Christian History Institute January 28, 1906 • Oswald Smith: "The Greatest Event of My Life." ©2007

he hall was packed with over three thousand people night after night, and hundreds more were turned away. R. A. Torrey, evangelist, and Charles M. Alexander, song leader, were holding meetings for spiritual awakening in Toronto's Massey Hall. Some of those turned away must have been sorely disappointed, for they had traveled up to two hundred miles to hear the evangelist, who had created such a stir that the newspapers printed his entire sermons.

Reading the accounts, Oswald and Ernie Smith of Cody's Corners, Ontario, ninety miles from Toronto, were stirred, too. Finally they asked their mother if they might go to the meetings. She said yes. Little did they know then that she immediately wrote Torrey and asked him to pray that her boys would become Christians.

Off went Ozzie and Ernie to Toronto. They got off the train and went directly to their Aunt Phoebe's house where they received directions to Massey Hall. A street car deposited them beside a great crowd waiting for the doors to open. Elbowing their way to the front of the throng, Ernie and Oswald found themselves almost lifted off their feet when the doors were opened and the mass surged into the hall.

Oswald was bewildered. In his sixteen years he had never been inside so large a building. Massey Hall's second and third floor balconies amazed him. He was fascinated by the building, by the music, by Charles M. Alexander waving his arms as he led the singing, and by Torrey's preaching. The boys made a point not miss even one of the eight meetings that Torrey was still to conduct in Toronto.

Having heard Torrey's messages, Ernie and Oswald made up their minds quite deliberately to give their lives to Christ. They came to the second to last meeting, held on this day, January 28, 1906, with that intention. The meeting was especially for boys. Once again the hall was packed. Oswald remembered that Torrey preached from Isaiah 53:5, changing the word our to my. "He was wounded for my transgressions; he was bruised for my iniquities, the chastisement of my peace was upon him, and with his stripes I am healed."

Torrey gave the altar call by ages, beginning with those twenty-five and over and lowering the age until Oswald was included. He meant to go forward. "But to my amazement," he said, "I was turned to a chunk of lead." He could not move until Ernie nudged him and broke the spell.

Soberly he stepped toward the front. Dr. Torrey gripped his hand a moment and then sent him to the basement where a worker explained the way of salvation. The worker left, believing that Oswald was converted, but the boy received nothing and continued to sit there. Then suddenly it happened. I cannot explain it even today. I just bowed my head, put my face between my hands and in a moment the tears gushed through my fingers and fell on the chair, and there stole into my boyish heart a realization of the fact that the great change had taken place. Christ had entered and I was a new creature. I had been born again. There was no excitement, no unusual feeling, but I knew that something had happened and that ever after all life would be different. He called it the greatest event of his life.

When Oswald returned home, his one petition was "Lord, what will you have me do?" He read the Bible and prayed that he might become an evangelist. With his mother's help, he started a Sunday school. He sang hymns, walking on the railroad tracks, and preached sermons in bed. In time, Oswald became a notable preacher. He founded his first church, the Alliance Tabernacle, in 1921, and later pastored the People's Church of Toronto, one of the largest Protestant congregations in the world and highly supportive of missions. His books on Christian living were read by hundreds of thousands. What he had seen Torrey do, Oswald J. Smith did, too.

Bibliography:

1. Barrows, Cliff, et al. Crusader Hymns and Hymn Stories. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1967; p. 57ff.
2. Contemporary Authors.
3. Smith, Oswald J. The Story of My Life and the Peoples Church. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott.
4. ————— The Enduement of Power. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott.

Last updated May, 2007.