A MAN OF DEVOTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21769, 7 April 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MAN OF DEVOTION

R. I". HORTON

BT MATANGA

The passing of Dr. 11. F. Horton has set this Eastertide apart for many. Not a host that no man can number, by any means, for the heyday of his wide influence was long past ere this Easter came, and great gaps had been made in that circle of spiritual fellowship before its centre was thus removed. Hie quiet of eventide settled some time back on his own life, and other lights were beginning to burn for a generation outgrowing him. For it his voice has been less compelling than it was when this century opened, " R. F. Horton, even in an obituary notice, has been a name of magic for survivors cherishing memory of uplift by his consecrated voice and pen. Scholar and mystic he was, this Congregational divine, yet in the scholarship and mysticism was a practical touch that long kept him close to workaday affairs. Nothing on earth was alien to him. Stalwart Free Churchman, yet profoundly catholic in tastes and outlook-, he had a parish broader than have most of his profession; it overstepped British boundaries and served many " regions beyond." What drew them was chiefly his abilitv to link ancient verities of religion with advancing thought about everything vital in the Christian creed. These were dear to him; that was obvious. But they were forever putting 011 new garb as he introduced them to modern eyes, so that they had no strangeness, no aloofness. The old light in the new lantern was Warmly brilliant, a thing of undying value and utility. He made it so, yet with such easy naturalness that 110 thought of art ever came between the enlightened and the light. In time, as has been said, he was being outgrown, because age shackled him at last; but were he here still in vigour he would be multiplying, as of yore, ways of fitting ageless truth into contemporary moulds of speech. Best of all Dr. Horton's ministry to the great company glad to be taught of him was his encouragement of devoutness —not as a monastic habit but as a living vesture of every mundane occupation. He had caught the truth that, whether eating or drinking, wo may do all "to the glory of God," and this truth he joyously, continuously, passed on to others. As a consequence, he will be remembered longest by the stimulus and guidance he gave to soul culture, sane and rational and serviceable. It was a pursuit native to his religious genius, a,nd so seemed effortlessly followed year by year. " The Open Secret"

Hundreds of thousands must have been helped by his book " The Open Secret: a Manual of Devotion." He described it himself as "a book for tho times, being a guide to the practice of prayer." The "times" were thirty years ago, but it is timely yet. How the book came to be written he told iu moving words. In the midst of a crowded and busy life he was suddenly Stricken with a failure of sight. Tho malady was serious. "Without a moment's warning all the wonderful mechanism of vision stood still. He had been suffering .an accumulation of domestic sorrow, and the strain broke him. So he was plunged into the Valley of the Shadow.

Recovery was impossible without absolute rest of nerve. He was forbidden to do pastoral work, to speak in public or to try to write. At a time when he had been finding in activity a way of relief from personal sorrow, this ban was terrible. Then he was sent out of England, to be imprisoned in a hospital under injunctions of utter quiet. But after a while he found solace in the inner resources of life. " Driven into the eternal silences," he afterwards said, 'Svhere the sounds of the world die away, and where the closed senses, by a gentle compulsion, drive the soul into communion with God, I had leisure to reflect on those methods of devotion which I had used for many years in the stress and strain of life, and to subject them, like a sea-battered ship, to the overhauling and the repairs of the dock. They were already tested, and I was able to commend them to others as a ship that has weathered many storms and reached a haven of refuge." Not His But God's Out of this experience—"into it," ho preferred to say, convinced of a Divine impelling—came this book: " I could hardly have been more clearly directed if I had heard a voice from heaven saying, ' Write.' " Unexpectedly a friejid arrived, one able and willing to turn up and read books auxiliary to the task and to write at dictation hour after hour, with much intimate conference on things of the spirit. The two agreed that, careful as was their work of brain and hand, the eventual product was " not his but God's." When the manual was published, a kindly critic took exception to this phrase in the introduction, and so in the second edition (speedily called for, as were many later printings) Dr. Horton prefaced a manful note, acknowledging the human weakness and the fallibility of the book, yet ascribing the ease of its production to Divine aid accorded in realised answer to constant prayer. The fallibility is there. It is evident in many of the poetic quotations, far from word-perfect, although always preserving the spirit of the original, and in some references too cursorily made and lacking needful detail. Of " verbal inspiration" there can be no trace of claim, but in all that deeply matters " The Open Secret " is instinct with heavenly grace. Evsr Timely

Its guidance is still valuable to a degree as robust as it is gracious, as clear-seeing as it is sympathetic, and the wide range of' its vision makes all the world a majestic temple. History and Scripture ' are drawn on for material, but it is the pervading sense of the unclocked, ever-vital realities which never can be grasped in hasty glances or by feverish clutches" that gives the whole an inspiring influence. The enduring old is in its pages, as in Holy Writ, and commended in detail, "to be kept dusted and opened in the place where prayer is wont to be made" are the classic manuals of Thomas a Kemnis, Lancelot Andrewes, Samuel "Rutherford, Jeremy Taylor, William Law. Yet Dr. Horton's capacious, well-schooled heart rejoices openly that " God fulfils Himself in many ways" and it leads others to be as reverently glad—for the dancing daffodils that enlivened Wordsworth at TJllcswater and the golden gorse that invited Linnaeus to his knees on Salisbury Plain, and the Rontgen rays that light up many a hiding-place of wonder in the earth. In these days, when much childish impatience with ancient vessels of worshipping practice is manifest and there is frantic zest to know some new thine, a recall to the undrying springs of devout thought is deeply needed. The paths to them are sadly overgrown, although, they are hard by the roads men daily tread, To step aside, to find them with the joy of personal discovery, to track them out to the sacred places of rendezvous where all human generations may devotionally mingle in ageless fellowship, would be a gain far richer than the solving of every philosophic: and economic problem.