CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
A CRISIS OF EXPERIENCE
"Ms. 'len Grant a octogenarian, was the only survivor into the mid-century of the large Wright family to which Orr's mother belonged. She informed me by personal letter :?
I went to Canada and was there and in the United States of America for six years, after which I returned and stayed for a short time in my sister's home. I had written to her of an experience that I had in Toronto when I got to know the Lord through the personal testimony of a dear litt. woman belonging to the Christian and Missionary Allia who was used of God to make spiritual things real to m although I had professed conversion at the age of fifteen.
My sister Rose had also professed but felt her need of the filling of the Spirit because somehow she had been side-tracked.
I had been praying for the whole family continually, feeling that they were in a very needy condition; one Christian friend who knew the circumstances attributed to those prayers and to God's gracious answer the Lord's call to Edwin—it would give me joy to know that it was so.
The Orr family attended church morning and evening on Sundays. The children were regular in their attendance at Sunday School. For years, Edwin Orr did not attend evangelistic or prayer meetings unless his mother asked him to go with her.
But slowly his spiritual life began to grow.
Although he had excelled in Sunday School, Orr had not been baptized in childhood. On his own initiative at the age of
seventeen, he asked to be baptized in the family church, the mother Baptist Church in Belfast, on Great Victoria Street.
The Reverend David Henderson, its minister, recalled Edwin only as an ordinary boy among Sunday School children. Newman Watts, a London journalist, once received a letter from a veteran missionary of the China Inland Mission who had visited that church on deputation and had met the teenage boy.' As a result, the missionary was impressed to remember Edwin
Orr daily in his prayers, year after year for twenty years, until his death bed. This faithful intercessory saint was Ernest Hudson
Taylor, an earnest son of a famous father, James Hudson Taylor.
At the end of the Second World War, Chaplain Edwin Orr was alone in London and went to see the dying missionary, a victim of cancer, in the Mildmay Hospital. After a heartwarming reunion, Orr asked: "And did you remember to pray for me every day, Mr. Taylor?' The dying man's face clouded.
"No," he said. "I'm afraid not." Then his face brightened again. "Well," he explained, "I don't think I missed you more than five times and the pain was very great on those days."'®
Orr hurried away because he could not trust himself to speak. He began to understand why such blessing had been poured into his life. At the source of every river of service there are springs of intercessory prayer. God not only chooses
_to use the nobodies of this world but He also chooses unknowns to pray them into service.
S. W. Murray, a veteran lay leader in Belfast, "first got to know Edwin Orr when he was eighteen or nineteen (about 1930 or 1931)'. Murray was interested in the work of the China
Inland Mission and Orr began to develop an interest in the same. society. Mr. Murray explained to me:®
Belfast provides many opportunities for the training of lay workers. One of the effects of the 1859 Revival which had such a profound influence on the north of Ireland was that it provided an opportunity for the lay worker and secured a place for the unordained evangelist quite unusual in the English-speaking world.
After Orr had turned twenty, he met an old friend and said to him:
"Hello, Jim. Can you preach?"
"No," said Jim. "Can you?"
"No. But I want to. So what about starting with me?"
"But where could we preach?"
"In the open-air! What about it?"
Edwin could play on a ukulele. Jim had a loud and clear voice. They began singing and preaching in one of the streets in Belfast. A crowd gathered and they preached as best they could. It was uphill work. They had no experience. There was no older person to give them guidance. But they were eager to continue.
One evening in the month of May 1932, as it was getting dark, these two young men were talking about the power of prayer.'
They had been preaching the Gospel in the most difficult streets.
So they began to pray for a team of twenty-four young men ready to submit themselves entirely to God and to help in the work. Hundreds of young people joined them while older
Christians advised.
It.was decided by Christian Endeavourers with the churches that a great Evangelistic Campaign be held to reach the youth of Belfast. A young man of prayer, Charles Coulter by name, had a real flair for organization. He formed 100 groups in all parts of the city and kept in close touch with them in prayer for the campaign.
The campaign ran from 29th October to 23rd November 1932. The Reverend Lionel B. Fletcher was invited to be the main speaker. Thousands of young people attended the meetings. When, on the final day, Fletcher asked for all the young people who had accepted Christ to stand up, 1,000 converts stood up. This sight much moved Edwin Orr.
Another speaker, Dr. Thomas Cochrane, told of God's power to answer prayer.® Edwin Orr had carried with him a pocket-sized notebook in which he had entered the various requests he had made in prayer for the team, so he rapidly ran his eyes through them and was surprised and pleased that all these prayers except one had been answered. That prayer was for the conversion of a certain stubborn young man. Great was their rejoicing when it was discovered that the young man himself had professed conversion in the same meeting.
Orr, recalled Charles Coulter, was interested in conserving the results of the campaign. The team now prayed for 2,400 volunteers. Young people responding were active and vigorous and anxious to do all they could. Within a year, in co-operation with the youth groups of many churches, they had placed an open-air meeting across every main road in Belfast, aimed at reaching the thousands of young people who promenaded after church services. They issued a bulletin of news of evangelism and revival.
The prayers of these young men now centred around Edwin Orr himself, for they saw in him a man whom God could use around the world. But he had a widowed mother and his family to support hence his friends concentrated on prayer for the means of releasing Orr to full-time ministry. In turn,
Orr was concerned about his own inadequacy.
In August 1933, when our Fellowship was at its best in Ulster, I was in despair over my need of a deeper Christian experience. I turned to a friend whom I regarded as more spiritual than I, Charles Coulter, who knew how to pray.
Like me, he was puzzled over the conflicting teachings of various groups on Sanctification and the Holy Spirit, but he was more definite in his views than I, for he had a Salvationist background. I was most uncertain about things in my mind, but in my heart I was convinced that the Lord who had provided deliverance from the guilt of sin must have made provision for the hunger of His child for victory over the power of sin.
Charles Coulter recalled thirty years later:!?
Instantly we found a common denominator in our desire for "the deep things of God", and such was essential to our friendship for he was for the most part visionary and I was completely down to earth. We confided in one another a deep longing for spiritual power and he proposed to talk to a local Elim pastor. This the godly man was pleased to do, with sincerity and humility, scripturally and simply.
Orr in particular raised up every conceivable difficulty and still differed with him on terminology, but knew better than to fuss about mere words. Coulter continued:
When the discussion was over, we knelt to pray. Within
a brief space of time both Edwin and I became ecstatic and remained so until we parted considerably later that night.
Neither of us spoke in a "tongue" but together we had stood on the border of a spiritual plane that we had not known till then existed.
Dr. Paul Stromberg Rees, in his treatise upon Christian Commitment, summarizes these events :!* Dr. Edwin Orr, a servant of God with an international influence, has told in his book on Full Surrender of the crisis that came in his own Christian life when his yieldedness to the Divine will was fractional rather than full.
Kneeling one night with a few friends in Belfast, he told the Lord that he was willing to do anything, "anything to be surrendered and filled'. Then came an Inner Voice saying
'What about your will?" Orr remarks that if he had been asked, What about your besetting sins? he would have said,
"Yes, once more I confess them." But this was different:
"What about your will?"
Since he was taking a correspondence course on missions given by the China Inland Mission, he told the Lord that he was willing to be a missionary. But the Voice, not satisfied, persisted. It asked about a certain romance that was blossoming in his life. Was he prepared to surrender that to God's will? And Orr says that with his lips he could say "'Yes", but with his heart he was saying "No". That was the nub and the crux of the whole thing. That bit of withholding was the undercutting of God's will in his life.
Only when he was willing honestly to confess that imperfect surrender as sin, and yield that final stronghold of the self-life to Christ, did God fill him with the Holy Spirit and telease him for a ministry that has brought blessing to countless thousands around the world.'4
To explain what some might consider "a lot of unnecessary fuss'? over an adolescent love affair, Orr told the following story.°5 A businessman receiving an urgent phone call from his wife, came home by taxi expecting the worst about his sixyear-old boy. Sure enough, the doctor's car was at the door, but it was not tragic as expected. Little Johnny had put his fist inside a precious Chinese vase, and could not get it out
without smashing the work of art. The mother and the doctor wanted permission from the father to break the vase. Cold water and olive oil and all other methods failed to permit the child withdraw his hand, so, as the mother pointed out that their beloved child could not be expected to go through life with a vase on his hand, the father gave a reluctant assent to the use of a hammer. It was at that point that young Johnny asked if it would help matters were he to drop his penny! The little rascal was willing to let his parents smash a work of beauty to let him keep a grubby little fist around a miserable penny! Said Orr:
I too was willing to let my Heavenly Father smash the vessel He had prepared for my life in order to keep my fist shut tight on an adolescent token of love. I was just as determined not to let go; so I argued. The Spirit of God left off speaking within my heart, and my heart grew cold, so cold that I was frightened. So, my hunger for more of God returning, I let go, and cried to God for blessing, surrendering my will concerning the remaining unsurrendered area of my life.
I accepted the blessing by faith.1® Orr's heart was flooded with love, joy and peace unspeakable, too. great,to bear. This was noticed by his friends, whom he had forgotten. The prayer meeting closed. at 2 o'clock in the morning. For the first time in his life he felt that he really knew his God. and Saviour, that Christianity was not merely a teaching or belief or philosophy.?'
Next morning Rose Orr asked her son at what time he had returned home. He was reluctant to admit that the hour was
3 o'clock in the morning. He anticipated a parental lecture.
Instead, he found that his mother seemed upset. It appeared that she had waited behind in a Faith Mission meeting seeking full surrender and the filling of the Holy Spirit more than twenty-one years before.1® She had been disappointed that God did not call her to extraordinary service after that, but she comforted herself in her monotonous household tasks by hoping that the Lord would lay claim to the unborn baby within. Rose
Orr wrote before she died:
I yearned for the more abundant life in Christ and surrendered all to Him just before my son Edwin was born. It may be that the Lord took me at my word by leading him out
into this work. I am sorry that at first I wanted him to stay at home, but Edwin has been more concerned about my needs than about his own and I have not lacked.*®
Orr's religious experience during that hour of prayer has a beauty all its own, like a growing plant bursting into bud and leaf. Apart from its beauty, it is striking for its timeliness. Only six weeks later, Edwin Orr' was to begin his world-wide work for Christ. He himself did not know it, but God knew and God equipped him for this important ministry. It is significant that he was thus wonderfully fitted for the work which God wanted him to do. As Coulter reported, Edwin Orr's experience immediately gave him great visions of a world-wide commission.
In September 1933, Edwin Orr received a letter from London from a Christian leader who had come to know him and who offered him an appointment for carrying on evangelistic work on a world-wide scale. But, because he had to leave London for more than six months to engage in conferences in the Orient and America, his committee made him withdraw this offer."°
This posed a sad predicament for Orr. On the basis of this offer he had handed in his resignation at his office and told friends about the appointment he was going to take. His family depended on him. He was so troubled that he could neither eat nor sleep properly for days.** Finally he decided that God wanted him to do such work and felt sure that He would provide the necessary funds. So he went and told his mother of his decision to begin a life of faith.
"But what will become of us?" she asked.
"T don't know, Mother. But I promise to send you the usual ta I give you every week, less ten shillings for my own
a3?
"Yes, I know you'll try," said his mother. "But where will it come from?'
"I don't know. But it says in the Bible: 'My God shall supply all your need', and either that's true or else it's not. If it's true, we'll be all right; if it's not true, the sooner we find out the better. But of course it is true."
He put his thoughts into poetry at that time :22
He gave his mother all his money, £3 (fifteen dollars),?* T. W. Wynne of Belfast bought for him a ticket to Liverpool, which he reached on 28th September 1933, with an old bicycle and the sum total of two shillings and eightpence farthing
(65c.)
'CHAPTER 3
THE APPRENTICESHIP OF FAITH
So wrote the London journalist, Newman Watts, an earlier biographer of the evangelist, in calling the world mission that Edwin Orr undertook as a young man worthy of emanent recordin th ama of event! isto , the Methodist author of a book ae before the Second World War, de The extraordinary demand for the published accounts of Orr's adventures confirms this
'opinion.
Edwin Orr's Piventures and answered prayers were of — an order that many people with little or no experience of Divine providence simply could not believe that they were true. For fifteen years after the publication of his first book of adventure,
Edwin Orr could' simply point out that his narratives named people and places and that in spite of critical checking at the sources, the story went unchallenged. B almost all the criticism had died away and only appreciation seemed to remain.
Humble and obscure Indian evangelists in our remotest villages gratefully testify to receiving help and blessing through the narrative of Orr's experiences of travel and answered prayer; and Billy Graham, basking in the floodlight of world publicity, eagerly wrote of tremendous Riese voinbhas thereby.
' ondor published a treatise entitled pica wer - which recounted and analysed the dis-
coveries of men of faith and prayer such as Hugh Redwood, Stanley Jones, Glenn Clark, Leslie Weatherhead, Amy Carmichael, Frank Laubach,
Billy Graham, Oswald Chambers and Edwin Orr, and devoted to the last-named a full chapter which he entitled "Adventuring in Faith". Dr. Powell's opinion was based upon twenty years' retrospect :3
I think a George Miiller and an Edwin Orr every so often help us to see, on a large and very obvious scale, that God means what He says in His promises. These people try them out in a thoroughgoing and dramatic fashion which is not meant to provide a pattern for anybody else. They themselves are careful to point out that they were led to this by God. You, if you try anything remotely similar, will need to be as sure that you are.
All of his friends were dismayed when, at the depth of the Great Depression, Edwin Orr left a good job to start out into the unknown. He told a crowd of our workers in Coimbatore, whimsically :
"Everyone with whom I talked said I was 'daft', with a single exception I remember with gratitude, and he said that he did not know whether I was crazy or not.""* It was a lonely and misunderstood young man of twentyone that crossed the Irish Sea without a sleeping bunk or cabin.
The only friend within 100 miles of Liverpool, where Edwin Orr arrived with two shillings and eightpence farthing, was a Roman Catholic scoutmaster whom Orr had encountered at a jamboree. His name was Frank Nelson. To him Edwin Orr announced his plans.°® Frank Nelson was baffled. He told his friend that during the previous summer he had visited Brighton for a needed holiday. It was during the Great Depression when more than three million workers in Britain were unemployed, among them Frank Nelson. Nelson had run short of funds in Brighton and was forced to beg his way back. He warned his Irish friend that he faced embarrassment quite as serious.
"Then where will you sleep tonight?" asked Frank Nelson.
"TI am sure I don't know," replied Orr, adding in mischief:
"In bed, I suppose."
friend.
Frank Nelson was baffled. He reminded Orr that he had been out of work for a long time, and that now that he had landed
— a job, he intended to keep it: and now Orr came along to tell him that he had given up a good job in Belfast to go out on what he called a wild goose chase.*® :
" was his next question.
"" Orr replied.
— he said, ruefully, "you describe this as a 1 call ita bit of rotten bad Tuck, I do."
He was not any more relieved when Orr told him that his heavenly Father would provide all the funds, including the next meal and bed, so why should he worry. Frank protested that those sort of things did not happen nowadays, besides ...
Then he became interested in the practical details of the journey, asking Orr how far he hoped to travel that week.
"Two hundred miles to London," ventured he.
This was too much for Frank Nelson.'
"If you manage to do it,"' he exploded, "'it will be 200 miles of miracle. But it is impossible."
To which Orr replied that there was nothing impossible to God, and that he hoped to witness in every part of Great Britain within a year. So Frank Nelson made a quick calculation, fifty weeks at 200 miles a week. He put out his hand.
"Well, chummy, best of luck. Either you're a terrible fool about it all, or else it's going to be 10,000 miles of miracle,
Edwin."
Edwin Orr pedalled out of Birkenhead and off towards Chester. It was 28th September 1933.,As he rode, a mood of depression came upon him. He was a stranger in England.
He had given up regular employment and the security of a _weekly wage. He had left his home, family and friends.
He made a complete turn on the road, started back towards Liverpool. Then he turned again, and wearily pedalled in the direction of don. p That was the - question.
began to fly rapidly again and he regaine which he had pambe from nenis. :
He was is studying the notice board of that church Wien a Pelle dressed lady approached and asked him whether he was looking for someone. Orr asked for the minister, who was away, and went on to explain his business.?° was very interested in what Orr said. She asked him various questions and, when she was sure in her mind that he was a genuine evangelist, she told him that there was a were ores, » said Orr, and went into the church and spoke at the meeting. The lady asked him after the meeting to come home and dine with her. He gladly agreed.
He found that the lady had a Sirifortabhe Misti: she gave him a good dinner. Then she asked him whether he would like to stay there overnight. She was in the habit of entertaining guest preachers and there was always a room ready for them.
Orr insisted that he must go on to Shrewsbury. Though he declined the hospitality of Mrs. Varley then, he often returned there. In fact, she became as a second mother to him. For long years she was a trusted friend of the family."
| When he went out into the evening, he regretted his decision, for it began to rain and he did not relish the idea of getting wet away from shelter. He saw~a lorry loaded with bags of sugar standing on the road. The driver had stopped to cover it with a waterproof.
**Hallo, there," shouted the driver, in surprise.
His tone suggested that he had mistaken Orr for someone else, so the latter asked him:
"Did you mistake me for somebody ?"
The driver laughed apologetically.
"I thought you were a friend of mine called Bert Cook!"
9 ih i x
" y}
milaitry, HorbertdicCoelsaw ert J. es Ss . i and size and colour that his mother, Mrs. Cook. had rite bs:
Digs moment mistaken Orr for her son. Of the forty million or more in Britain, this lorry driver had mistaken Orr for a fellow that he had already met.22
The driver invited the cyclist to ride with him. He said he was going as far as Wellington, which is ten miles from Shrewsbury.
Orr put and tied his bicycle under the waterproof. He himself sat with the driver in the cabin. The rain was heavy. The road was slippery. The night was dark. He spoke to the lorry driver earnestly about Christ. The driver declared his faith in Christ en route.
. By that time the rain had stopped.
He took his cycle the lorry and rode on to Shrewsbury. At 11 p.m., he reached Shrewsbury.
He did not know anyone there with whom he could spend the night. He thought of going to a Salvation Army Hostel where he could get lodging for the night for a shilling. He saw a policeman and inquired from him where he could stay. The policeman checked his credentials right away.'*
"What do you do for a living?"
What could Orr say? He had been an office clerk, but had given that up. He was not in any sense a clergyman, so he answered that he was an evangelist.14
"You don't look like an evangelist to me!" said the policeman.
"Well," countered Orr, "what is an evangelist supposed to look like?"
""You're very young! How long have you been an evangelist?"
"Not very long,"
""How long? I have reasons for asking."
"Well, if you must be technical," said Orr, "I started at 8 o'clock this morning."
The policeman's eyes twinkled.
"Do you have anything to show that you are genuine?"
To introduce himself, Edwin Orr carried with him half a dozen letters from Ireland from well-known leaders in the Anglican, Baptist, Brethren, Methodist and Presbyteri churches. The sixth letter was written by one named William
. Phillip.25 It was lehe! most | esilhuaialo letter of 1 the lot. Jon cae showed it to the policeman, calculating that most ministers i would be unknown to him anyway so far as another acu e was concerned.
Ramsay Maule read the letter eieerutie Not only was he a — policeman, but he was also a keen church officer; and it happened ek that he was a "close friend" of the writer, William Phillip. He provided the evangelist with accommodation for the night, and a hearty breakfast followed.1¢ Frank Nelson had asked Orr where he would sleep at night, and where he would get his next meal. Orr had dined inalovely
_ home in Chester and had occupied a well-furnished bedroom in Shrewsbury, and eaten two eggs for breakfast. He left Shrews-_ bury with an exhilaration in his soul. If the heavenly Father could take care of him one day, he could provide for tomorrow, this week, then next week, this month, then next month, this year, then next year, as long as he walked in His way. He had exercised just a little faith, and it worked.
This then was what it meant when the disciples asked the Lord to increase their faith. He did not say that He would grant them a great faith equal to all exigencies. Rather He said that it was quite en use the speck of faith that they had!
Years sage author of a best-seller, said to So Orr took the spectre Russell to Shrewsbury and introduced him to Sergeant Maule. The policeman not only confirmed the story, but added an important fact that he had come to that | rane pea tae perable night by a mistake. This mistake had enabled timely help. eached London.'® This was a large and expensive eae t to 5 tive in vane his finds were limited. He prayed to God that he might find a place in London from where he could do his work. This prayer was also wonderfully answered.
He met an Irish vicar and his wife who were looking after a Cc
snovient Loadot patiah: They offered him fice boardi ig and lodging as long as he wanted to stay. Orr made the vicarage his headquarters until the end of that year.
When Edwin left Belfast he had agreed to send to his mother a sum of money every week for her expenses and the family's.
On Sunday night Edwin knelt down to pray that the money might be forthcoming. He wrote an encouraging letter to his mother but did not close it, hoping to put into it any money which might arrive before 11 o'clock on Monday when the letters for Ireland were cleared.
_ At breakfast on Monday morning, the maid in the vicarage placed a letter beside Edwin's plate. It did not have any stamp and had not come by the post. It was addressed to Mr. Hoare
(cockney for Orr). Inside the envelope there was an anonymous note which simply said that the writer felt that it was the will of Jesus that this be given to Orr. In it was the exact amount
_ needed for his mother."
When Orr tried to find out who could have sent the letter, neither the vicar nor his wife nor the maid could throw any light upon it. Several years later, Orr called to see a very sick man in one of London's hospitals, and happened to tell him the story of what had happened when he first came to that part of the metropolis.
"TI don't suppose," said the invalid, "that it would be improper to tell you now that I was the one who sent you that money.
_ I had heard you in the home mission meeting after evensong.
I did not know how much to send."
With London as headquarters, Orr toured the country around."° When he visited a town, he would study the bulletin boards of the churches, then call on a minister and share with him the burden of a spiritual awakening. Most pastors would become interested in his ministry, and ask him to address a meeting in their church on a weekday, to the young people or to a Bible class or at a prayer meeting. He would be given hospitality, perhaps a small gift of money. Then he would leave next day for another town.
There were several occasions when Orr's own faith in God was sorely tested. He was returning to London from Edinburgh, without his cycle.*4 ,In Berwick-on-Tweed, he was stranded with
' Pies: than two shillings 0 on. bend, 'After a a ye supper, te satarted ee, to walk 300 miles to London! He knew it would take two weeks to get there.
The night was bitterly cold and he had to keep moving to ; _ feel any warmth at all. He prayed for a lift but there was no car. or lorry in sight after midnight. Suddenly a car stopped and its occupants asked him to get in quickly. The people in the car had mistaken him for a friend of theirs returning late from a theatre. Another man gave him a lift into Alnwick and a lorry driver took him farther to Newcastle upon Tyne, where he managed to get a bed in a tramp's boarding house.?*
In the Newcastle area, Orr had an uncle whose home. he © had never visited. The next morning he contacted his uncle who invited him to spend a few days in his home, meeting the members of the family. His uncle tried to persuade him to return to Ireland, and, failing that, pressed him to accept a loan of money which Orr at first refused but then took and returned intact at the | first opportunity.
On another occasion, Orr was cycling the many miles from Glasgow to London.** The moon shone brightly and the air was bracing. He decided to cycle all night. At 4 o'clock in the _ morning, he was stopped by two policemen on patrol in the town of Nantwich. What was he doing there at that time of the night? They refused to entertain his explanations. They cap ready to charge him with vagrancy, saying that he had "n
_ fixed abode and no visible means of support"'.
Orr insisted that he was an evangelist. They ahaiierayt him _ to prove it. He told them that if they would give him five minutes he would prove that he was an evangelist. He began preaching and they listened to sais with interest. After a discourse of twenty a kindly Rentiahieaas invited him to spend the Christmas holidays at his home in the town of Gravesend. On the way out of London, Orr's old bicycle broke down.24 He found that his bicycle needed a complete overhauling; so he prayed for a new bicycle or for the money with which to buy one. This prayer was answered in a strange way. A minister had been taken ill in Essex and the people in
his church were badly in need of someone to uke their Christma Sr services. A deacon telephoned Orr at Hopkins's house.
"But you don't know anything about me!"
— ; "Mr. Orr," said the deacon, "we are so hard up that we would take anybody! i After he had given the Christmas address, one of the officials of the church met him and asked if he might give him a Christmas gift—the best bicycle made in Britain! Yet he knew nothing of his need of a bicycle at that time.*® With it, Orr visited every county in Great Britain, from Land's End in the south-west to John o' Groats north-east. Custom-built, hand ball-bearinged, it was a eye asta mae ihe long journeys easier, three-speed wale does under the sk have the money to pay for a bed. He began taking a keen interest in the tramps whom he saw on the road in large numbers, victims of the Depression."®
Their problems were brought on them sometimes by their sin and partly by the social and economic condition of the country.
He loved them in spite of all their dirt and defiance and sought to lead them to Christ, the Saviour who had nowhere to lay
His head.
In Manchester, he planned to spend a night at a lodging house run by the Salvation Army and on the way went to a cheap restaurant for a snack of fried fish and potatoes.2"
A red-faced fellow, not quite sober, staggered over to him and comment his accent and his face, which he said was 'pls RO They talked politics first, and religion later.
"No, mate," said he, "religion don't never interest me at no time, in no place, now how, it don't. I'm a Communist,
I am. I believe that yer popes and archbishops and clergy and all the rest are just parasites! Here's me, mate—can't get no work—lI've been out all night before now. Why, mate, I'm going to stay in the Army hostel tonight, because I've got only three bob!
What would yer God do for me, eh?"
been out all night too, that he was on his way to spend the night at the Salvation Army Hostel and that instead of three shillings he had only two shillings and fivepence. He added story after simple story of adventure and answer to prayer. The man's jaw dropped lower.28
"Blimey, mate," he said at last, using an old English minced oath, "you're a most extraordinary kind of Christian, you are.
Why, you're doing wot Jesus Christ tells yer in 'Oly Scripture.
That's wot I says, show me a Christian wot follers "Oly Scripture and I take off me 'at to 'im, I does."
Orr took advantage of his interest to tell him what the same Holy Scriptures said about his bad habits of drunkenness, profanity and the like.
"You ask me what God could do for you? I'll tell you. He can clean up your black, sinful heart."
Orr expected him to strike, but instead found that he was dealing with a man under deep conviction of sin. He became sober and serious and talked till midnight. He never saw him again. But he met many a man like him in England.
Then Orr returned to Ireland for a brief stay.?° On the morning of 6th January 1934, I stood upon the deck of the good ship Ulster Queen as she ploughed her way up Belfast lough. What a pleasure it was to view the panorama before me—the Mountains of Antrim, the Hills of Down, and the grey-blue Waters of Moyle.
During an intense, though limited, local revival in the Donegall Road City Mission in Belfast, the power-house of the movement was undoubtedly the early morning prayer meetings which went on for six months. At 6 o'clock in the morning, there would be forty intercessors.in prayer. The type of praying there was not eloquent in style. Instead of that, there was brief and pointed petition in the crudest vernacular. As Orr recalled
#20?
One morning, there came into our midst a young man, who, alas, had big ideas of his knowledge of the Scriptures.
He determined to show all around, including the Almighty, what a profound Bible student he was. He began by praying that God would triumph in the meeting ... that He would work His purposes out ... Not content with that, he began
to explain to the Lord how to do it. He quoted the case of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Next he flitted to Enoch.
Then he dwelt volubly upon Noah. Next came a sermonette on Abraham's obedience. Then a wealth of reflection about Isaac ... and Jacob. The people had not got up out of their beds at 6.30 a.m. to listen in a cramped position to a sermon.
They kept shifting position. They lost interest. The prayer meeting was being killed.
Orr wondered what the city missionary would do. He was quite a humorous fellow who had once told the younger man his philosophy of prayer in public places:
""Y'know, when a man prays for three minutes, you pray with him. But when he prays for another three minutes, you pray for him. And when he prays for another three minutes, you pray against him."
The learned and voluble brother had been a-praying for twenty-three minutes, and was travelling at great velocity through the Second Book of Kings. Suddenly the city missionary roared out:
"Open your eyes, man—you're preachin'."
The prayer died away, and the people returned to intercession.*} Orr's was a happy experience in the Donegall Road City
Mission. Asked to speak in a meeting there, his text was, ""That thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed", from the opening verses of the Gospel of St. Luke. The meeting began with an earnest prayer for the Holy Spirit. Orr felt that he was speaking with a power certainly not his own.
One man came to the meeting drunk and using foul language.
The Spirit of God spoke to him. He wept like.a child and confessed; "I am a leper with drink and sin. You wouldn't speak to me if you knew me." Orr told him there was no case too hard for the Lord. A little later he received assurance of salvation. He returned to later meetings, his personal appearance so much changed that Orr could not recognize him at first. He was one of many conversions.** He ministered in Ulster for a while, renewing contacts with old friends, spending time with the members of his family, his
4 miotiage* sie sister dnd: nstiien Hie" niother s: "attitude was a t mixture of quiet satisfaction that one of her sons was serving
— < the Lord and an anxiety over the hardships that he endured as _ a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Edwin Orr's journeys took him often into the bonnie land of Scotland. There he stayed with nobility and the poor alike.
His best friend in Glasgow was Dr. David M. MacIntyre, a son-in-law of Andrew Bonar, and like him as saintly a man as ever lived in Scotland.** Lord Maclay of Kilmalcolm took a kindly interest in Orr too.
Edwin Orr was stirred by Scotland:
"Who is there that does not love Scotland, ta favid and its people, the home of lofty mountains and lofty
¢Haracter? I was captivated."
He loved: beautiful Scotland, but it was not the Scotland of pretty postcard views taken under rare sunny skies. When he arrived co ep RrnpENORebOR Ae was a balmy day, rhodo- © | dendrons blooming in the sheltered valley.** I rode for a while, then wheeled my bicycle up to the pass known as the App. Going down the other side, I encountered a terrific north-easterly hailstorm, which blew me to a standstill. Four times I was blown from the cycle, once nearly over the cliffs into the briny cauldron spuming far below.
Through sleet and hail and rain, I stuck it out. My legs ached, my back felt broken, and my strength was ebbing fast. I stood upon the pedals, yet seemed to make but little headway against the howling storm. At last I reached Girvan, where
I found there was a suitable train to Ayr. I shivered so miserably that I began to pray that I might not catch pneumonia so far away from home.
Orr knew no one in Ayr, but determined to go on with his work of enlisting prayer for revival. He sought to interview the minister of the parish church of Ayr.*® At the door of the _ manse, he met the reverend gentleman attired in top hat and all the necessary magnificence expected for a wedding. He noticed the pools of water that Orr dripped, and immediately ordered a hot bath saying HE in gine Be of it, eaepic the cyclist
Schools in the Himalayan foothills, used to meet with young businessmen at lunch in Glasgow, including William T. Sloan of the well-known shipping family. Of a guest, Mr. Sloan said:3¢ At once I was impressed with this slight young Irishman's utter confidence in His heavenly Father. He was launching out with his bicycle, his Bible, one or two coins in his pocket and with a quiet and unbounded faith. Add to these a fascinating Irish brogue and a directness of approach, a puckish humour and a burning concern that Christians should be revived and that souls should be saved. I believe that the impact of his unusual personality was most marked on those who had personal contact with him though he was a very ready and interesting speaker.
Mr. T. Lawton Loveridge, an octogenarian businessman of Cardiff, told me how Edwin Orr had arrived there on bicycle.*'
On St. Mary's Street, he noticed a car with a tasteful text in tiny letters upon it, so Orr opened the car door and sat in awaiting the return of its owner. When the owner, Mr. Edwin
Willie, returned to find a stranger at the wheel, he asked his identity and was told that he was a servant of the same Lord.
Mr. Willie introduced Orr to Lawton Loveridge, who presented him to Mrs. Morgan of The Mount, Llandaff, a wealthy widow, who became his Welsh hostess on innumerable occasions.
While travelling in Wales he met Evan Roberts who had taken a leading part in the Welsh Revival in 1904-5, A hundred thousand people were led to Christ in those momentous days.
Evan Roberts had had a serious breakdown and was no longer able to continue his public ministry. But he spent much time in prayer and promised Edwin Orr to intercede regularly for him.
Then they talked together about the value of prayer, the need of vision and the prospect of a great revival.*®
"Working for God is prayer in action," Evan Roberts commented. "Being wholly yielded ensures that God will direct you all the day, therefore one's task is to listen for the voice of the Lord, and then to obey."
Roberts further said :*° "Vision is as desirable a gift as faith. I have seen men who have had great faith, but who have never exercised it because
of their lack of vision. I have seen others who had vision, but who never responded because of their lack of faith."
Orr had read much about the revival in Wales. This conversation with the man God had used so mightily left a lasting impression in Orr's mind. He longed to have both faith and vision increased.
Wherever Orr went in Wales he saw chapels and churches "Built 1860: Rebuilt 1905". Spiritual life flowed in these places in the '59 Revival, and to provide for that flood the churches were built. There was another flood in the wonderful revival in 1905, and to cope with it the churches were extended.
During the first two years of Orr's ministry, he often did not know where his next meal would come from and whether he would have a room or bed to sleep in at nights. Nor did he always know whether he would have the wherewithal for his journey on the morrow.
On his way to Gloucester in England, Orr called to see a lawyer who was an active Christian, hoping to enlist his prayers for spiritual awakening. The man was interested. Their parting conversation® throws light upon Orr's method of living in those early days.* 'Well, young fellow,'' said the lawyer, "I am certainly glad that you called to see me. Before you go, let me ask: where do you get your financial support for this sort of work?"
"From the Lord," replied Orr, with a smile.
"Yes, I know," said the other. "But the Lord uses agents, doesn't He?"
"That's true,"' agreed the evangelist.
'Well, then," he went on, "don't you tell your friends what your needs are, and they respond?"
"No," replied Orr. "Perhaps they find out, but I try conscientiously not to let them know. I never make appeals for myself."
"I understand what you mean," said the lawyer. "That's the principle of the China Inland Mission. Now, would you say that it was wrong for the Salvation Army to ask for money?"
"Not at all," insisted Orr. 'God called William Booth and God called Hudson Taylor. Every man to his particular leading.
I have no objection to salaries at all. But I do not approve of
those who say that they are dependent upon 'faith', and then advertise their needs just like the other fellow."
"But, Mr. Orr," said the man with the analytical mind, "don't you tell people what God has done for you in past days? Isn't that an indirect appeal?"
"It may," explained Orr, "give a Christian some idea of my manner of life but none of my specific needs. George Miiller of Bristol handled millions for the Lord, and never made an appeal to the world or to his friends while he was able to tell the Lord alone his needs. But he did give reports of God's goodness as a testimony, except where the report might be construed as an appeal."
"T see,"" said the lawyer, "Well, now, take a specific case. I am interested in you. I would like to give you some money.
How much do you need?
If you tell me what you need for today, I'll give it to you providing it is not too much."
He watched the evangelist closely.
"I don't want to sound ungrateful, sir," replied Orr, after a pause. "But I do not feel led to tell you my specific needs. I am not saying that it is wrong to do so, or that an organization should not make a specific appeal for funds for a good cause.
But I have felt led to make appeals to God alone, and if He wants you to contribute to my needs He will guide you as to what to give."
The lawyer looked at Orr for a long time. Then he spoke:
"You're a funny boy, but I admire you for being loyal to your ideas. Now I shall have to ask God to guide me what to give you..."
He took out his pocket book and passed a Bank of England note to the younger man. He did not know that it was onethird more than the amount for which Orr had prayed that day.
So Orr got to Cheltenham.