PSALM xci. 1-12.
I read a sentence the other day in which a very powerful modern writer
describes a certain woman as "having God on her visiting list." We may
recoil from the phrase, but it very vitally describes a very awful
commonplace. Countless thousands have God on their visiting lists. They
pay Him courtesy-calls, and between the calls He is forgotten. Perhaps the
call is paid once a week in the social function of worship. Perhaps it is
paid more rarely, like calls between comparative strangers. How great the
contrast between a caller and one who dwells in the secret place! It is
the difference between a flirt and a "home-bird," between one who flits
about on a score of fancies, and one who settles down in the solid
satisfaction of a supreme affection.
"_Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty._" Such is the reward of
the "home-bird," the settled friend of the Lord. The shadow of the Lord
shall rest upon him continually. I sometimes read of our monarchs being
"shadowed" by protective police. In an infinitely more real and intimate
sense the soul that dwells in "the secret place" is shadowed by the
sleepless grace and love of God.
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John Henry Jowett was born in Halifax, England in 1864. Jowett's father had arranged for him to begin working as a clerk for a lawyer in Halifax, but the encouragement of his Sunday school teacher, Mr. Dewhirst, turned Jowett's heart toward the ministry.
After theological training at Edinburgh and Oxford, Jowett assumed the pastorate of the Saint James Congregational Church. His six effective years of ministry brought him to the attention of the Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham, England, on the death of their pastor. For the next fifteen years the church grew and prospered. Their pastor's vision led them to increase their efforts to bring people to Christ. In 1917, the mayor of Birmingham said the church had changed the town with "crime and drunkenness having decreased."
Jowett came to America for the first time in 1909 to address the Northfield Conference founded by D. L. Moody. While in America he preached twice at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. The church immediately asked him to come as its pastor. Jowett refused, having received a petition, signed by more than 1,400 members of his church in England, begging him to stay. The Fifth Avenue Church called him again, and then a third time. Finally Jowett concluded that this was God's leading for his life. He assumed the pastorate in 1911.
Although his preaching style was not dynamic (he read all of his sermons), the depth of his knowledge, the clarity of his language, and the power of his life commanded respect. Attendance at the church which had dropped to 600 on Sunday morning rose to 1,500. Lines up to half a block long formed, waiting for unclaimed seats. Jowett began preparing his Sunday sermons on Tuesday, following a meticulously detailed schedule.
When G. Campbell Morgan resigned the Westminster Chapel in London in 1917, Dr. Jowett once again crossed the ocean to take a new church. This would be his final pastorate. Declining health forced him to give up preaching in 1922, and his death in 1923 took from the world one of its most gifted and dedicated preachers.