CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
TRAVELS IN EUROPE
Orr replied that he was going just the same.
"Brother, " said the Finn. "I have been in jail there, in Lenin- "How did you get out?" asked Orr, innocently.
"The Swedish Consul got me out," he replied. hat he he interrupted.
His way of dogmatizing his opinion with a descending pitch of voice made Orr laugh as he reiterated:
His only reply was:
Although he did not possess either a return ticket or the funds to take him back to London, he was granted a visa as a journalist. Immediately Orr sought out the Swedish Finn at the Y.M.C.A.
"What do you think of that?" asked Orr. ill it! d.
Other Scandinavian friends tried to dissuade Orr, even cabling
their warnings. His British friends did not even know of his plans to go.
When Edwin Orr arrived in Leningrad, the Intourist Bureau, in charge of tourist travel, made arrangements for him. In Leningrad and Moscow he made at least twenty excursions.
He visited schools, baths, hospitals, factories and houses of rest in order that he might understand the social side of Russia, museums, churches and famous buildings so that he might know what religious and cultural conditions prevailed in the country." He sought faithfully to follow the advice of a friend, a newspaper editor, "Observe well, record well."
Orr reckoned that there were 10,000,000 or so Evangelicals in Russia, of whom 5,000,000 were Baptists and affiliated groups. Reliable statistics were as difficult to get then as later.
In another place, I went exploring on my own account.
It was a Soviet working day, but our Sunday. At last, unexpectedly, I found a church. Not knowing whether it was
Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant, I went in. Immediately I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in the meeting.
I could scarcely understand a word, but my heart soon grasped the fact that these folk were members of my Father's family ...* They kneeled to pray, and stood during the reading of the Word of God. Then followed a Communion
Service (in which I joined) to show forth the Lord's death till He come. It brought tears to my eyes and a prayer to my lips. "'Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus."
I introduced myself after the service. The pastor to whom I-spoke understood German, then we found one who could speak English. They were frightened. "It»is dangerous, dear brother," they said, "We are glad to see you, but—"
Orr told them of God's call; how he left home to encourage believers all over the world to pray for revival: how he had prayed that God would enable him to meet some of His own in Russia to whom he might pass on the same message with a word of cheer: how God had answered that prayer. His listeners were deeply moved. "Thank you for coming. It is indeed a miracle that you have come." He was given a message to deliver to their fellow Christians in other parts of the world.
"You may say that it is very difficult for us to be Christians.
We do not know what may happen next. Some have been sent away—and some have not come back. It is so impossible that we almost despair, but we are still holding on. We pray continually for revival. Take our love to every other congregation of the Lord's people. Ask them to pray for us."
A few kilometres west of the border of Estonia and Russia, Orr met a pastor who had heard him preach in Sweden.' Although Orr had only twenty-four hours to spare, the pastor notified his people of a special meeting to be held. An indefatigable Russian Christian went around the market place to pass on the news which brought a crowd to the place of worship.
The message was translated into Russian and through that medium the people were asked to share the burden of spiritual revival. The Holy Spirit moved the congregation and the direction of the meeting was taken out of the leaders' hands. A young
Russian came to the platform to say:
"My heart was once warm towards God. I used to love the place of prayer. I used to love God's Word. But my love has grown cold. God has spoken to me in this meeting, and I have come to confess my great need."
Immediately the people were broken down. Only sobbing and earnest prayer could be heard. Many confessed failure and sought blessing. There came a change of atmosphere in the meeting as a note of triumph began to replace the tones of despair. Then praise ascended to God.
At the same time, a remarkable thing happened. Just before the meeting, the pastor had informed the evangelist that a church member lay dying in a near-by room. During the meeting, the sound of crying and confession reached his ears. When the meeting closed at 11 p.m., the pastor said:
"I feel that we ought to go and pray with the brother who is so ill."
When they reached the sick room, they found the "dying" man praising God and his nurse in tearful distress, The pastor was amazed. He asked some questions in Russian, then explained that, according to the sick man's story, his heart had been touched at the same time that the Spirit was outpoured in the meeting. He had confessed his need and had felt physical restoration immediately.
Edwin Orr was convinced that the religious persecution in Russia produced one good result. Hypocrites, hangers-on, parasites and the like were swept out of the Church; political priest-craft had been destroyed; and the remaining believers who dared name the name of Christ were purified gold passed through refining fires. And this seemed true of former Orthodox and Roman Catholics. Robbed of their churches, deprived of pastors, often meeting in secret, they seemed to turn to treasured and guarded Holy Scriptures.
In view of the heroic defence of Russia by the Red Armies in the Second World War, it is interesting to read Orr's good impressions of Russian might.® In later years, Edwin Orr made very good use of the insight he had gained into the political and social and religious conditions of Russia. People in all parts of the world were eager to learn about Russia, available information being contradictory: some wrote glowingly about Russia while others painted a dark picture of conditions there. After the Second World War, when churchmen and regular tourists began to visit Russia in ever-increasing numbers, the reports brought back confirmed what Orr had observed twenty years before.
In Tallinn, capital of Estonia,' the secretary of the Bible Society made arrangements for Edwin Orr to preach, and in Riga, capital of Latvia, he addressed great crowds of up to 2,700.° Latvia at that time was experiencing a measure of revival, as evidenced by the reports of the work of visitors such as Oswald Smith and James Stewart.
; In the big Agenskalna Church, Edwin Orr had "'discerned a spirit of resistance to the message" and felt led to rebuke
""someone"' for secret sin. At the close of the meeting, Orr was asked to pray for a woman seeking healing. He found the woman doubled up on a seat, in great physical pain and distress, unable to move. He prayed for her. Then with much sobbing, she began to beseech the Lord to cleanse her heart from secret sin, crying out that she was not ready to die. The woman was so stricken that three people were needed to help her away. Orr was told later that this woman had deserted her husband to bring another man's children into the world. She received peace upon repentance.®
One may recall that when the Methodist Revival began in England in 1738, there were many such instances. People fell to the ground as though they had been given a sudden blow; they shouted in much agony; their bodies passed through many cruel and unseemly convulsions. Sometimes they continued thus for a number of hours. Their misery was followed by an immense joy that their burden of sin had been lifted and that they had found peace in God.
There was much controversy about the value of such experiences. John Wesley studied the many instances which came under his observation with genuine sympathy and careful criticism. After twenty years' observation and reflection, he wrote in his Journal on 25th November 1759:
The danger was to regard extraordinary circumstances too much ... as if these were essential to the inward work, so that it could not go on without them. Perhaps the danger
(now) is to regard them too little, to condemn them altogether, to imagine that they had nothing of God in them, and were a hindrance to His work. Whereas, the truth is, (1) God suddenly and strongly convinced many ... the natural consequence whereof were sudden outcries and strong bodily convulsions; (2) to strengthen and encourage them that believed, He favoured several of them with divine dreams
(3) in some of these instances, after a time, nature mixed with grace; (4) Satan likewise mimicked this work of God, in order to discredit the whole work ... At first it was doubtless wholly from God. It is partly so at this day. And He will enable us to discern how far, in every case, the work is pure, and where it mixes or degenerates.
This sound and judicious summary holds true of Edwin Ort's experience in Riga and elsewhere, and is in keeping with his conclusions as a critical historian regarding such manifestations during the Great Revival of 1859 in his native
Ireland.}° Edwin Orr crossed into Lithuania and Poland, visiting Germany, Holland and Belgium on the way back to England.
His travels in northern Europe had occupied nine weeks. When he left for the Continent, he had not even one friend expecting him. No one arranged his meetings beforehand. He was wonder-
fully guided of God day by day. He spoke at fifty-four meetings, the audiences ranging from six people to 2,700. Twenty-two thousand people in all heard his message, and with 1,000
Christians individually given counsel, there were more than 100 conversions.4
In Paris, Orr was the guest of Jacques Blocher, a talented French Baptist leader who showed him both the beautiful face and the seamy side of the great capital city.!
In Switzerland, Edwin Orr felt guided to go and visit Frau Doktor Gertrud Wasserzug, wife of a retired missionary.%®
After paying his lodging in the Alpine town of Thun, he found that he had just enough money to take him one way to Beatenberg, high in the Swiss Alps. Supposing the lady was away?
Supposing—? He found Dr. Wasserzug a woman of faith.
She was encouraged by his visit, for just at that time she was beginning her chalet-school which grew into the great Bibel
Schule.
Orr found something very fascinating about the River Danube, its 2,000 miles from source to mouth full of interest. Rising in the Black Forest in southern Germany, emptying its millions of gallons into the Black Sea, the Danube meanders through Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Rumania, and Edwin Orr followed its course, preaching all the way.
The Blue Danube is an interesting, beautiful, fascinating and romantic river. After leaving the land of its origin, it washes the soil of six great countries whose total population is more than 50,000,000.
Only a tiny fraction of these have ever heard the gospel of free salvation. The Blue Danube is a river of sadness.
The outstanding experience of Orr's Danubian travels came in Hungary." In Budapest; he was the guest of Professor Ference
Kiss, professor of anatomy in the University there. The Spirit of God was moving in Hungary, and a number of His servants were preparing the way for a movement of the Spirit, Captain
Godfrey Buxton, Dr. Gertrud Wasserzug, the Rev. E. L.
Langston as well as Edwin Orr being visitors with a message of revival. The main movement came shortly afterwards in the remarkable ministry of James Stewart, the young Glasgow
evangelist, which resulted in a great awakening that touched Reformed folk as well as Lutherans.
In Istanbul, Edwin Orr came into contact with an interesting group of believers who were passing through revival experiences.
In The Christian of 4th July 1935, an American missionary, James K. Lyman, reported the details of Orr's work in the Turkish metropolis.® Through the witness of a young Armenian named Vahram, a man of little education, forty or fifty young people had been converted. Orr found himself in their company.
Four hours after my arrival in Constantinople, I had my first meeting. It was held in the large room of a private house, and there I first saw the eager faces of Vahram and company. They drained in every word I had to say. I spoke of sin as the hindrance to revival, and left the door open for results. The Holy Spirit took charge of the meeting. One after another, these young people arose and confessed their failure and shortcoming and sin. That they were in earnest no one can doubt. Many of those present were in tears, and so real was their penitence that a couple of the unconverted listeners were broken down also, and made a public decision for Christ.16
Vahram followed Orr home, wanting to ask a few questions about full surrender and the fullness of the Spirit. He then presented the questions with which he had challenged his friends, and when Orr explained some points, he asked more.
"Are you willing to surrender your life to God, and to be filled with His Spirit? If God were to order you to go far away, would you be willing?"
"T am willing to die," said Vahram, earnestly.
Such an assertion might sound sentimental in the ears of English-speaking Christians, so it should be added that relatives and friends of Vahram and company had been cruelly butchered for their faith during the Armenian massacres.
They got to their knees, Vahram in deepest emotion. Orr prayed that God would give him the great blessing that he sought. Then, in simple faith, Vahram returned thanks to God for the gift.
Next night, Monday, the people had to move to a larger
room for their meeting. It was packed full, the bedroom adjoining being used also to accommodate the people.
Again, Orr had great liberty in speaking and again the Holy Spirit's power was manifest in the meeting. Vahram rose to his feet to state that God had revealed to him that in the past he had been harsh and critical in his judgement of other Christians and that his hardness of heart had been a hindrance. Some of those present had previously been offended by Vahram's zeal, and it was their turn to be broken down. Again came the unusual confessions of sin, and again sinners were converted to God. At _a late hour, Edwin Orr shook hands with all the people and said good-bye, fully expecting to leave by steamer on the morrow.1"
Much to his annoyance, Orr was unexpectedly delayed by Customs and passport regulations. He was able thus to meet the same group in four other meetings. Forty people made profession of faith and more than 100 sought victory in their
Christian living. Most of these friends were of the Armenian Gregorian Church.
Orr had been told that the fourth 'class (deck) passage by steamer was £12 Turkish.*® He prayed in secret for that amount.
Unknown to him, the Istanbul friends took up an offering, which to his surprise amounted to £22. Orr was already on board the ship sailing down the Bosphorus when he discovered that the agents had made a mistake in quoting £12. The fare to Athens fourth class proved to be £21, 50 piastres. The extra fifty piastres Orr converted to Greek drachmae.
Paul Yphantides, pastor of a Greek Evangelical Church in Piraeus, had been taken ill and badly needed someone to take his Sunday services both morning and evening. He therefore turned over the opportunity to the young stranger who arrived from Turkey.?® It was'a hot mid-summer day and the doors and windows of thechurch were wide open: Orr was speaking by interpretation when. a stranger. came into the church and up the aisle towards him, gesticulating with a dagger. The interpreter left off interpreting and talked in Greek to the man—at least, it was Greek to Orr. Then a remarkable'story was told: the man had been. lying in-wait to kill the alienator of his wife's affections; being nervous, he had been walking up and down until
he heard the foreign voice, so he stopped to listen. Soon he was under deep conviction of sin; Orr conducted a three-way personal talk with him in the hearing of the whole congregation, whereupon he finally professed to repent and turn to Christ. Twenty-nine others followed suit."° From Athens to Haifa, Edwin Orr travelled by deck passage.
In reaching Palestine, he realized a long-felt ambition. From childhood, the Bible had been the family book. He became eager to see for himself the Land of the Book, its towns and villages, its rivers and mountains, the people from whom had sprung the stern law-givers, the fiery prophets and the sweet singers of Israel.
This pilgrimage to Palestine was one of the great desires of my heart. As a boy, I used to read travel books galore, secretly vowing that when I became a rich man I would travel. Strange, is it not? I did not commence travelling until, giving up all prospects of business success, I became a poor man for the Lord's sake."?
Likewise I recall the immense joy I had when I spent two months in Palestine in 1922, when Orr was a child of ten. I had been studying the Bible for seven years in theological colleges in Europe and America. My»stay in» Palestine came asa wonderful climax to this study. It gave me a vivid idea of the land where the Bible had been written and the people whom
God had used to write it. I realized how God had chosen a barren and rocky land so as to give His people a most hardy and austere training for their great mission to the world.
Edwin Orr spent only a week in Palestine; but it was a busy week. Palestine is a small country and he was able to see much of it in that short week. His impressions were frank:
The spiritual state of Jerusalem is a tragedy. Religion among the Latins, Greeks and Eastern churches is a farce— such a farce that one can attribute the hardness of the Moslems to it. Evangelical witness is almost entirely spoiled by reason of the great number of "cranks" in the city. There are no less than eighty sects to add to the confusion, and ever so many "queer birds" who imagine that they are Elijahs and Messiahs and so forth .
. .2
; In the social life of Jerusalem, Edwin Orr met interesting
- people such as the Bishop in Jerusalem, and Sir Flinders Petrie, the famous archaeologist. He was staying with the manager of the leading bank in Jerusalem, Mr. Stanley Clark—a strange place to stay for a poor man until one learns that Stanley Clark was a devoted Christian among the Brethren, as careful to seek
God's guidance as was his guest.
A Brethren evangelist showed Orr the sights of Jerusalem, taking him first to the Garden Tomb which appealed to Orr as being the place of the true Calvary rather than the ornate
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They viewed the Place of the Skull and then entered the tomb itself. The two evangelists kneeled down to pray in the sacred spot, praying for one another and for a revival of true faith throughout the whole world.
In a church in the Street of the Prophets, Orr addressed a large meeting which proved responsive to his message.2? A Jewish lady present in the meeting approached the evangelist and suggested a talk about her spiritual welfare. Eight o'clock next morning they met with a couple of friends. It was a new experience for Orr to take the Old Testament alone and from it preach the Messiah.
"TI have been in Palestine for twenty years," said the lady, '"'and never heard of these things."
A couple of Hebrew Christians who had dropped in told the Jewish lady of the way in which they had been converted. All these factors combined to make a deep impression. Joy came to all their hearts when, after each had prayed in turn, they heard the seeking woman say:
"OQ God, I pray Thee, give me this change of heart. I believe in Jesus, so help me never to sin any more."
From Haifa to Brindisi, Orr travelled by ship. He spent little time in Naples and Rome, Spezia and Genoa, crossing southern
France to Spain. He was robbed in Madrid, and spent his first night there sleeping on a park bench, yet, such being the way of walking with God, he preached next day for a congregation of evangelical Christians."4
In Lisbon, Edwin Orr met in prison the noted swindler Alves Reis.2° Alves Reis, as a few may remember, was the Portuguese engineer who had persuaded a British firm of banknote printers to print in good faith 500-escudo banknotes to the value of
£5,000,000. This money he began to use; establishing his own bank for the development of Angola. Full of ambitious schemes, he appeared to be a financial wizard whose aptitude for handling money might have made him famous if it had been in legitimate channels. For a while, he pursued a successful game of bluff.
At last, a flaw appeared. Alves Reis was held, cross-questioned, but lied so cleverly and laid his plots so deeply that he implicated men of highest standing in commerce and government. For four years, he managed to keep his trial postponed, using every loophole in Portuguese law.
But the way of transgressors is hard. Alves Reis tried to commit suicide and lay between life and death. Another prisoner afterwards lent him a Bible which he read solely for the purpose of ridicule. Instead the sword of the Spirit wounded him. He came under conviction of sin. The most natural thing for him to do was to send for a priest, which he did. Then he made a public confession, making a clean breast of his crimes before a court which of course condemned him.*®
In the meantime, after his conversion, he continued in the Church of Rome. He had been very successful in condemning himself but failed to clear other innocent dupes. Burdened, he began to study the Bible for relief of soul. Through an evangelical tract he came into touch with other believers and finally abandoned the Roman faith.
Alves Reis was sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison, a special act of legislation being passed to make his sentence trebly severe. One of his innocent dupes was converted through his witness in prison, and later laboured as an evangelist in northern Portugal. Edwin Orr continued his fellowship with Reis by letter for many years.
Edwin Orr's European journeys showed his intense preoccupation with spiritual revival in the Church. Here and there, he participated in local, limited awakenings—movements that were profound in their effect upon the lives of groups and congregations.
His travels were also having an effect upon himself. Edwin Orr was a good traveller. He had read many books of travel, even to the Travels of Sven Hedin in Central Asia. In his teens, he had devoured every book of travel he could find. In this
way, he learned to describe attractively his experiences as a traveller. Into the, bargain, he learned to observe well and to describe faithfully what he saw. He could tell a story; he knew what drama to put in and what trivia to leave out. His books were full of Irish humour. People enjoy reading about other countries, the strange folk living in them, their manners and customs. So his tales of travel gained immediate popularity.
His series of books about his experiences were read by the tens of thousands of people. Often a man cultivates his literary ability in the quiet of his study: it may be that some of his manuscripts never see the light of print! That was not how Edwin
Orr developed as a writer. As a football player improves his skill by playing in matches watched by thousands of spectators,
Edwin Orr grew to be an attractive author by writing from his twenty-second year books which were immediately published in large editions. There were tens of thousands of readers in all parts of the world who followed with interest the growth of this promising young man. They read his books and persuaded their friends to read them. The toil involved in writing them was the hard way by which Orr grew. It took the place of the college life which is normally the lot of most clever boys. This is how the Lord led him into pastures new and strange. Years later, Orr was mildly embarrassed by the immaturities of his journalistic style, but he saw that one could not expect otherwise at that age.
Edwin Orr learned new languages. He used to say, when people asked him how many languages he spoke, ''one and a half" and add that the half was comprised of smatterings of half a dozen dialects. While his knowledge of languages may not have been advanced, he took great pleasure in making himself understood to people who spoke in a foreign tongue.
Orr did not know it himself, but when he set out on the third stage of his world travels, he was partly equipped for a new development in which, at the bottom of the spiritual depression which matched the economic depression, he addressed crowds of a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand in the great English speaking countries around the world. His apprenticeship was ending.