Reuben Archer Torrey was born January 28, 1856 in Hoboken, New Jersey.
One of his favorite phrases was, "I love to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
At the age of 33, Torrey was picked by D. L. Moody to become the first Superintendent of the Chicago Evangelization Society (later Moody Bible Institute), guiding it from its inception on September 26, 1889, until 1908.
He made an evangelization trip around the world seeing over 102,000 saved.
From 1912 to 1924 he served as dean of the Los Angeles Bible Institute (now called BIOLA). He also helped to organize and served as the first pastor of the Church of the Open Door (1915- 1924).
He received no stated salary and was supported by freewill offerings. He said later:
Upon hearing about how George Muller of England counted on answered prayer for feeding the orphans as well as his own income, Torrey immediately refused a fixed salary. "A number of years ago (1888), I came to the place where it seemed my duty to give up my salary and work for God among the poor...From that day on, every mouthful came directly from my Heavenly Father, not a meal on our tables...not a coat that went on my back...not a dress on my wife's back, nor the clothing on the backs of the four children, that was not an answer to prayer. We got everything from God. I was never more serene in my life."
Reuben A. Torrey wrote some forty books. His first book was How to Bring Men to Christ (1893). His last, Lectures on the First Epistle of John, published in 1929 after his death. His How to Promote and Conduct a Successful Revival (1901) is considered one of the best books on personal and mass evangelism ever written.
NOTE: I have not edited ANY of Rev. Torrey's material with the exception of inserting scripture reference's where appropriate and tagging all reference's as tool tips. Being read as .top files, I feel his work lends itself more readily to being studied as sections and have divided it as such.
