Book Review: Counsel Fireside Reader

Nicholson, J.B., Jr., editor.
The Counsel Fireside Reader.
Port Colborne, ON:
Gospel Folio Press, 2001

Many years ago, my employer sent me to a Dale Carnegie course. I never became a public speaker, but I did pick up one powerful rule. Mr. Carnegie insisted that to relate to an audience, you had to tell stories—not all stories, but at least a few.

Ever since that day, I’ve always listened with a slightly critical ear. A preacher who illustrates his message with the occasional story has me with him—I can rejoice or weep as he leads but I can never fall asleep. My emotions are involved as well as my mind—and J. Boyd Nicholson has that gift in his writing.

The first line of the first essay introduces us to Harry, his navigator (a fellow-believer), then to Cookie, a seven year old orphan at a mission in India. Nicholson's heart aches as he says goodbye to her and heads for Burma, never to see her again. We feel the pain—but then he asks the question, “Whatever must it have meant to God the Father to yield up His only Son?”



Napoleon's tomb, June 2012

Nicholson’s second article opens at Napoleon’s tomb in Paris, as his guide proudly states, “Here is the glory of France!” Ten days later, Nicholson is in Jerusalem, in an empty tomb, and cries out aloud, “Here is the glory of Christ!”

The list goes on: “God’s Bag Lady”, the “cloud sandwich”, “Kambungu’s heart,” the ‘Tower of Tears’, “God Bless the Giblites!”, “Two o’clock at Entebbe”, “Love’s Rendezvous”…

Reading on, I came to another story that thrilled me—a blessing on Tom Agnew, auto mechanic! “Not just a ‘fixer’, but a man who put his Christian testimony into his workmanship.” “Later, Tom moved into sales and was renowned for many years as one of that unusual breed, a thoroughly trustworthy car salesman!” “Dealing with Tom, you didn’t even need to kick the tires.”

A few of the essays make dry reading, I’m afraid, and most of these prove the need for ‘story’. There is an exception—I encourage you to read an uncharacteristic chapter by Nicholson, entitled “Tears—in Heaven!”

Just to balance things out, let me mention a few minor ‘cons’ that came to mind. For instance, I’m not sure why Adolph Saphir was included—he wasn’t a real contributor to Counsel Magazine, since he died in 1891. My other comment is more of a suggestion. I don’t really know most of the writers. Perhaps a three or four line biography of each author should have been included as an appendix.

I got my copy of Fireside Reader directly from Gospel Folio Press in Port Colborne, on sale for only $10, but it’s full of treasure. To quote from a preface once written by A.W.Tozer, “here is true gold of Ophir.”

Reviewed by Glenn Wilson

Book Review: God Planted Five Seeds

Johnson, Jean Dye
God Planted Five Seeds.
Sanford, FL:
New Tribes Mission,
1966.


Jean Dye Johnson’s image for her title is straight from the mouth of our Lord, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24) It was the darkest years of World War Two and thousands were dying on the battlefields. What did it matter that five unknown Americans died in a Bolivian jungle?

Johnson’s story begins chronologically with Cecil Dye and a “Cloud Club” outreach he started in a rented room in Saginaw, Michigan. Over a period of months, Cecil and his brother Bob became acquainted with Paul Fleming and gradually a plan evolved for an interdenominational mission to new tribes. Offers of support also came in but they all had some strings attached. “Paul and Cecil rejected all such. They would rather ‘look to the Lord.’…Through missionaries from Latin America, they learned of the unreached tribes of Bolivia, which now became their goal.” At this time Joe Moreno joined the group, offering to be “a flunky for Cecil Dye.”

By the opening of 1943, Cecil and four other men plus Joe Moreno plus some of their families were assembled in Roboré, in eastern Bolivia. Their target was the Ayoré tribes of the Sunsa Hills. For months they worked to piece together some of the language and the culture and to pinpoint their locations, then they started cutting a trail through the jungle to reach these people.

As these five men worked on the trail, communication with their families continued. Then, in November, 1943, all feedback ceased. No more was heard of Cecil Dye, Bob Dye, Dave Bacon, George Hosbach, or Eldon Hunter. Two search parties were sent in but bodies were never found.

Joe Moreno then took over leadership of the mission and worked tirelessly to track down other Ayoré groups and make contact, while the author worked out details of words, phrases, and grammar in their language.

In August, 1947, a band of Ayorés made friendly contact with two railway engineers but not until about June of 1948 did the Ayorés become friendly enough for eleven of them to sleep over in the author’s 15-feet-square, dirt-floored room. Joe arranged for the Ayorés to transfer to a palm grove called Tobité, and there, with extensive help from other missionaries on the team, they clothed and fed the “barbaros”, learned their language, taught them a bit of agriculture, and finally were able to present the gospel.

In April, 1950, an Ayoré turned up in Tobité and, in incidental questioning by an anthropologist, related most of the story of the killings of the five men. In fact, one of the killers had even been in the village.

This is the gist of Johnson’s story. The details can sometimes be revolting (Ayoré burial practices) or can tug at the heart-strings (“I like your Jesus.”)

God Planted Five Seeds is a story worth reading. We have to consider each of these five men as one of God’s elite. In that part of Bolivia there were thousands of “civilized” people who needed to hear the way of life more clearly— but these men heard God’s call to tell the Ayorés of Jesus—people who had NEVER heard of Him. Many trusted Christ, to the extent that when Johnson wrote this story twenty years after the killings she could conclude, “God had planted five seeds. With a full heart, I had seen for myself the harvest.”

Reviewed by Glenn Wilson. Special thanks to Phil Proctor for the recommendation (and for his many years of faithful service with New Tribes Mission).

Footnotes to the Book “God Planted Five Seeds”

 

1. Our own Mary Gemmell Dickson was a child in the missionary school in Esmeralda, in Cochabamba Valley, Bolivia, when the killings took place. Her parents were with the Bolivian Indian Mission and worked in the mountains at 11,000 feet. Some of the students at her school feared for their own parents who worked in the jungles. Thankfully no other lives were lost at that time.

2. Peter & Mima Horne, mentioned early on in the book as “Scottish Brethren missionaries” who hosted these five men, were from Isa Penman’s home assembly in Scotland— Waterside Gospel Hall in Irvine. In later life, they retired to Scotland but missed their adopted land so much that they finally moved back to live out their days in Bolivia. 

3. The final footnote for the moment relates to the railway station in Arica, Chile, where the missionaries had to prove that they were really transporting their own musical instruments. This was the railhead at the start of the journey to La Paz in Bolivia. See the attached photos by G.Wilson, of the “rock” at Arica, and the old railway station itself (“FERROCARRIL DE ARICA A LA PAZ”).  Ì

“I heard there was a secret chord…”

The Montreal poet, Leonard Cohen, has written a haunting secular song, Hallelujah, about King David. Like all good poets, he has full control of his metre and rhyme—beyond that, he creates images that puzzle but eventually satisfy. After the first few hearings, we may hardly know where Cohen is going: “the baffled king composing,” “her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you,” “she broke your throne and she cut your hair…”

We realize, of course, that the song is about David’s sin with Bathsheba. When David had Uriah murdered, (2 Sam.11:15) he ultimately became a “shedder of blood,” guilty beyond anything he had ever done in wartime. And this is why God said, “You are not to build a house for my Name.” (1 Chron.28:3)


To put it bluntly, David was an adulterer and a killer, and under the Mosaic law (e.g., Lev.20:10) both he and Bathsheba deserved to die by stoning. As a murderer, David doubly deserved death. (Lev.24:17) When Nathan the prophet confronted him with his sin (2 Sam.12) David was crushed. He knew there was no sacrifice he could offer for atonement, so he sought the Lord at last in the tabernacle, (2 Sam.12:20) praying: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psa.51:16 ,17)


We know that there really was a “chord that David played and it pleased the Lord,” because we read that somehow, David was “a man after my [God’s] own heart.” Acts13:22 There is even a quotation in Proverbs that sounds like David’s advice to his son: “Lay hold of my words with all your heart, keep my commands and you will live.” Prov.4:3, 4.


On the lowest level, this story proves to me that a believer can do anything an unbeliever can do except perish. On a higher level, it shows me what God can forgive. On another level, it shows me what I should do in David’s situation. Poor David prayed, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me.” What a difference for the believer today—we have the Holy Spirit Who has come “to abide with us forever”, to help us control our passions, and guide us to what is best. May we never quench Him! Thank the Lord for this Comforter and Guide!