For a year or more a beloved brother has been pressing the need of a scroll of pictures on the Tabernacle. Another has said: "The subject is one that has lain like a burning coal on my heart for now `these forty years,' influencing my ministry in the Gospel beyond saying." But who is sufficient to read aright, or to portray in full, this wondrous, infinite subject? In the hope of getting help in the preparation of such a scroll, I asked a sister in London to try and procure for me all the books on the Tabernacle, new or second hand, that she could find.
The one that seemed most helpful, was Mr. E. C. Pressland's book, "FORESHADOWS", but it was not to be purchased anywhere. However, a friend loaned her his copy, on the condition that she would not let it out of the house. With great labor she copied the whole for me; and as I read it, I felt that others of the Lord's people should be enabled to share this precious ministry: hence the reprint of this book. Two old brothers in the United States have kindly loaned me their copies, and from these this edition has been reprinted. Nothing has been changed in this edition, but I have taken the liberty of adding a few notes at the end, which readers may disregard if they desire, and I have added a plan showing the suggested arrangement of boards, as I understand it: the cover design is also new. Perhaps I should add that our late, esteemed brother Mr. Lavington, of London, considered this book the best he knew on the subject.
As I read it a few months ago, for the first time, it brought to mind that our Mother used to tell us, when we were children, some of the very things brought out in this book: for she, as a girl, had heard Mr. Pressland lecture on the Tabernacle, and had never forgotten what he said. A few short extracts from this book appeared recently in "The Steward," and not many weeks ago I received an unfinished letter from our late sister Miss Mary Gausby, begun a day or two before she went to be "present with the Lord," in which she expressed her delight at seeing these extracts. She wrote that when she was a child Mr. Pressland had lectured on the Tabernacle in the town where they were then living. She was considered too small to go to the evening meetings, but her older sisters went, and would return and tell her what Mr. Pressland had said: and she still remembered this after more than seventy years.
Some have thought this book only suited for mature and adult Christians, but I hope the above may encourage the young and the immature Christians to read it for themselves. If they do so prayerfully, and carefully, with their Bibles open beside them, sure I am they will not go away empty or disappointed.
“The glory is, will be, must be, all His own.”