William of Orange, The Silent Prince, by W. G. Van de Hulst
(trans. From Dutch; Inheritance Publications, 1992, 1996, 2000), pb., 142 pp.

We finished this book about 5 weeks ago, but I have been waiting to be able to write a good review. Time never comes though, so I will make my best attempt.

This was a fascinating book. It was not as great a read for my boys as Piet Prins or A. Van der Jagt which we read recently. My boys are always more drawn in by books that view the account from the perspective of a boy or young man who meets the historical figure or is involved in the events. This was more of a straight biography. Also since this was originally written in Dutch for a Dutch audience there seem to be some assumptions made about general knowledge of locations and people. Trying to explain these (or figure them out for myself!) bogged down the reading. However, the story itself was fascinating. At times the power of the story shone forth for my boys and at other times it took some effort on my part to help them see it.

I would recommend parents read this book to their children somewhere along the way simply because of the great history involved which is so little mentioned. I consider myself a bit of a history enthusiast, but I was totally unaware of this story of the Netherlands fight for their independence and their incredible leader.

William of Nassau is presented as a great example of perseverance and self-sacrificial leadership. His love for the people of the Netherlands compels him to defend their cause though it cost him position, prestige and fortune. And the fight was not one that progressed easily or quickly to success. Their path was cluttered by failures, disappointments, and difficulties. Yet, in the midst of them William persevered. Much is made of this point. Indeed the motto of his family was “I will persevere.” This theme alone makes the book worthwhile reading.

William also provides a very compelling model for leadership in general- a good thing for young boys in particular to see. While the book may embellish the praise of William in places, the little research I have done bears out this picture of William as a leader. He refused to be intimidated, could not be bought, and even endured the misunderstanding of his people as he sought to negotiate his way between extreme responses on either side. Reading this book has made me interested to read more about this man myself. The book does claim to know the mind of William in places and as I said engages in hagiography at places, as is often common in books on national heroes. This book is analogous in many ways to books written in the US about George Washington. Even if they overplay his character and nobility in places, there was true strength of character there and displaying that is helpful.

Here is another selection from the same Blackwood piece. His critique is probably not new to most. What I found interesting is that he was saying this 50 years ago. Furthermore, the eccentric methods he describes have often found their way into our regular meetings today. We desperately need to be reminded that God does not need a “show” to reach people. The Bible is clear that God is pleased to save people through the clear preaching of His word (e.g. 1 Cor 1:18-2:5). However, many today will think your church insufficient if you do not use the latest technology and have all the latest trappings. Technology in itself is not wrong but the question is, “What are we relying on?”

“I might enumerate still other reasons why the revivalism of other days alienated many persons whom we longed to reach. They would not have objected to innocent horseplay among boys in a barn, but the critics of revivals saw no connection between the stunts that often preceded a “soul-winning” sermon and the spirit of the message itself. When the man in the pulpit wishes the one in the pew to fall down on his knees and give himself into the hands of God, as young Isaiah did in the Temple, all the steps that lead up to a decision ought to be in harmony with the holiness of the occasion. This does not mean that any part of an evangelistic service ought to resemble an old-time funeral, full of grief and despair. Neither does it mean that a man ordained of God to pray and preach ought to compete with a vaudeville show of the coarser sort…. Let all things be done decently and in order….

Other objections have to do with the prominence of human factors. New Testament evangelism stressed the presence of the Living Christ, with His pierced hands, and the power of the Holy Spirit. The human agents relied chiefly on prayer, preaching, and personal work. They did not strive for the glory of the workers, many of whom we do not know by name. In America at times the stress of revivalism has fallen on men, money, and machinery. Such activities properly call for expenditure of money on no Lilliputian scale.” (292)

I recently stumbled across an essay by Andrew Blackwood entitled “Evangelism and Preaching.” It was in an older book edited by Carl F. H. Henry, Contemporary Evangelical Thought (1957). I had only seen Blackwood’s name in passing and simply knew he was a popular author in the area of pastoral ministry from that time period. I thumbed through the essay, however, and was struck by what I found! Blackwood in one section addressed weaknesses in American approaches to revival meetings. He raised several criticisms. One was the failure of serious discipleship and nurture arising from an inordinate attention to gathering crowds and building the program. He then addressed the issue of whether these “conversions” truly resulted in disciples. It was striking to me to read something written 50 years ago making the very same points that many of us are trying to make today.

“Whatever the reason, many church members today give no visible evidences of having been born again. In New Jersey a church bulletin recently compared the statistics of the home congregation with those of fifty years before. With a resident church membership practically twice as large as half a century ago, attendance at morning worship averages less than half the attendance fifty years ago; attendance at the church school has fallen off still more; there is at present no evening service, and no mid-week meeting, whereas such gatherings were formerly well attended, as such things went in that older time. Meanwhile, what has taken place? Year after year, the congregation has welcomed many new members, including boys and girls of proper age. Few of these boys and girls have formed the habit of attending their own church. And yet this congregation has helped to swell the official statistics that lead Protestants to boast that the number of our church members has kept increasing by leaps and bounds!” (294)

“With the work of evangelism, hand in hand, ought to go the most careful Christian nurture, especially by the pastor. Why else did the Apostle keep writing “letters to young churches?” Guided by the Holy Spirit, Paul knew that the didache ought to follow the kerygma. In the Jersey congregation, as among the Ohio churches, a study of the facts would show that the falling off in church attendance, and in other visible signs of invisible grace, came during a period when the local minister felt too busy to do pastoral work, either by home visitation of by counseling at the church. Since 1925, when I ceased to serve as a full-time pastor, I have ministered as a pulpit supply in all sorts of churches…. Again and again I have come home with the conviction that our noblest laymen wish the dominie [pastor] would quit doing many other things not wrong in themselves, and begin to take loving care of the home flock, especially the weaker sheep and the little lambs.” (295-296)

This is a good reminder that the way to advance the kingdom is by the faithful day to day work of teaching, preaching, shepherding and overseeing souls. The quick fixes rarely ever ‘fix.’

Earlier I posted on some of C. S. Lewis’s comments on children’s literature. Here is another quote from the same book (On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature). I resonate with this quote.

“By confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happened, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones; and the terrible figures are not merely terrible, but sublime. It would be nice if no little boy in bed, hearing or thinking he hears, a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armour, is a better comfort than the idea of police.”
– “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”

Anyone who has preached much knows the agony of it. Hopefully you know the ecstasy as well, but there is often a hollowness that I feel after preaching. You have just laid out your heart with all the earnestness you have, and as you sit down you are painfully aware of the inadequacy of your efforts. And this feeling is augmented because the inadequacies which are so evident to you have just been publicly displayed before the people of God! Of course much can be learned from this. For one, I have had to train myself not to make too much of it. It can be good for learning humility. I also must flee again to the cross being reminded that Christ alone is sufficient and if He has been lifted up then all is well. I also have had to face the reality at times that I should have been more diligent in some area of preparation. One danger though is in being too hard on ourselves. We can only do so much.

In this vein the following quote has been encouraging to me. It comes from Gardiner Spring, and it describes the beginning of great revival in his area. Much can be gleaned from this quote. My point here is first of all my ability to identify with his emotions in the first paragraph. Note it well! This pastor who is regarded as one of the giants would linger in his pulpit after the service because he was embarrassed to face his people, fearing that they would rebuke his preaching. He was laboring faithfully but felt no power, no result. However, at that very time God was indeed at work. So it often is. God is not required to allow us to “feel” when he is at work. Of course it is great when you can sense that the people are with you. But we must not be dependent upon that. We must preach the word and trust God to be at work.

The year 1814 was a year of great labor and deep solicitude. Many a time after preaching did I remain long in the pulpit, that I might not encounter the reproaches of the people of God for my heartless preaching, and many a time, as I left it, has my mind been so depressed that I have felt I could never preach another sermon. But I did not know to what extent the Spirit of God was carrying forward his own noiseless work . . .
God was already beginning a precious work of grace among the people. He had taken it into his own hands, and was conducting it in his own quiet way, convincing the church and the world that it is “not by might, nor by power, but by his own Spirit,” as the Author and Finisher of the whole. The spirit of grace and supplication was poured out upon the people, and they “looked on Him whom they had pierced.” The weekly prayer-meeting and the weekly lecture were full of interest. Days of fasting and prayer were occasionally observed, and a Saturday evening prayer-meeting was established by the young men of the church, for the special purpose of imploring the divine presence and blessing upon the services of the approaching Lord’s day . . . Our Sabbaths became deeply solemn and affecting. We watched for them as those who “watch for the morning.” I verily believe we anticipated them with greater pleasure . . . expectation, than that with which the sons and daughters of earth ever anticipated their brightest jubilee. (Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 205-6)

Be encouraged brothers. God is at work. He honors His word. So, as you face a Monday, remember that if you have taken up the Scripture and preached what it said, God is at work.

The Secret Mission: A Huguenot’s Dangerous Adventures in the Land of Persecution, by A. Van der Jagt (Inheritance Publications, 1992), pb., 187 pp.

This is the sequel to The Escape, which I have reviewed previously. We enjoyed this sequel as much as we did the original. In this one, John and Manette have settled into their life in Holland. John has a job working for a Dutch official. The Dutch government has been secretly helping the Huguenots who are being persecuted in France, but war is coming btw the two countries. John is sent with a Dutch official on a government mission to the French government, but John also has several secret missions to accomplish. He ends up having to work his way across the country in search of his father who in the last book was sentenced to life on the galleys. He encounters various hardships and adventures along the way. Throughout the book the reader learns about the suffering of the Huguenots and of their eventual armed resistance.

Reading this book (and the previous one) has meant so much more to my boys than simply telling them the bare facts of what happened to the Huguenots. Through this book the experiences of these brave people have become real to them. Their story opens up many examples of perseverance and faith under trial. One example was particularly moving for us. Along the way John encountered a group of Huguenot prisoners- elderly and children included- who are being harassed by the inhabitants of a town they are being marched through. At this point the author includes a true account of Huguenot resilience in the face of suffering:

After the priest with his followers had gone, the town women became very offensive. Their leader was a heavy-set hag with a shrill, loud voice. She began to revile the Huguenots again and to dance in front of them shaking her fists. This did not seem to satisfy her, for suddenly she stopped, bent down, grabbed some mud from the street, and slung it in the face of one of the Huguenot men. The other women followed her example, and in a very short time, all of them, including their children, began to throw mud at the faces of the Huguenots. Soon the small Huguenot children began to cry, holding their mud-smeared hands and arms before their eyes.
At that moment, John heard the old man with the white hair tell the Huguenots to fall on their knees, and to call upon the Lord. He led them in prayer with a loud, bright voice that could be heard clearly and the others joined him. “Gracious God, who seest the wrongs to which we are hourly exposed, give us strength to bear them, and to forgive in charity those who wrong us. Strengthen us from good even unto better. Amen.”

Astonished, the women and children stopped their yelling, and apparently embarrassed, dropped their mud balls on the ground. After the prayer, one of the Huguenots began to sing Psalm 116, and after the first words, the whole group sang with him. (pp. 130-131)

The account goes on to mention how the lead woman came up to the old man begging for forgiveness and how he gave it. Then she told the others watching that the authorities had lied to them when they told them that the Huguenots were heretics and bad people. She pointed to their faith and willingness to forgive as proof that they were indeed followers of Christ. This sort of testimony is a powerful reminder of the effect of living out the gospel.

This is a great book and we recommend it strongly. The writing is not at the same level of C.S. Lewis or Allen French, but it is effective. My boys and I all really enjoyed the book. The adventure and suspense was compelling and the truths behind it all were very good. This is a great way to introduce your children to good reading and the brave people known as Huguenots.

We recently purchased a copy of Faerie Gold: Treasures From the Lands of Enchantment(P&R Publishers, 2005) for our children. It is a collection of various “fairy tales” from writers such as George MacDonald. I have not yet had a chance to read any of the fairy tales, but I read the essay included at the end on the value of fairy tales for children. It is excellent! This is a well written argument from a Christian perspective on the value of fairy tales. Here are just a few quotes:

“A child may be too young for fairy tales, but he can never be too old for them.” (274)

“Some universal spiritual truth underlies the really fine old fairy tale; but there can be no educative influence in the so-called fairy stories which are merely jumbles of impossible incidents, and which not infrequently present dishonesty, deceit, and cruelty in amusing guise.” [quoting Kate Douglas Wiggins] (275)

“it is this taste of joy and desire that draws us ever onward to the most incredible, true, and wonder-filled of all stories – the gospel.” (276)

I would recommend this essay to all parents.

Following the essay is a collection of quotes from famous people on the value of fairy tales. Here are a few. I’ll plan to post more in the future.

“If you want your kids to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” -Albert Einstein

“If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other – the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.” –  G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that
fairy tales should be respected.” – Charles Dickens