Trowel And Sword -The Early Years

Dick Vander Pijl. Trowel & Sword. 1965

Preamble: If the title of this article and its contents sound familiar, they should be. This was the opening article of our recently published (December) Trowel & Sword – Special Edition. Why publish it again? Because like the Auckland brethren responsible for getting the ball rolling for the original Trowel & Sword, we strongly believe that there is still a place for a monthly denominational magazine. One of the stated motivations of these brethren was to produce, “A better monthly paper than the present local ‘rags’.” We presume they were talking about bulletins/newsletters produced by individual churches. It is our belief that there are churches that no longer produce even these, and where they do, they are often no more than activity lists and rosters for their own congregations. Judging by the reaction to last week’s post – “The Power Of The Written Word”, we believe that there is still a demand, maybe even a hunger for a denominational paper. So we will continue on with TSR in the hope that Trowel & Sword will one day again become what it was originally intended to be. A magazine for all the Reformed Churches of Australia and New Zealand, perhaps even as an extension of New Zealand’s current magazine, “Faith in Focus”.

Trowel And Sword -The Early Years

In 1954, on April the 20th, a circular was sent to all the sessions of the Reformed Churches of Australia and New Zealand from some Auckland brethren with a suggestion to come to the publication of a monthly paper to serve both denominations. These brethren were moved by the following motives:
– A better monthly paper than the present local “rags”;
– A great time-saver for the pastors, (there were not too many of them then);
– An excellent communication for subjects as Unions, Sunday work, Theological training, christian schools, liturgy, the English language in the worship-services, (notice the problems which then existed and now have been – partly – solved).

These brethren then proposed a paper which would contain apart from church-news also articles for the education of our members on church-history, dogmatics, liturgical subjects, missionary work etc.

At the same time these Aucklanders formed an Association with a Board of Directors (sic) and in its constitution it was stated in article 3: “The purpose of the Association is to publish, sell or in any way bring to public notice, papers, books, and what-so-ever is necessary for the dissemination of God’s Word”. The last Article of this constitution stated that in case of dissolution property and moneys belonging to the organisation or the Publishing House shall be donated after liquidation to a christian cause, cordially in agreement with art. 2 and 3 of this constitution.

Without being ironical I must say that to my knowledge this organisation never officially dissolved itself; it neither owned any property nor bank-account. And its only product, the beginnings of this present paper, were after several coma’s and revivings handed over to “doctor” VanderSchoor who at that time lived in Tasmania and managed to get the infant through its early years.

To go back to its start, the first editors were Rev. VanderBom and Rev. Deenick (spelled Deenik at the time. They had dreamed the dream and seen the vision and consequently were made responsible for its contents. For posterity’s sake the originators – apart from the above-mentioned editors – were W. van Rij, chairman, P. Suurmond, secretary, M.G. van Dalen, treasurer and myself the manager of the Publishing House.

We were all honourable (sic) members which meant that we did not receive any remuneration for our work. And incidentally, this was not by any means to be-littled (sic).

Did we start off with a printed publication, after several issues we were through our subscription-fees for the first year. And realised that humbleness of mind is better than nice printing.

Here follows a narration of the production of one of these issues in the first years:

“Mrs. Lenie Bijlsma worked two full days typing the stencils; Rev. Deenick picked up the stencils on a return trip from some country work – Mrs. Bijlsma lived about 30 miles out of Auckland – checked the contents and delivered the stencils two hours later at the van Rij’s home when he passed through for another little trip to Auckland. These were hectic days, you know, what with power-cycle etc. Saturday afternoon, at 1 p.m. van Rij and myself turned the duplicator-handle. As the teller was out of order – every time – we had to count the sheets as they were run through the machine, 20 x 650. This task was finished at 8 p.m. Meanwhile the families Suurmond, van Dalen and Int’ Veld arrived and together with some van Rij children they started to write out the addresses. When this was finished, we all joined in the compilation, stapling and bundling of the papers, ready for the post-office. Without fail we all usually turned up for the worship service next morning.”

That the Board of Directors were quite serious with regard to the constitution could be seen when the first issue came off the press and editor Rev. Deenick received an alarming letter from these men, questioning some of the contents on their “un-Reformed” point of views. In his reply Rev. Deenick said: You mind the organisational side of this affair and I will mind my side and he then continued to prove to the Board the correctness and scripturalness of his articles. One of the questionable articles was that in which he stated that “Holy Days” had no biblical grounds. The Board of Directors happened to disagree. When he was questioned again some time later, he wrote back that it was time for a little round-table conference to clarify somebody’s position and put some others in their place (the last eight words are mine – writer of this article).

That “Trowel and Sword” tottered on the brink of bankruptcy for quite some time should not have been necessary at all . Both denominations together had a total of 1500 members at the time; the cost of the publication came to about 1300 pounds but only 159 members in Australia, 58 in Tasmania and 175 members in New Zealand were the original subscribers. Fortunately a number of churches donated at regular times to help continue the publication of this worthy paper.

The history of the early beginnings of this venture was like that of any christian organisation which goeth fast on and (finally) prospereth in their hands.

DICK VANDERPIJL.

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• Trowel And Sword -The Early Years
• The Power Of The Written Word
• Addiction To Self – The Problem
• The Rights Of Your And My Children
• Editorial Paragraph – March 1958