R. A. Torrey

Reuben Archer Torrey was born on January 28, 1856, in Hoboken, New Jersey, in a wealthy family. His father was a businessman, who owned a zinc mill, and the family moved to Brooklyn. As a boy, he was a lively and talented student, who entered Yale College at the age of fifteen. He graduated in 1875, at the age of nineteen, and was a leader in his class. He was a man with a bright future. He was destined to follow a career in law. But he went through a time of spiritual struggle. As a student, he was gripped by a sense of his sins, and he knew that he was not right with God.

He was in a state of misery. After a time of searching, he came to a clear faith in Christ. He felt called to the ministry, and he entered Yale Divinity School. He studied also in Germany, at the universities of Leipzig and Erlangen. He was ordained as a Congregational minister and served for a short time in a pastorate in Ohio. In 1883, he went through a deep experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He said that he came to see that it was a definite experience distinct from conversion and that it was a source of power for service. He began to speak of it.

In 1889, Dwight L. Moody invited him to Chicago to become the superintendent of the Bible Institute that he had founded, the Chicago Evangelization Society, later called the Moody Bible Institute. He took up the post at the age of thirty-three, and he served for nineteen years. He built the school into a major institution. He set the standard of Bible study in the curriculum. He also became the pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church, now the Moody Church. He worked closely with Moody, who relied on him, and he took the lead after Moody's death in 1899.

From 1902 to 1906, he went on a world tour as an evangelist, in partnership with the singer Charles Alexander. They held meetings in Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan and Britain. In Britain, they held a series of campaigns in 1903 to 1905 and drew great crowds. It is said that tens of thousands made professions of faith. He was a plain and direct speaker, who made his points with force. He was a forerunner of the great evangelists of the next generation. He was also a friend of the Welsh Revival and of Evan Roberts.

He wrote more than forty books, which were widely read. They include How to Pray, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit, What the Bible Teaches and The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. The books are clear, practical and rooted in the Bible. He wrote a book called How to Study the Bible for the Greatest Profit. He was also the editor of The Fundamentals, a series of twelve volumes that were published from 1910 to 1915 and that set out the basic teachings of the Christian faith in response to liberal theology. He served as an editor with A. C. Dixon. The series gave its name to the fundamentalist movement.

In 1912, he moved to Los Angeles to become the dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, later called Biola University. He also served as the pastor of the Church of the Open Door. He remained there until 1924. He traveled and spoke widely. In his later years, he was a prominent voice in the defense of the faith against modernism. He also was a strong critic of the Pentecostal movement, which he regarded as a delusion and sometimes as demonic. This was an inconsistency in his thinking, as he had taught a definite baptism in the Spirit. His position caused sorrow among some who loved him.

He was a man of firm convictions and a hard worker. He sometimes appeared severe. He had a warm heart for the lost, and he gave his strength to the end. He died on October 26, 1928, in Asheville, North Carolina, at the age of seventy-two. His life shows the effect of a scholar who became a soul winner, and the impact of a teacher who held to the Bible.