Son of Harry Robert Fox, Sr., Logan Fox was born in Tokyo on 20 October 1922.  He studied at David Lipscomb College (Nashville, TN), University of Syracuse (Syracuse, NY), George Pepperdine College (Los Angeles, CA) and the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL) before returning to Japan in 1948 to establish Ibaraki Christian College.  He served Ibaraki as Dean and President.

This slim volume on Revelation by Charles Erdman bears Logan’s signature in the front.  In the rear is the ever-present and familiar convention of library books…the check-out slip.  We do not know all the resources available to Fox as he studied and taught at Ibaraki, but this volume is among them.  A. Hashimoto also read Erdman…perhaps Logan’s personal library was available to the students at Ibaraki?

Published in Philadelphia, Erdman’s book served missionaries in Asia and eventually came back to the US to Memphis, TN.  Finally, it came to Abilene, Texas just a few days ago through the papers of another missionary, Joe D. Cannon, co-worker with Fox in the early years at Ibaraki.  One item at time, one slip of paper, whether a letter or a sermon, or through photographs, scrapbooks, or former library books, we preserve the records of our past.

Center for Restoration studies Director Dr. Douglas Foster receives items all the time.  Just in from Dr. Foster is this photograph of the interior of the Goshen Church in Bradford Vermont.  Noted, in two hands, are brief details indicating that Elias Smith and Abner Jones preached in this circa-1812 pulpit.  It was common at the turn of the 20th century to have photographs developed on stiff paper in postcard size.  Suitable for mailing, these real photo postcards (RPPC) documented your journeys and allowed you to share them with friends and family, albeit in a slower manner than Facebook does today.

Through a donor’s generosity we see the space created for worship and proclamation by the early Christian movement in New England.  Notice the elevated pulpit, the simple drop-leaf communion table and the plain, mostly-unpainted pews.  Sunlight bursts through the windows.  A stovepipe prominently bisects the meetinghouse.  While the photograph is probably from the turn of the 20th century, it looks as if the congregation just adjourned from hearing Smith or Jones hold forth their plea for primitive Christianity.