(An Address given by REV. C. T. M. BROWNE at Annual Meeting of Trinitarian Bible Society, May, 1958).
I had an invitation early in the year to go over to France for a few days, and I went last month at the invitation of one or two French pastors and mission workers, people working in the Mission to Miners, working in that needy land which is so much in our thoughts at this time. When I was getting ready to go, and wondering how I could be used in that country in my short visit of three or four weeks, my friend Mr. Carter of Clapham suggested that the Trinitarian Bible Society might be willing to help me with a gift of Bibles and Testaments.
“I wrote in faith to the Society and was provided with eight or nine large parcels of Bibles, Testaments and Gospels, and went off with my little car laden almost to the roof. Customs officials opened their eyes and thought I was starting up in business. Although I was first off the boat at Dunkirk, I was the last to move away, because my parcels had to be closely and carefully examined. They could not believe that they were free gifts for the people of France, but I was eventually able to persuade them and continue my journey.
“The time spent over there was full of interesting and helpful experience. I had never had any idea that that country, so near to our own shores, was in such desperate spiritual need. I have been to so many missionary meetings, and welcomed so many missionary speakers to my own little church, who have come from Africa, India and the Far East, but I had never given a thought to that country just the other side of the Channel. When I was there and started living among the people and visiting their towns, I realized that here was one of the neediest countries in the world.
“In the North of France I found large towns without any Protestant witness of any description whatsoever. I went around with my friends to one town after another and there was not even a mission hall or Bible shop—nothing apart from the Church of Rome. In a town called Carbonne, with more than 20,000 people, I was told there was no kind of Protestant witness. The young couple with whom I was staying put up a little stall in the market place, with Gospel literature and Bibles if they could get any, and that was the only place in that town where there was a note of spiritual life. The first week I went to a little town, Furveries, where the people had never known a Protestant meeting or service of any description. When we think of these things we may find it easier to understand the trouble and unrest, and the present plight of that troubled land.
“It was a great joy to distribute all these Bibles, Testaments and Gospels on the other side. Some of them we gave out personally in the market places. These are very much like English markets, but larger and more crowded. As I spoke to the people I realized that many of them had never read a Gospel in their lives. It was difficult to grasp that they had never held a portion of God’s Word in their hands before, and had not the slightest idea what it contained, and no knowledge of those old Bible stories we know so well.
“Most of the people in this town were Roman Catholics or Communists, and as it was an industrial area the proportion of Communists was high, yet all seemed willing to accept a Gospel and willing to read it. Some Roman Catholics explained that they now had greater liberty to read the Scriptures than they had formerly enjoyed, but when I asked them if they had a Bible, they replied that they had no idea where they could get one. So they were being told that they might read the Bible, but the Bible was not available, and the Church of Rome was most unhelpful in this respect.
“Apart from the Scriptures which I was able to give out personally during my limited stay, I was able to go to a number of French pastors and English mission workers and tell them that I had a pleasant surprise for them, that I had some Bibles, Testaments and Gospels sent by the Trinitarian Bible Society. It is no exaggeration to say that they were simply thrilled with the news. Some evangelistic society sent them tracts, but they found it almost impossible to get Bibles and Testaments. I divided these out as evenly as I could.
“Now that I am back from my short visit to France, it is good to know that the Word of God is being read and studied there by some who received it from my hands, and I do thank the Society for its splendid and generous gift, which God has blessed and is doubtless blessing today.”
Brief Extracts
Beaten Oil.
Philip Henry to the last abated not in his preparation for the pulpit. “To the leading object” (observes his biographer) “every other was subordinate. All he said, and all he did, as well as all the things he heard, were regarded by him with less or with more attention, as they bore upon that. ‘Take heed’ (he would say) of growing remiss in your work. Take pains while you live. Think not, that after a while you may relax, and go over your old stock. The Scripture still affords new things to those who search them. Continue searching. How can you expect God’s blessing on your people’s observance, if you are careless?”
Eliots’ view of the importance of preparation is admirable—He liked no preaching, but what has been well studied for, and he would very much commend a sermon, which he could perceive had required some good thinking and reading in the author of it. I have been present (says his biographer) when he thus addressed a preacher just come home from the assembly with him.—”Brother, there was oil required for the service of the sanctuary, but it must be beaten oil; I praise God, that I saw your oil so well beaten to-day. The Lord help us always by good study to beat out oil, that there be no knots in our sermons left undissolved and that there may be a clear light thereby given in the house of God.” And yet he likewise looked for something in a sermon beside and beyond mere study of man. He was for having the Spirit of God breathing in it and with it; and he was for speaking these things, from those impressions and with those affections, which might compel the hearer to say—”The Spirit of God was here”—I have heard him complain—”It is a sad thing, when a sermon shall have that one thing—The Spirit of God—wanting in it.”
Mr. Dod, an excellent old divine would say, that he had rather preach an old sermon ten times, than mount the pulpit without preparation. “God will curse that man’s labours that is found in the world all the week, and then upon Saturday, in the afternoon goes to his study,—whereas God knows that time were little enough to pray in, and weep in, and get his heart into a fit frame for the duties of the approaching Sabbath.”
(From Bridges, “The Christian Ministry.”)