Originally published in the December 1958 issue of The Christadelphian magazine
Christendom Astray
SEVENTY-FIVE years after it was first published in book form with this title, this work has yet again been reprinted and the demand for it never ceases. It has frequently been put into libraries and many thousands of copies must have found their way into the hands of “strangers”. My father’s copy in the 1899 edition, bought in 1901, bears the marks of careful reading and checking, and recalls the days when brethren and sisters really studied it in their own homes before handing it on to others. It is interesting to read bro. Walker’s preface to the 1899 edition that “the book is re-issued in the hope that it may prove to be the last that is required”.
The production of each edition of any work entails proof-reading, and this work done in recent months has convinced me more than ever of the value of Christendom Astray. A new generation naturally has a different outlook on many things from their forbears, but our faith and doctrines never change, and reading this book without prejudice it must be admitted that most of it could have been written for today. It is the text book for both public and private preaching; for Sunday School teachers; for those whose minds are disturbed about doctrine. Incidentally it may seem surprising that even that much misunderstood word “metonymy” is explained, and apparently was understood by humble working brethren sixty or more years ago. Bro. Roberts’ comment is “This is intelligible to the smallest intellect”. Today, in spite of higher education, there are those who neither know the word nor how it is applied in Scripture. In fact its use recently has been challenged as something “new”!
Apart from setting out our doctrines, bro. Roberts loses no opportunity of pointing lessons on personal conduct and the right attitude to the things of the world, and one puts the book down with the feeling that if his advice were taken in the kindly spirit in which it is written, many of our ecclesial troubles would never arise.
The present generation cannot too strongly be urged to read this book through as a whole, as well as to use it as a text book for reference. This is not to say that new methods of presenting the Truth should not be thought out, but originality only comes easily to those who already possess a solid background of whatever subject they are handling. Here is the book that provides that background.
