A Thought for our Baptist Bible Believers members:
The life of Charles E. Cowman, well, was his life. In today's upside-down thinking, the Charismatic movement has practically taken away from the believer any desire to be more fully endowed and controlled by the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD according to scriptural truth in exchange for emotionalism.
This was not something to be ashamed of in Mr. Cowman's day. He believed strongly in the doctrine of sanctification, which went by the name of the Holiness movement. Do we believe in a "full salvation?" If by it we mean that we are not merely saved and waiting to go to Heaven, but actively living a devoted, separated life laboring for the Lord; that is, fulfilling the purpose for which we were saved, then I would say a resounding: "YES!"
There are those today that know nothing of the great need for personal evangelism and the separated life, yet see a "second work of grace" as the ability to speak in a modern manifestation of "spirituality", which is no doubt the same old carnality. The old time HOLY SPIRIT filled men of GOD, such as D. L. Moody, Charles Finney, Hudson Taylor, or others like Adoniram Judson and William Carey knew nothing of this base show of the flesh, But they did know the HOLY SPIRIT as a needed source of power for their lives and ministry. May I even be so bold as to suggest that the pioneer missionary did not enter the open doors set before him without an extraordinary ability and insight vouchsafed him from the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD.
So, while the subject of "Holiness" is often bridged in the pages of this book, if we will but understand that no man truly serves GOD until a complete and total consecration to GOD takes place - I believe that we will not stray far from the intent of the author. Nor shall we be tempted to seek out the nearest Pentecostal/Charismatic cult and desire membership and their unscriptural teachings or fellowship.
Shall we agree with everything that Charles E. Cowman held as doctrinal? Perhaps not. For instance, he held that healing was in the atonement. Now, while he may have seen this as a physical healing - and let there be no doubt - GOD Heals - at His pleasure; but could he have had a spiritual healing in mind, as well, as the greater healing? as we who love and know our Bibles do today? Certainly salvation is the healing of a sin-sick soul.
This is the biography of a man that loved GOD, loved His Word, and loved souls for whom JESUS CHRIST bled, suffered and died. It is his story - a life lived by faith as a missionary to Japan. Shall we glean much by which to buttress our own faith and work for our Lord? Most assuredly. Will we find within these chapters that which we are not fully in agreement? Yes, surely we will.
Because we have loved Lettie Cowman's wonderful works, "Streams in the Desert" and have been blessed by their devotional content, may we now be blessed by learning of the man, who together with her Saviour, made Mrs. Cowman the woman she became.
I've enjoyed the preparing and editing, and I suspect you'll enjoy the reading. And may I say, would to GOD that I knew the same devotion and dedication that these circuit-riding, trailblazing men of GOD possessed.
- Baptist Bible Believer
FOREWORD
"Greatheart is dead they say;
But the light shall burn the brighter,
And the night shall be the lighter
For his going;
And a rich, rich harvest for his sowing."
- John Oxenham.
The man, Charles E. Cowman, has become increasingly familiar during the past twenty-five years to those interested in foreign missions. As the founder and president of The Oriental Missionary Society, he won for himself and for the Mission a place in the respect and affection of a large number of Christians in the homelands, as well as in the mission fields of the world.
Many of his friends, believing that the origin and history of his work should be more widely known, requested him to write its story, but he felt a natural hesitancy in introducing a volume which would have had, in the very nature of things, a very personal touch, as it would have been written embodying much of his personal life and work. It was undertaken but, after several chapters of the manuscript were completed, he discontinued it, Saying, "Let me be kept so busy making history that I shall have no time to write it. Should the time come when it is necessary, let the pen of another tell the story." The task has fallen to her who sits in the after-glow of that rarely beautiful life.
The biography is, in a sense, the history of a great missionary enterprise. So closely were his personality and the cause of missions linked, that it is impossible to separate them. His work was his very life.
"True biography," said one, "was never nor can be written. Fragrance cannot be put into picture or poem. There is a subtle evasive savor and flavor about character which escapes both tongue and pen. And, more than this, the very best things about such characters and careers are unknown, save to GOD, and cannot be revealed because they are among His secret things. Like Elijah, the best men hide themselves with GOD before they show themselves to men. The showing may be written in history, but the hiding has none, and after studying the narrative of such lives, even with the best helps, there remains a deeper, and unwritten history that only eternity can unveil."
What pen can fully compass or adequately portray the story of simple faith and mighty achievement; of faithful and heroic service of the subject of this memoir, the missionary whose life literally burned out, the man whose master-passion was missions? Such a life has a message for our day.
As he served CHRIST, so also ought we to serve Him, and surely we will serve Him better as we see what a noble service was rendered by this missionary. To young people his message was ever, "Find GOD's plan for your generation and get in line with it."
The world still has men in it whom they are pleased to term "spiritual geniuses"; but, should an examination be made to discover the secret, they would have to come to but one conclusion. They were men who set themselves to find and to do the will of GOD. That is the crux of the whole matter. "If any man will do His will, he shall know... and greater works than these shall he do."
Important ends are served by the reputation which such labor sometimes acquires in this world, and by the good which they have done living after them in the records of earth and in the memories of men; for other hearts catch a kindred flame from their torch.
This volume has, like the life it sketches, just one aim. It is simply and solely meant, not to exalt a personality, but to show the reader what GOD can do with a humble instrument when fully and completely yielded to Him. He needs no praise for his work, but we need the impulse which his consecrated example gave to the world. Neither life nor labor has been in vain. What marvels may be wrought by the inspiration of a single life!
The book is a simple record of a real life, but it is a sacred romance, though the principal actor never dreamed that he was anything but a common man, not the missionary-hero that we see him to be. It is not a biography in the truest sense of the word; but a sheaf of memories gleaned at random from the harvest-field of his fruitful life.
In this work I would beg indulgence for many shortcomings of which I am painfully conscious, because of the fact that it has been written in the few leisure hours of an exceedingly active life. I have tried to paint impartially the portrait of my beloved husband as he lived, and if I have in any measure conveyed the lesson that a life wholly surrendered to GOD is the life that wins, I have not wholly failed in my task:
Lettie B. Cowman.
Los Angeles, California
September 25, 1928