Northwestern Bible School - Scroll Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

Page 15 text:

One day, seven young men and women, who had been converted largely under his preaching, came to the youthful pastor and said, Mr. Riley, (he was only Mr. then) we are hungry for a fur¬ ther knowledge of God ' s Word. Would you be willing to teach us an hour a day? He happily consented. Soon a request came for two hours. Then the group came with this plea, If we could have three hours a day we know others who would like to join us.” In a very few weeks these day classes increased to about 35 students, and without knowing it, a school was born. So on October 2, 1902, Or, Riley called together a com¬ paratively small company of laymen, representing different denominations, and laid before them a plan. He told them of the desire of these young people, and he said that God had increasingly laid upon his heart that there should he a training cen¬ ter in Minneapolis. The plan was adopted, tile inauguration effected, and on October 2, 1902, the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School was officially born.

Page 14 text:

driven into die black loam of the Kentucky hill¬ side as I knelt between two rows of tobacco to surrender, I have never had a regret, nor have I had one doubt as to the divine will concerning my work. ' When once he felt Gods call to preach, he made up his mind that he would prepare himself just as effectively for that calling as he would if he were to study law. So he finished his college work and went on into the seminary. Four brief pastorates were held until the young preacher was called to the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis. Strangely enough, a Modernist was to open the way to that field. Dr. Charles Hender¬ son of the University of Chicago had been en¬ gaged to speak at the First Baptist Church of Min¬ neapolis, but being unable to go, sent young W. B. Riley, then of the Calvary Baptist Church of Chicago, to preach that Sunday. In January, 1896, young Mr. Riley arrived in Minneapolis. For some time he had been feeling that the time would come when he would settle in one place and do a life work. He wanted the heart of a growing, western city where the Devils seat was, hoping there to carry on for the rest of his life. When this call came, he felt Minneapol is was the place for which lie had been praying. He was confident that God was in it. On March 1, 1897, this pastorate began, and from the clay of his arrival he believed confidently that God had selected this place for his life work. God wonderfully blessed this Minneapolis pastor¬ ate. His God-given gift of expounding the Word attracted young and old alike. K£l

Page 16 text:

The ' Deans’ centered around ihi9 one office. Dr. Riley said later that his conviction as to the necessity of such a school came from several cir¬ cumstances. First of all he believed that the north¬ west was in dire need of Bible indoctrination. When he arrived in Minneapolis in 1897 he found among the city pastors only one who believed the pre-millennia] teaching. However, for this new en¬ terprise, Dr. Riley leaned most heavily on 5 or 6 prominent, consecrated laymen, who were his im¬ mediate and faithful backers. Another vital reason for the inauguration of a Bible school was the fact that 90 of the 300 Bap¬ tist churches in Minnesota were without a pastor. They were small churches, some of them in rather out-of-the-way places, and at almost every meet¬ ing of the state board, another church building would be up for sale and the work at that point would be closed up. Dr. Riley was himself the product of a country church. He believed pro¬ foundly that the small country churches had con¬ tributed to the city professions their leading men and had sent into the city-church many of their