever my birth certificate may say to the contrary, I am older than Methuselah. I am older than China and Tibet; I am older than Greece and Rome; I ma older than the pyramids and the Sphinx; I am older than the oldest star. I am as old as the universe. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth - and me! Especially me. All through the ages I was coming along. Like an actor who, out of sight of the audience, elbows his way among the loiterers in the wings, in order, at the right moment, to take his place upon the stage, I was for countless centuries groping my way to my place in the sun. The registrar of births has, on this certificate, confused the date of my beginning with the date of my arrival."
"This is why you must exercise a little patience with me. And why I must exercise a little patience with myself. A thousand barbaric generations have poured their greedy lusts and sinister passions into my blood. When the block of marble is raised at last from its oozy bed, nobody expects the sculptor to set the angel free in a single day."
"A child lives in a world, not of things, but of beings. Every sound is a voice, every power a personality. He expects everything to speak, and, when he himself speaks, he takes it for granted that everything listens and understands."
"The sea is cleansing my poor old soul; washing away the dust and defilement of the years; getting me ready for the things that are eternal."
"And, sitting here, I've been thinking that, if I can't understand the sea that comes washing up here at my feet, how can I expect to understand the God who made it? And, somehow, it makes me feel more restful like!"
"The greatest sympathy every extended to sinful men was exhibited by One who, Himself, had never yielded to a single sin; isn't that so?"
"The Bible is packed from cover to cover with things that it never mentions. Sympathy is one of them. The word nowhere occurs; the thing is everywhere."
"I have prayed to be baptized into a sense of all conditions, that I might be able to know the needs and feel the sorrows of all." -George Fox
"For man is moral; that is the greatest thing about him. He is incurably, irretrievably, incorrigibly moral. You may tell me, if you will, that he is incurably, irretrievably, incorrigibly immoral, I shall not argue with you. His immorality proves his morality."
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