1910-1912. AGE 22-24
And evermore beside him on his way
The unseen Christ shall move,
That he may lean upon His arm and say,
“Dost Thou, dear Lord, approve?”
H. W. LONGFELLOW
IT WAS THE SUMMER of 1910. Borden was leaving for Europe to attend the Edinburgh Conference, and on the steamer, amid all the bustle of departure, was engrossed in conversation with a friend whose acquaintance he had recently made.
“I want to help you in the work you are doing,” he said quietly, “and will send you a hundred dollars a month for the next year. If you will come to my cabin I will write the first check now.”
“We went down,” Mr. Don O. Shelton recalled when that friendship had become one of the most precious in his life, “and he wrote the check and gave it to me. When I reached home I found it was for two hundred dollars. ‘He is going abroad,’ I thought, ‘and has made it for two months this time.’ But exactly one month later came another check for two hundred dollars, and again the following month, two hundred. ‘He is giving it all in six months,’ was my conclusion. But when he returned at the end of the summer he continued to send two hundred dollars a month through the entire year.
“I was learning to know Will Borden, one of whose characteristics it was always do better than he promised, more and not less than he led you to expect.”
Needless to say, this was when he felt his confidence to be well founded, as in the case of The National Bible Institute under the leadership of Mr. Shelton.
Twenty years of work in the Y.M.C.A. and in Bible Conferences had convinced this earnest evangelist that something new and different in the way of approach was needed if the multitudes who never darken a church door were to hear the Gospel. He had given up a promising career for no other reason than that he realized the Christian man’s responsibility for a situation such as we have around us today. More than half the people in the United States, as he well knew, are outside the membership of any church. Seventy-five per cent of the young men are bowing down to gods of wealth, lust and pleasure, and are worshiping them alone.
“Of what value is it preaching to empty seats,” he questioned, “when the people who ought to occupy them are in crowded tenements or on street corners or in the parks, and do not hear the faintest whisper of the message?”
The outcome, after much prayer and consideration, was a simple, earnest effort on the part of businessmen, chiefly, to reach the crowds in the city of New York. It was on a June day in 1907 that the first meeting was held at the busy hour of noon. A low platform under a tree in Madison Square Garden was all the equipment, with a little organ and a group of singers to lead familiar hymns. The speakers were businessmen, the language was that of the newspaper rather than the theological hall. But the results were amazing. It was no unusual thing to see three hundred men listening with riveted attention through the daily half hour, and very soon other noon meetings had to be commenced―and a School for Lay Evangelists, to meet the need of training for such work.
“The people hear the Gospel gladly,” Mr. Shelton was writing a few weeks later. “In Madison Square Garden more men have assembled daily to hear the message than gather on Sundays for any Protestant church service in Greater New York, with two or three exceptions. And what representative throngs we have! Workingmen from nearby buildings, clerks from offices, bootblacks sitting on their kits, street cleaners, messenger boys, police officers, contractors, well-to-do businessmen, drunkards, the unemployed and discouraged, editors and professional people, all listening with the same interest. The attention is so close at times as to be pathetic.... The Gospel is still the most winsome message in the world.
“We never take up a collection. The one object is to reach men, and from the beginning we have had crowds of them. The work thus far has resulted in many transformations of character. Some of those who have been greatly helped have expressed their purpose to unite with churches at once. We believe that we are carrying out Christ’s idea in going to the people and not waiting for them to come to us.”
All this interested Borden deeply, and further acquaintance with the work only increased his sense of its value, so that when he was asked in the fall of 1910 to become one of the directors of the National Bible Institute, it was a call he could not refuse. The position was no sinecure. It involved frequent journeys to New York to attend the Board Meetings, and the problems of the work called for much thought and prayer. A large part of his vacation in the summer of 1911 was spent in the heat and hurry of New York, taking a full share in meetings and other activities. Of this Mr. Shelton writes:
I find in my diary under date of May 8, 1911, the following sentences: “Mr. William W. Borden came up from Princeton today to co-operate for a few weeks in the work of the National Bible Institute. A noble, generous, Christ-like young man―a rare gift of God to the work under his care!”
We placed a desk for him in my office, and he continually manifested an eager desire to enter into the work in every possible way. Responsibility for our four gospel halls was delegated to him, and he kept in close touch with the superintendents, counseling with them in regard to all the details. He investigated men who were being considered for positions of trust. He gave much thought and prayer to drafting the “Principles and Practice” of the National Bible Institute, and prepared a document which has been of exceeding great value in its development....
It is a joy to recall his first appearance at our Madison Square meeting in the open air. His address was brief, but remarkably vigorous and direct. He stood there as a witness to the saving power of Jesus Christ. As he spoke, I rejoiced that the large company of listeners had before them one of the manliest, purest and noblest of our Lord’s modern witnesses. His radiant face, unaffected manner, and joyous, fervent testimony to the power of the Christian faith made the occasion memorable....
As a member of the Board of Directors he was a valued counsellor. He turned the white light of Scripture on every matter that came up for consideration. His presence in any meeting was a moral and spiritual tonic.
All his work began, continued and ended in prayer. Again and again, at our office, he would suggest before taking up the consideration of any important matter that we should unite in waiting upon God. Prayer was to him the first means to be used in accomplishing any object. And how simple, direct, unselfish and childlike his prayers were! He prayed as one confident that his heavenly Father would hear and answer.
That he was thinking deeply about the work of the National Bible Institute was evident from the fact that he had arranged, before coming to New York, for a visit that he thought would be helpful from a representative of the China Inland Mission. “Owe no man anything, but to love one another,” was a scriptural injunction that was authoritative with him, and he wanted the practical methods explained by which a Mission with a thousand foreign and four thousand native workers was enabled to carry it out. With an intimate knowledge of the bookkeeping of the Mission, Miss Mary Brayton, the head of its accounting department in Philadelphia, had consented to make the matter plain, and it was an interesting hour in the New York office as it was all talked over in detail.
By never making a purchase, large or small, until there was money in hand to pay for it, the visitor explained, and by carefully estimating running expenses and putting aside a daily proportion of the income, whatever it might be, to meet them, there were always funds in hand for coming charges.
One cannot be running out every day to pay one’s gas bill! But we can and do put aside a dollar and a half a day, or whatever the proportion may be, toward it. We do the same for our rent, fuel, electric light, taxes on property and all other running expenses, so that the money is there when it is needed. We paid the rent on Saturday, for example, but on Monday we begin just the same putting away for the next month or quarter. And these funds are rarely drawn upon for any other purpose. We reckon that we have spent that money already. And as to other things, we never give an order unless we have actual cash in hand to meet it. We do not draw upon probabilities.
“If the China Inland Mission can do it, never making an appeal for funds nor taking a collection,” Borden exclaimed, “surely we can, by prayer and watchfulness! And I do think we ought not to buy even a broom until we have money in hand to pay for it.”
But it was not only in these ways he sought to be of use. The work was growing fast and it was hard to keep pace with its requirements. Permanent offices were badly needed, and some places in which the students could meet for their classes. A hall also was required for the old Jerry McAuley Mission which had passed into Mr. Shelton’s care.
The neighborhood in which they hoped to locate was a desperate one, almost every corner for many blocks in all directions being occupied by saloons or dance halls, with a plentiful sprinkling of moving-picture houses. Thousands of young people thronged the streets at night, and there were few places open to them in which the influences were not harmful.
The time had come for action, so Borden set to work under Mr. Shelton’s direction to make the needs and opportunities known and to gather a circle of praying friends. Together they investigated every street in that section of “the tenderloin,” and made a map showing exactly what there was and was not―a map which was in itself the most powerful of appeals. The circular Borden sent out, signed with his own name as chairman of the Building Committee, contained the map in full, dotted over with more than three hundred hell-traps of various sorts, and the plea for the activities of the National Bible Institute where it was so much needed “as a protest against iniquity and for the reaching of the sin-sick and for the protection of the innocent.”
More important still was his work that summer in forming the “Circle of Intercession.” This was his own idea, born of his conviction that prayer is fundamental and not secondary in work for God. Buildings might be put up and organization developed, but unless prayer kept pace with these activities all would be in vain. So it was for prayer Borden appealed most earnestly of all.
“Our Circle of Intercession has become most dear to us,” Mrs. Shelton wrote, when these efforts had been rewarded, “for we realize that it was through Mr. Borden’s consecrated energy and perseverance that it was formed two years ago. That was a wonderful summer for us―Mr. Borden gave so much time and thought in Mr. Shelton’s office to the work; and for me there stands out vividly the morning when he most feelingly expressed his sympathy because of a dreaded ordeal before me. Every contact with him revealed the depths of a wonderful Christian character.”
Back for his last year at Princeton, Borden was harder at work than ever, preparing a course of lectures he was to deliver to the students of the National Bible Institute. The Epistle to the Galatians was his subject, and the long list of books he consulted shows how thorough was his preparation. Luther’s commentary he enjoyed especially, but it was only one of several. How he could possibly make time in the midst of his third year in Seminary to complete and deliver these seven lectures is a mystery. Week by week his class in the Marble Collegiate Church numbered from sixty to a hundred.
“His handling of this difficult Epistle showed that he had completely mastered his material,” was Mr. Shelton’s comment. “His outlines were clear and comprehensive, and he made the book a living message to the hearers.”
Early in 1912 the National Bible Institute was passing through a time of no little trial. In spite of the Directors’ efforts to keep clear of debt, a deficit of five thousand dollars had accumulated. There was much prayer about it, and an earnest desire to learn by past experience. But how was the deficit to be wiped out?
A meeting of the Board was called, for it looked as though there would have to be serious retrenchment. Borden had come up from Princeton. His financial contributions to the work were considerable, and no one was looking to him to do more. The morning had passed in earnest conference and prayer.
“I must make the 2:04 train,” he said at length, “and shall have to run for it.”
He was writing on a slip of paper as he spoke, and pushing it across the table to the Treasurer, Mr. Hugh Monro, he made for the door. It was a check for five thousand two hundred dollars! Without a word he had taken up the entire indebtedness. It was not only the gift, but the way in which it was done that was so like him! Nobody dreamed he was writing a check, and before they realized it he was gone.
But he gave more than money. A few weeks later he was in the throes of his final examinations at Princeton. The mountains were calling him. After a heavy winter’s work he was eager for a few weeks in Switzerland among the glaciers he loved. His passage was taken and everything was ready when it came to his knowledge that Mr. Shelton was on the verge of a breakdown. Calling at his office Borden found that the doctor had ordered him to take complete rest and change. The need for it was urgent, but there seemed no one to take his place.
“Looks as though I might have to change my plans a bit, and help,” was the entry in Borden’s journal for that day.
Quietly then his passage was given up and the trip postponed. He was sufficiently familiar with the National Bible Institute to step in effectively, and before long was fully in charge. This meant that he was responsible not only for the office work. There were the daily open-air meetings, the oversight of the students in their classes and practical training, the charge of four Rescue Missions and of the monthly magazine, as well as the financial care of all this work.
It was a serious undertaking, the more so as Borden had decided before entering upon it that he must not be his own Providence in the matter of supplies. Mr. Shelton was not himself in a position to finance the work, and when sufficient means were not forthcoming he and his helpers had no resource but prayer. To strengthen them in their attitude of looking to the Lord in faith had long been Borden’s desire. He believed that the promises of God were absolutely true and dependable. Here then was an opportunity for proving the reality of his own faith as well as strengthening that of his fellow workers. He would continue to give just as he had teen giving, but would not permit himself to escape difficulties by the easy method of drawing upon his own banking account. And this led to a remarkable experience, as Mrs. Shelton writes:
There followed a time of severe testing along financial lines for the young substitute. Days passed without a dollar coming in‒and mission superintendents and others needing their salaries! Some time before, Mr. Borden had faced the question of making up known deficiencies in the various Christian enterprises in which he was interested, and as his gifts were always thoughtfully and prayerfully given he had decided against it. Yet here was a temptation! How much easier to put his hand in his pocket and make up this lack than to spend hours in prayer alone and with friends, awaiting God’s gracious answer. But the answers came―and with them such a sense of the reality and nearness of the living God as days and hours of ease could never have afforded.
It was the hottest summer that had been known in New York for many years, and the Burdens had just moved from Princeton to a house on Fifty-fifth Street for the time being. It was convenient to be nearer the office, but the heat of the city was overpowering. In spite of this, Mrs. Borden went with her son to some of the noonday meetings and put off her sailing for Europe until he could come. But that was weeks ahead and meanwhile the pressure of the work was heavy.
“Gee,” William exclaimed in the office one day, “if I had known what I was coming up against, I doubt whether I would have made this suggestion!”
Yet in addition to all his other occupations he was caring for an invalid uncle that summer. He made time to go frequently to Long Beach, where his relatives were staying, to be a cheer to his aunt and to wheel the patient up and down the boardwalk in a chair, returning to the city by an early train in the morning.
“The Price of Power” was the title of an article he was writing at Long Beach one Sunday for the paper of which Mr. Shelton was editor. It was the outgrowth of a thought that had long been in his mind. A saying quoted by Mr. Moody had deeply impressed him: “The world has yet to see what God can do with a fully consecrated man.” To be such a man was his highest ambition, and he was learning how real and practical is the price that has to be paid. He was learning that it comes into everything, and that it may be expressed in the one inclusive word, obedience. Obedience toward God had come to be the keynote of his life―instant, glad obedience. To him, the Word of God was final.
“On the other hand―” some of us are tempted to say.
To him there was no “other hand.”
If he saw that in anything his life did not square with the Word of God, that ended it. The secret of power, he had learned, was that secret open to all― “the Holy Spirit whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts 5:3232And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. (Acts 5:32)). He was speaking from experience when he wrote:
There must be a definite determination to do God’s will―a will to obey. Christ laid down the conditions of discipleship as denying self and following Him, and that is just what is required here. Each one must examine his life and put away all sin, not holding on to anything which the Spirit tells him he should let go.
One of the hardest things anyone can have to do is to confess he has wronged another. But we read, “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” We touch upon this matter of confession to others because it has played such a prominent part in spiritual awakenings, and because of the conviction that lack of such confession is the cause of much powerlessness in Christian service.
Questions of life work also need to be met squarely and the inquiry honestly made: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” The answer may not come at once, but there should be a willingness and determination to do His will, whatever service it may involve, at home or abroad. These are but suggestions to indicate what is involved in absolute consecration to Christ, which is so necessary to real obedience. Do you lack power? Ask yourself, Have I ever fully surrendered? Have I definitely consecrated myself, put myself at God’s disposal, to use as He deems best?
It must be admitted, however, that there are those who at some time of vision or conflict have won a victory and taken this great step, and yet have not subsequently had real power in their lives. What is the reason? Cases differ, but may we not say that it was probably through failure to make this principle of complete obedience permanent in their lives? Christ’s rule for discipleship as given in Matt. 16:2424Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Matthew 16:24) has been referred to above. Do you know how it reads in Luke, and what the additional feature is which has there been preserved for us? It is just one word: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Daily―that is the thing to note. It is not enough to take up the cross once and then lay it down when the burden grows wearisome.
The need for daily application of this principle appears in two ways: first, old questions which have been faced and downed as we thought, will come up again; and secondly, there will arise new problems which were not covered by the original act of consecration. Many who have faced the question of life work, and decided for the foreign field, illustrate this. It was at tremendous cost they made the decision, and possibly there was the thought that afterward all would be plain sailing. But no: the same old problems had to be fought out, and there were new ones too to face. The principle of Christ’s supremacy could not be lost sight of for a moment. Satan, when defeated, left Christ but for a little season. How much less, when he has been ousted from our lives at some conference or on some mountaintop, will he despair of finding a foothold when we are on the plane of everyday living again. Obedience, which is the price of power, must not only be absolute but daily. Are we paying this part of the price?
It may be there are others who have consecrated themselves to Christ and do seek to make this a daily attitude of life, and yet fail to receive real power. Where this is the case, may it not be due to imperfect application of the principle of obedience? It is comparatively easy to isolate the great issues, the big problems, and to deal with them by the grace of God. But there are many so-called “little things” which are apt to be overlooked. These grieve and quench the Spirit in no less real a way than the others. They are difficult to deal with, and many Christians do not seem to recognize what they are at all—though ignorance does not save us from the consequences in this any more than in other spheres. We must study the Word of God, daily see ourselves in that glass, asking God to search us and know our hearts, try us and know our thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in us.
Mr. Speer in his Principles of Jesus has indicated four great guiding principles that our Lord laid down―namely, purity, honesty, unselfishness and love. These are simple and plain enough; yet how many of us are checking up our every thought and word and deed by these? How many of us are asking in everything, “Is this pleasing to Him?” Our personal habits, our amusements, all our intercourse with others, business or social, should be considered in this light. We must seek not merely to avoid quenching the Spirit; we must be careful lest we grieve Him.
Obedience, absolute and unqualified, which is made a daily principle of living, carried even into little things, this is the price of power.
Of course there must not be a selfish motive, and we must not fail to ask in definite believing prayer for the Holy Spirit. But if the conditions are met, God will make good His promise, “Ye shall receive power.” How the power will manifest itself in our lives need not concern us here. The saying still holds good— “The world has yet to see what God can do with a fully consecrated man.” Only as filled with His Spirit can we hope to win men from darkness to light and to faith in Christ. Shall we not each one resolve, from henceforth, to obey Him absolutely in all things, small and great?
Reality was what gave his words their power. Before Mr. Shelton’s return to the office Borden was tested, himself, in the matter of putting duty before pleasure. A great occasion was on hand, the first reunion of his class at Yale, and he managed to get away for the weekend. But the triennial banquet, the climax of the proceedings, did not come until Monday, and there was a Board meeting of the National Bible Institute that day that he felt he should attend. Great was the consternation of his classmates when it appeared that he was leaving before the banquet. Many old friends were there, among them his roommate, Mac Vilas.
“Indeed you won’t go to New York,” they exclaimed with insistence. “We won’t let you go!”
“But we might as well have talked to the Rock of Gibraltar,” Vilas said.
Borden managed to return the following day, and that he entered fully into the spirit of the occasion may be seen from the note in his journal: “Attended to a few things at the office and left for New Haven, getting there just in time for the picture and the parade to the field for the game, which Yale won from Harvard, 9-6. Our class wore farmers’ costumes. It was a great jollification!”
The summer had taken more out of the young substitute than he realized, but even on the voyage to Europe for a much-curtailed holiday he was working at an important task. The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, of which he was a Director, thought it timely to prepare a statement setting forth the doctrinal standards of the institution. Borden was on the committee appointed for that purpose. His application papers to the China Inland Mission had already called for such a statement, and he had with him the Doctrinal Basis of the National Bible Institute, covering the same ground, which had been largely his work. This he enclosed with his letter to Chicago, concerning which Dr. Gray wrote to Mrs. Borden: “The letter is muck valued by me, and I trust that when the biographer has finished with it, it may be returned to my hands.”
Kronprinz July 21, 1912
DEAR DR. GRAY―In accordance with your wishes I are taking this opportunity to draw up my suggestions for the proposed doctrinal basis of the Moody Institute.
First, the purpose:
As I understand it, the need is for a statement embodying what we feel is essential to sound doctrine in the teaching and work of the Institute. This statement should be an aid to the trustees, not only as a standard for checking up the teaching staff, but also to guide them in the selection of new trustees at any time—written assent to the doctrinal basis being required of all present and future members of the Board of Trustees as well as the teaching staff, and also a pledge to give notice of any future change of opinion, and willingness to resign if requested to do so.
Second: What is the essential to sound doctrine? I feel that the inspiration and authority of Scripture; God: His being and attributes; Christ: His person (Deity) and work (atonement); the Holy Spirit: His person and work; man’s sinful state and need of regeneration; the way of salvation from the guile of sin (justification by faith alone) and from the power of sin (sanctification); the return of Christ and future rewards and punishments are the essentials.
Third: The order and phrasing of the statement. I would say at once that I do not feel that it will be possible to employ Scripture language only, both from the nature and extent of the ground to be covered and the exigencies of the present day with its requirement of great exactness. We should, however, seek to be as brief as may be consistent with clearness. Coming then to the actual phrasing, I would suggest the following:
DOCTRINAL BASIS
OF
THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE
We believe in the inspiration, integrity, and authority of the Bible. By this is meant a miraculous guiding work of the Holy Spirit in their original writing, extending to all parts of the Scriptures equally, applying even to the choice of words. Moreover, it is our conviction that God has exercised such singular care and providence through the ages in preserving the written word, that the Scriptures as we now have them are in every essential particular as originally given, so that the result is the very word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice, containing all things necessary to salvation and sound doctrine.
We believe that there is one living and true God, a spirit infinite, eternal and incomparable, etc. (see Westminster Shorter Catechism). And we believe that in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (see Episcopalian Prayer Book).
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ and in His death on the cross as a true substitute, and that His death was a sufficient expiation for the guilt of all men.
We believe in the Holy Spirit as a Divine person, distinct from the Father and the Son, who convicts the world of sin, regenerates and dwells in the true believer, quickening and empowering him in all his life and service.
We believe that all men are by nature sinful and unable to save themselves, and that “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
We believe that men are justified by faith (in Jesus Christ) alone and are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We believe that sanctification is a work of God’s free grace whereby, being renewed in the whole man, we are enabled more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness.
We believe in the second coming of our Lord, as a personal, visible and glorious advent on this earth.
We believe in the everlasting conscious blessedness of the saved and in the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.
As a conclusion I would suggest an adaptation of the paragraph in the Moody Church statement to the effect that while specifying these doctrines, we by no means undervalue or set aside any Scriptures of the Old or New Testaments.
Of course I do not pretend that this is final, but it embodies my thoughts for the present. I hope you can read it all. Kindly keep the enclosed typewritten statement with this letter (of which I have no copy by the way) as I would like to refer to the two together in Chicago when we meet next fall, D. V.―Sincerely yours,
WILLIAM W. BORDEN
“So often nowadays we are told that it does not matter what men think, it only matters what they do,” wrote a friend of Borden’s from Bryn Mawr College. “It is a striking contrast to turn back to the Gospels and find the Lord Himself reversing this emphasis. His great question was, ‘What think ye of Christ?’ ‘Who do men say that I am?’
“This Bill realized fully. He knew that it mattered supremely what he thought. He was a great help to me always in the Christian life, and I wish that more might know of his devotion to Christ. I wish that people who say it doesn’t matter what you believe could only see how much it mattered to him, and the results those very beliefs produced in his life.”