Reuben Archer Torrey

The following biographical text is quoted from The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge and was written before Torrey's death.

TORREY, REUBEN ARCHER: Congregationalist, evangelist; born at Hoboken, NJ, Jan. 28, 1856. He graduated from Yale University (B.A., 1875) and from the theological department there (B.D., 1878), and studied at the universities of Leipsic and Erlangen.

He was pastor of the Congregational Church, Garretsville (1878-82); Open Door Church, Minneapolis (1883-86); superintendent of the Minneapolis City Missionary Society (1886-89); pastor of People's Church, Minneapolis (1887-89); superintendent of Chicago Evangelization Society and Moody Bible Institute (1889-1908), having meanwhile been pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church, Chicago (1894-1905); and since Dec., 1901, has been engaged in evangelistic work, part of the time in a tour of the world, preaching in China, Japan, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, India, Germany, in the United Kingdom, and at home.

He holds to the divine origin and absolute inerrancy of the Scriptures, to the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, to the doctrine that men are saved only through the atoning death of Christ and on condition of faith in him, to the resurrection of the body at the second coming of Christ, to the endless blessed consciousness of those who accept Christ in this life and the endless conscious misery of those who in this life reject Christ.

"Make up your mind that you will put some time every day into the study of the Word of God. That is an easy resolution to make, and not a very difficult one to keep; if the one who makes it is in earnest. It is one of the most fruitful resolutions that any Christian ever made. The forming of that resolution and the holding faithfully to it, has been the turning point in many a life. Many a life that has been barren and unsatisfactory has become rich and useful through the introduction into it of regular, persevering, daily study of the Bible. This study may not be very interesting at first, the results may not be very encouraging; but, if one will keep pegging away, it will soon begin to count as nothing else has ever counted in the development of character, and in the enrichment of the whole life. Nothing short of absolute physical inability should be allowed to interfere with this daily study." -R. A. Torrey, introduction to the New Topical Textbook.