Reflections

In a neat row on the bookshelf in front of me as I write stand the eighty annual volumes of Needed Truth. It is as though I sit under the shadow of three generations and listen afresh to the voices of men of God whose ministry, oral and written, has been a powerful influence in my life for the past fifty years or so.

The first of the volumes, dated 1888-9, is somewhat faded with age. As I open it I observe among the editors announced on the title page the names of J.A. Boswell and C.M. Luxmoore. Memory stirs. I can recall seeing J. A. Boswell among the spiritual giants who graced the platform at the Liverpool Easter Conferences which I attended in boyhood days. He was then an aged man but his impressive presence and patriarchal bearing live in my memory.

Another visitor to those Conferences was Dr C. M. Luxmoore. He was a contrasting figure on the platform, unimposing in appearance but melodious in voice. He seemed to me a distant figure until it was my privilege to come into personal contact with him at a Bible Camp in Cheshire in 1920. My dawning awareness of the spiritual wealth in the Holy Scriptures was stimulated and expanded as I sat at the feet of this remarkable man of God. He was a man of many parts. As well as a Bible expositor of the first rank, he was also a scientist, a linguist and a poet who composed no fewer than thirty-three exquisite hymns. I was a youth with below average educational equipment, not studiously inclined, yet my short encounter with "the Doctor" (as we affectionately dubbed him) sent me to his writings with an avid interest. I could follow his ungarnished, lucid style and was thrilled by the sheer zest of his handling of the Sacred Writings. All his work had the hallmark of the true teacher.

Dr C. M. Luxmoore was an editor of Needed Truth from its inception in 1888 until his lamented death in 1922 at the age of 64 years. He wrote hundreds of articles on a wide range of Scriptural topics, both under his own name and under the pen name, "Wayfarer". Among the articles he wrote during my youth I recall, The Bible (3 articles, 1917); The Entrance (1917); Hauling down the Flag (3 articles, 1920); The Blood (2 articles, 1921); The Lesson of the Gate (1921); Belief in God (1922). Readers with access to the annual volumes for these years will be amply repaid by a careful reading of these articles. They are commended to younger writers as examples of the informative, lucid literary style.

Dr Luxmoore's final article was almost prophetical, and is a good example of his characteristic clarity. The following is a short extract from the article, Across the Ocean, which appeared shortly after his death in April1922:

"A friend of mine was recently contemplating removal to the Continent of North America. He was saying that he could not contemplate conveying to that distant land all his possessions. Not only did he think the question of their safe removal would be too doubtful; he was also impressed with the probability that they would, many of them, be incongruous and out of place when they arrived there. But, he said, there are one or two things that I certainly intend to take with me, for I set great store by them, and I feel sure that even in America, where so many wonderful things are to be found, I could never find anything that would take their place.

I, too, I said, am removing to a distant land at some not too distant date, and I am sure I cannot take with me a great many things that I use and value where I now live. But I also have some things that I must take with me whatever happens.

I must leave behind any money or land or house or furniture

I may possess. None of these things can I take with me. Happy I am that I can carry away a bright and vivid memory of having had all my sins forgiven and of some happy companionship, as a pilgrim and sojourner down here, with the One who died for me.

These artless, intimate paragraphs are used as an introduction to the main thrust of the article Across the Ocean which proceeds to refer in a most touching manner to the sufferings of our Lord in the days of His humiliation and His subsequent exaltation to the right hand of God in His resurrection body.

There are many others whose contributions to Needed Truth over the years have placed me eternally in their debt. Outstanding among these are the writings of S. H. Hill of London and J. Miller of Ayr. But I must discard this reminiscent mood and return to the living present to express the hope that the magazine will continue its witness until the Lord comes, and that present readers may find spiritual enrichment in its pages.

unknown | Jan 1975
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