TWICE-BORN MEN

REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE

Compiled by HY. PICKERING

A Scottish College Professor

PROFESSOR JAMES ORR, Professor of Church History in the U.P. College, Edinburgh; and Professor of Apologetics in the U.F. College, Glasgow; author of “The Supernatural in Religion,” “The Virgin Birth,’^, “The Bible Under Trial,” and many other works, was born at Glasgow, in 1844, and died 1913.

Like many young men, he was beset with doubts as to the fundamentals of the faith, but came out whole-heartedly on the evangelistic side. His own statement of this tran­sition period is worth repeating: “I will give you a page of my own personal experience when I was a young man. It was a time when the conflict between Christianity and un­belief was stirring the country, and my mind was a good deal upset, and very especially by one man—Joseph Barker, of Newcastle. He was a very skilful debater, well read, having at his finger-ends all the difficulties, objec­tions, contradictions, and immoralities you hear about in the Bible, and could make the best use of them; and for a time my mind was a good deal impressed by this kind of thing.” Yet he emerged from the fiery trial a humble be­liever in the Lord Jesus Christ, having the assurance of Salvation. The method he afterwards explained: “How is that assurance to be had? Only by taking God’s naked word for it—assuredly in no other way. God gives His sure Word to those who receive His Son; hold by that Word and all is well.”

Entering Glasgow University when twenty years of age, he graduated as M.A. with honours. During this time he acted as City Missionary in one of the poorest districts, preaching the Gospel in a building which had been con­verted from a slaughter-house to a mission hall. Getting together a large Bible Class at 8 o’clock on Sunday morn­ings, he thoroughly grounded the members in the founda­tion truths of the Scriptures, and whole-heartedly sought to “by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9. 22).

Almost his last address, given in Sydney Place, where he had commenced to preach fifty years before, indicated the great truths he had grasped at conversion, stood by so nobly during these fifty years, and was “assured” of at the close of a remarkable career. Taking Ephesians1.7 as his text, he pointed out that it dealt with- 

1. The greatest wonder in the world, .. “Redemption.”
2. The blessing Redemption brings, “Forgiveness of sins.”
3. The Person through whom it comes, “Our Lord Jesus Christ ..in WHOM.”
4. The means by which it is accomplished, “Through His Blood.”
5. The way we become possessed of it, “United to Him, in Whom ye also trusted”
6. The great fountain-head of all, “The riches of His GRACE.”