"_He hath brought me into darkness, but not into light._"
--LAMENTATIONS iii. 1-9.
But a man may be in darkness, and yet in motion toward the light. I was in
the darkness of the subway, and it was close and oppressive, but I was
moving toward the light and fragrance of the open country. I entered into
a tunnel in the Black Country in England, but the motion was continued,
and we emerged amid fields of loveliness. And therefore the great thing to
remember is that God's darknesses are not His goals; His tunnels are means
to get somewhere else. Yes, His darknesses are appointed ways to His
light. In God's keeping we are always moving, and we are moving towards
Emmanuel's land, where the sun shines, and the birds sing night and day.
There is no stagnancy for the God-directed soul. He is ever guiding us,
sometimes with the delicacy of a glance, sometimes with the firmer
ministry of a grip, and He moves with us always, even through "the valley
of the shadow of death." Therefore, be patient, my soul! The darkness is
not thy bourn, the tunnel is not thy abiding home! He will bring thee out
into a large place where thou shalt know "the liberty of the glory of the
children 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.