TWICE-BORN MEN

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

Compiled by HY. PICKERING

The Scottish Orphans’ Friend

WILLIAM QUARRIER was born in a humble home in the East End of Greenock, in 1829. He had a thorough grounding in “the school of adversity.” His father died abroad when he was still a child, and the family moved to a small house in the High Street of Glasgow, where the mother had a hard fight to find sufficient means to provide food and clothing for her three children. The little lad knew what it was to be frequently hungry and cold, and felt all the trials and limitations of extreme poverty. It was in those long ago days when he was still a child that the vision came to him that was in later years to find its wonderful fulfilment in the Orphan Homes of Scotland and their sister Institutions.

He was still in his middle ‘teens when the grace of God arrested him, showing him his need of the Saviour Christ, and bringing him into the experience of His great salvation From that day he gave himself up with no reserve to serve his new Master in every possible way. After making many and various efforts to help the “children of the streets,” of whom there were very many, it became evident that something on a large scale and of a permanent nature must be attempted. Led on by “infallible signs” he purchased land at Bridge of Weir, 40 acres, 86 acres, 220 acres—some 346 acres in all; on which, as the money came in in answer to the prayer of faith, he proceeded to build the Orphan Homes of Scotland, and at a later date the Consumptive Sanatoria, and the Colony of Mercy for Epileptics. When 74 he was suddenly stricken down, and lies in the little graveyard behind the Church ” till He come.”