Banner Conference 2025 04

The final morning of this year's Banner was the anecdote packed second of David Campbell's addresses. Very helpful. We closed with Warren Peel expounding Proverbs 4:23 making good use of Flavel's Keeping the heart.

Many of us did not know the F W Boreham story about his call from Mosgiel to Hobart, found in his biography and retold by David.

... For reasons of their own, the officials at Hobart had asked me to let them have my decision not later than Saturday, March 24, and I had promised to respect their wishes in that matter. As that day drew nearer, the issues narrowed themselves down to one. Did the acceptance of the English trip commit me to a prolonged ministry at Mosgiel?

When that Saturday dawned, we were as far from finality as ever. The post office closed at five o’clock in the afternoon and I was determined, come what might, to hand in my reply by then. In my confusion I recalled for my comfort a conversation that, during one of his visits to our manse, I had enjoyed with Mr. Doke. One lovely morning we were sitting together on the veranda, looking away across the golden plains to the purple and sunlit mountains, when I broached this very question: ‘Can a man be quite sure,’ I asked, ‘that, in the hour of perplexity, he will be rightly led? Can he feel secure against a false step?’ I shall never forget his reply. He sprang from his deck-chair and came earnestly towards me. 'I am certain of it,’ he exclaimed, if he will but give God time! Remember that as long as you live,'' he added entreatingly.

More than ten years later I found myself face to face with a crisis. I had to make a decision on which my whole life's work depended, and I had to make the decision by five o'clock — the hour at which the telegraph office closed - on a certain Saturday evening. It chanced once more that a minister was my guest. But he could not help me. He thought it vastly improbable that God could concern Himself about individual trivialities. 'The Lord has so much to see to ... such a lot of beds in the ward! ' He was inclined to think that a certain element of chance dominated our mortality, that a man was bound to take certain risks, and that life was very much like a lottery. 'And if a man make a mistake at a critical juncture like this?' I asked anxiously. He shrugged his shoulders.

'And after that the dark.' I remember with a shudder how my faith winced and staggered under that blow. But I thought of the sunny morning on the verandah ten years before, and clutched desperately and wildly at my old faith. Saturday came. I positively had not the ghost of a notion as to what I ought to do. At five minutes to five we were standing together in the porch of the post office, desperately endeavouring to make up our minds. We were giving God time: would the guidance come? At three minutes to five, Gavin, the church secretary, rode up on a bicycle. He was obviously agitated.

‘What do you think I heard in the city this morning?’ he asked eagerly. I assured him that I could form no idea.

‘Well,’ he replied, his news positively sizzling on his tongue, ‘I heard that you have been called to Hobart!’

‘lt’s true enough, Gavin,’ I answered, ‘but how can we consider such an invitation after your goodness in giving us a trip to England?’

‘A trip to England!’ he almost shouted. ‘Man alive, didn’t you earn your trip to England before you went? Why, you’re very nearly due for another!’

I begged him to excuse me a moment. The clerk at the counter was preparing to close the office. I handed in my telegram and rejoined Gavin, who insisted on taking us home to tea. At his house I wrote out my resignation, asking him to call the officers together at ten o’clock next morning.