never indulges in sports. “ I abhor anything athletic,” he says. “ I’m like James Hutchins, formerly of Chicago University, who said that whenever he feels the urge for exercise coming on, he simply lies down until the feeling wears off.” Students at Fuller Seminary testify that Dr. Smith rarely uses the ele vator, can run up stairs without losing his breath, and possesses a rugged constitution that puts him in the lead of many younger men. The great out-of-doors' does not particularly fascinate him. Arriving back from a trip to Alaska he told someone who asked him about the scenery, “ You see a hundred pine trees and you’ve seen it!” His secretary is Miss Delores Leoding. Miss Leoding, who worked for him frequently while employed in the Stenographic Department of Moody Institute, has been his pri vate secretary since he came to California. She keeps his books in order, takes all of his writing in shorthand (he makes very few changes once he has dictated a manuscript) and types out his pro digious correspondence. On advising others on what to read Dr. Smith urges them to read what they find interesting and not to spend money for books they do not finally get around to digesting. “ Select an author and master him,” he counsels, “ like John Owen, Alex-
In Baltimore Smith began an in formal Saturday night Bible class in his home which was attended regularly by about 10 young peo ple. They studied the Book of Gene sis. There was no pressure, no or ganization, no dues, no attendance recorded. Sometimes his students came in full dress for some evening occasion, but they rarely missed. His notes from that class are among his most treasured possessions. He conducted the same kind of meetings in Pennsylvania. At the rambling old Massasoit Hall build ing in Strasburg he held weekly Bible classes mainly for rural peo ple hungering for the truth. He seemed not to mind how inclement the weather or how few attended ■— he was always present. He was positive, direct and clear in his teaching. One lady who at tended his Strasburg class recalls his determined stride back and forth across the platform, his abrupt stop to make a point, his turning to the audience with round, bulging eyes and extended fore-finger and deep voice shouting the issue. He would sometimes wrap his leg around the spindle of the podium or lean against the piano while he preached. The people, accustomed to drab ritual and staid clergymen, learned eagerly. From 1938 to 1947 Smith served on the faculty of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, and left there to become “ charter professor” of Radio Evangelist Charles E. Fuller’s the ological seminary in California. Smith holds membership in the American Society of Church His tory, the Chicago Society of Bibli cal Research, the National Associ ation of Biblical Instructors, the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, the Victoria Institute of Great Britain and the American Schools of Oriental Research. He lives today with his wife" in their San Marino home, just a few miles from his office. To get to sleep he sometimes reads true detective mystery stories. “ I never read any fiction,” he says, “ unless it’s Wal ter Scott or Dickens.” In other realms, outside the business of keep ing up to date on books, he is plagued with procrastination. He
ander Whyte or Richard Baxter. The choice will vary with the per son. One book for a farmer who has just become a new Christian might not at all satisfy a man of 40, say, who has a couple of degrees and is weary of soul. I think reading is a matter of inclination. A man should read what he enjoys. That’s the only way he will get into his books. “ I am often asked by people,” he continues, “ especially older men in the ministry, how I get all the reading done that I do. There is only one way to get any reading done and, though it may sound axiomatic, the secret is in just set tling down and reading. I have ob served, for example, ministers at tending summer Bible conference sessions perhaps two horns a day and spending the remainder of the day and the week lounging in a hammock or standing around chat ting about trivials. Such habits are not the secret of wide reading. I am not saying that every man should be a wide reader, but no man should go about asking how so much read ing can be accomplished unless he seriously wants to do a good deal of reading. Personally, I have no rule for fast reading — many books I do not want to read rapidly, but rather prefer to peruse them more slowly.” Dr. Smith hopes to publish with in the next year the large, compre hensive work on which he has been laboring for some years, The Sec ond Advent o f Christ. This will be followed by a work for which 20 years of teaching have been pre paring him, a textbook for the study of the English Bible. He is now writing for a well-known Sun day school publishing house a text book for the study of the Book of Genesis, some articles for a theo logical dictionary to be published next year and the article on the Book of Revelation for a new one- volume commentary to be issued some time in 1959. There are also other projects which he hopes to complete. One thing is fairly certain. Dr. Wilbur M. Smith will always have books around him. Like the Apostle Paul, he feels the need of “ the books and the parchments.” END.
Smith and part of his 24,000-volume library.
The King's Business/July 1958
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