in his later life. In 1888 Horton returned to Saint Paul to become secretary of the YMCA. While engaged in this work he also organized the Northwest ern Bible Training School which opened in October 1889. As far as is known the school closed after Horton left Saint Paul. Horton felt the YMCA in Saint Paul was becoming liberal in its program and resigned in May 1892. The next October he organ ized an independent church called the Gospel Tabernacle located in the center of the city not far from Saint Peter's Cathedral. He min istered to this church until the end of 1899 and when he left, the church was well established and free of debt. His next pastorate was at the Scofield Congregational Church in Dallas. He was with the church three years and then resigned once again to take up work with the YMCA. He was the Dallas secre tary until he accepted the call to Los Angeles in January 1906. Horton plunged into his new duties at Immanuel Presbyterian Church with a fresh vigor that was a sheer delight to the heart of Lyman Stewart. The two men had occasion to talk together often about evangelism and the future of the Lord's work around the world. Stewart confided that he wanted his money to be invested in the type of work that would immediately evangelize the un saved, rather than have it put into endowments for future programs. Said he: "Personally I do not be lieve in endowment of anything pertaining to the Lord's work. If the Lord's people have funds, I believe they should be transmitted
as quickly as possible into living gospel. Putting them into an en dowment rather suggests the lay ing of them up in a napkin. It always seemed to me very uncom plimentary to the future church to think that it would not take care of its own current work. By putting funds into immediate gospel work, there will be a much stronger con stituency created to take care of the work in the future." Horton agreed with his new friend Stewart, but from time to time remarked that there was a shortage of trained people to pre sent the gospel. Stewart would politely listen but then firmly re state his beliefs that it was not wise to tie up the Lord's money in "brick and mortar." By May 1907, Horton's hints that there was a need for trained peo ple to preach the gospel seemed to be bearing fruit. Now, Stewart was often bringing up the subject of a training school himself. The idea of such a school seemed to take definite shape as a result of evangelistic tent meetings held in Los Angeles during the summer of 1907. The meetings were under the direction of Horton and fi nanced by Stewart. By summer's end Horton concluded that the greatest drawback to the Lord's work was as he states: "The fact that our leaders are not qualified by practical equipment." It was at this time that Horton spoke of hearing a sermon by a Dr. Galloway of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church about whom he said, "He added nothing to our faith, but his message was very liberal." This incident seems to have crystallized Horton's thinking concerning the trend of the times Page 15
Made with FlippingBook HTML5