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The noted Presbyterian preacher and homiletics professor Andrew Watterson Blackwood (1882-1966) was a tireless worker for Christ. But twice in his life he was sidelined by “nervous breakdowns,” the first of which occurred while he was studying at Princeton. Later in life, he wrote an account of the lessons learned from those experiences. It appears in Jay E. Adams, The Homiletical Innovations of Andrew W. Blackwood, pp. 42-43.

HOW CHRIST ENABLES ME TO SOLVE MY PROBLEMS

In 1905 I suffered a nervous and physical breakdown, which lasted almost a year. In 1936 I had another breakdown, much worse, which kept me from teaching and preaching for a year and a half. Partly through a kind physician who loved the Lord, I regained health and strength of body and mind. During the past 18 years the Lord has enabled me to carry a full-time load as a professor, to conduct divine services almost every Lord’s Day in the past few years, and to write 18 books, 15 of them for ministers, and all 15 still on the active list. Now I am four years beyond the seminary’s age of retirement, and still He gives me work to do, with strength to do it, day by day, and peace of heart.
So I gladly accept an invitation to testify, not in a spirit of boastfulness, but of gratitude. As our late friend and neighbor Albert Einstein once told Mrs. Blackwood, with reference to his work in science, “I have nothing but what I have received.” He was thinking about greatness in the eyes of men; I am giving thanks for goodness from the hand of God….
…Gradually the Lord has taught me how to live from day to day, as ever in His sight. He has been teaching me what I should have learned as a young minister. Once I asked an older man, active and honored in state and church, “How is it that in a day, a year, or a lifetime you can do more work and better work than any person I have ever known?” He smiled as he told me, “My Lord taught me a long while ago to live without worry, work without hurry, and look forward without fear.” That sounds like Philippians 4:6, 7.
Looking back, I can see that apart from physical causes my breakdowns came from my shortcomings and failures, due no doubt to ambition. I had not learned to live and work and hope in the spirit of my older friend. Neither had I gained mastery over despondency, insomnia, and related disorders, which ought to have no place in a life where the Spirit dwells. I had not even learned how to deal with my body as my father, a horse-and-buggy doctor, took care of his team, and as I, a typical Scotsman, try to take care of my automobile. I do not mean that I ever drank, or abused my body in various other ways, but that I suffered from stress and strain, self-imposed, with resulting worry and waste. Friction in my soul!
Now as I look forward the sunset years I trust that I shall keep on learning how to live day by day, as ever in His sight. With Paul I hope that I shall always feel able to say, “for me to live is Christ”; and with Browning, “The best part is yet to be.” “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood .and righteousness.” Hence I look forward to the unseen world with peace, with hope, and with more than a few foretastes of heaven’s joy. I hope, too, that I shall not meet my Lord with empty hands and a broken heart.
Andrew W. Blackwood

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Thomas Williamson (“T.W.”) Hooper (1832-1915) was a graduate of both Hampden-Sydney College and Union Theological Seminary (Richmond, Virginia). Ordained to the ministry in 1858, he served different pastorates in his home state of Virginia (most notably in Christiansburg in 1865-1870 and 1888-1906), as well as in Selma, Alabama. He was at one a time a chaplain, and in 1884, he served as a delegate to the Presbyterian Alliance in Belfast, Ireland. Letters written by him (and others) on a 1873 overseas trip were published under the title A Memphian’s Trip to Europe. In 1876, he was awarded a D.D. degree by Roanoke College, Salem, Virginia. He was a trustee of Hampden-Sydney College; a director of Columbia Theological Seminary in South Carolina; and a member of the executive committees of the Colored Theological Institute and the Orphans Home in Tuskegee. He delivered an address on the genius of the Westminster Assembly and its work in 1897, and authored other works and tracts.

We take note today of his little book of comfort to the discouraged titled “Lead Me to the Rock” (1892). It was the fruit of much pastoral experience and was written

To The
Beloved People in Virginia and Alabama
Among Whom,
For More Than Thirty Years, Amid Sunshine and
Shadows, It Has Been His Blessed Privilege
To Labor in the Gospel,
This Little Volume
Is Affectionately Dedicated
By Their
Old Pastor

Within this book of comfort and encouragement is a chapter titled “An Antidote for Worry.” Taken from the Sermon on the Mount, Hooper refers to the timeless message from Christ to his disciples as “words to the weary.” Knowing that “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head,” Jesus spoke to people with real needs, but often over-anxious cares about “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “Wherewithal shall we be clothed?”

Christ directed his hearers to “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but [rather] lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” It is this treasure that Hooper reminds us of. Our Heavenly Father knows our earthly needs. But there is something far more solid to seek after: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto.”

Hooper: “Oh, what a blessed assurance that this is those who are sometimes filled with anxiety about even their daily bread! It is hard, very hard, to put in practice these plain lessons of the word. But the Lord has made good that promise so it has never failed.”

This is a promise to take hold of by faith. A treasure indeed, which does not decay, but gives everlasting peace. As Christ has said elsewhere, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). May T.W. Hooper’s “antidote for worry” be an encouragement to you, dear Christian, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and therefore to cast your cares upon Him who cares for you.

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