In a Moment of Despair
Reuben A. Torrey
He was a freshman at Yale at fifteen. His banker father had important social connections back home in Brooklyn. His quick mind learned easily without much study. He was an expert dancer with an engaging way with the girls. His conscience was not overly sensitive about campus good times.
"What more could a fellow want?" Reuben Torrey asked himself. And during his few months at the university, he always smiled back at himself in the mirror and said, "I've got all I need to make me happy."
But the one discordant note was his praying mother. Just to think of her prayers made Reuben feel uncomfortable. She wanted him to become a Christian. To Reuben, his mother's definition of the Christian life was giving up everything that he enjoyed — dancing, social drinking, card playing, and other worldly delights.
He thought he had settled the matter a few years back. He was in the attic of the family mansion and came across an old book that explained how to become a Christian. For the first few pages he agreed with everything the book said. God loved him. Yes, he could accept that. God gave His Son to die for mankind's sins. Yes, that was true. A person could receive forgiveness by believing in Christ. This seemed to be no problem.
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But then he read, "To become a Christian you must surrender your life completely to God's will — go wherever He wants you to go, do whatever He wants you to do."
Reuben had slammed the book down then. God would want him to give up the race track, card playing, and dancing. He might want him to be a preacher instead of a lawyer. There certainly would not be any joy in all that, he decided.
As a student at Yale, he was bothered again. As the days passed, his life became tasteless. He felt hollow inside when he laughed. Too often his smiles were forced.
Then one night he dreamed that his mother was dead. She came to him as an angel saying, "Reuben, won't you become a minister of the gospel?"
In his dream, Reuben promised his mother that he would be a preacher. Then he awoke with a start, painfully conscious of his dream promise.
His melancholy increased. Frequently he lapsed into moments of despair. One night he had a sudden impulse to commit suicide. He hurried to the washstand and fumbled for his razor or any other sharp instrument that would serve his purpose. But he could not find a suitable weapon.
Then suddenly he snapped back to reality and an understanding of what he had almost done. "O God," he moaned, dropping to his knees. "Deliver me from this burden. I'll even preach."
Sometime later he got back into bed. He drifted off to peaceful sleep with a soothing peace settling over his mind.
From that time on, Reuben Torrey was settled on
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becoming a minister of the gospel. In the Yale chapel, he made a public profession of faith, and following his graduation, he entered the Yale divinity school.
While in seminary, Reuben Torrey heard the man whom the students had called a strange, uneducated evangelist. After D.L. Moody spoke, Torrey and some other students asked him, "Tell us how to win people to Jesus Christ."
The plain-spoken Moody replied in his usual blunt manner, "Go at it. That's the best way to learn."
Then Torrey heard Moody say in another sermon, "Faith can do anything." And Reuben Torrey said to himself, "He is right. No man has ever accomplished anything for God who did not have mighty faith."
Reuben A. Torrey made faith the keynote of his life. After a successful ministry in Minneapolis, he was invited by D.L. Moody to become superintendent of the Chicago Bible Institute, known today as Moody Bible Institute. Torrey soon became known as Moody's right-hand man, and after the evangelists's death, he took over the leadership in American evangelism.
In 1902, Torrey and Charles Alexander began their famous round-the-world revival campaign. In Australia, New Zealand, and India, twenty thousand converts were reaped. In Great Britain, where they spent three years, seventy-five thousand answered Torrey's call to repentance.
In 1912, R.A. Torrey was called to be the first Dean at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, a position he held until 1924. He was also the pastor of the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles.
Torrey was not only a power in evangelism, but he was known worldwide for his skill and brilliance in Bible teaching and writing. His practical books on the Holy Spirit, prayer, and evangelism are still being read by thousands of Christians.
