Centenary Celebrations (Part Two)
This is Part Two of a series of articles on the Life of WP Nicholson. Click here to read Part One.
Having in our first article considered the conversion and call to Gospel work of the evangelist W P Nicholson, we now pick up with his life as he enters into training for the work that lies ahead.
SCOTLAND & AMERICA
In 1901 ‘ WP’ entered the Bible Training Institute (BTI) in Glasgow with a view to entering some form of full time Christian service. Among the lecturers who taught in the BTI were Dr James Denney and Dr James Orr, professors of New Testament and Systematic Theology respectively at the United Free College in Glasgow. The well known Dr Alexander Whyte, minister of Free St George’s (Edinburgh), was also a visiting lecturer at the BTI In his summer holidays. ‘WP’ worked in the Shankill Road Mission of the Presbyterian Church, alongside his former minister, Rev Henry Montgomery, who was the superintendent of that work. On completing his studies in 1903, ‘WP’ began working as an evangelist with the Lanarkshire Christian Union. The Lanarkshire Union had been created in the late 1800s following the Moody and Sankey missions in Scotland. It had as its aim the evangelism of the coal miners and steel workers of Lanarkshire. This was not an easy assignment. Sometimes even gathering an audience was a challenge:
‘The town hardly knew that I was there or that I was holding an evangelistic mission. I didn’t know what to do. One day I met the town crier ringing his big bell and telling about an auction to be held. It was their way of advertising. I got an inspiration. I gave the crier two shillings and sixpence and asked him to lend me his bell. I started down the street ringing the big bell and shouting with all my might, “Fire, Fire”. What a commotion ! Windows were flung open; doors banged. The people thought the town was on fire. We passed the Wee Free Church. They were holding their weekly prayer meeting with about twelve people; out they came. When I got to the bottom of the street where there was a covenanting memorial, I climbed up it and cried out with a loud voice, “Hell fire is coming, you covenanting Presbyterians, and I am trying to keep you out of it.” I got some rubbish thrown at me, but I got a crowd and packed my hall. The minister said that any man who could do that to get people under the Gospel, he would stand by him, and he did; he came night after night to the meeting. The people said , “If he can go then we will go too”. The minister and I became and remained fast friends until he passed away. He was Rev Dr Alexander Smellie who wrote the historical classic “The Men of the Covenant”, a moving story of the Scottish Covenanters’. (1)
‘WP’ laboured in Lanarkshire for five years before leaving, with his new wife, Ellison Marshall from Bellshill, for the USA in 1908 to start working with Wilbur Chapman and Charles Alexander. Chapman and Alexander were evangelists who toured the world holding evangelistic meetings, ‘WP’ worked with them in America and Australia from 1908 – 1910
In 1911 the Nicholsons returned to Scotland, and ‘WP’ ministered at St George’s Cross Tabernacle, Glasgow, during the ill health of the congregation’s own pastor. He stayed for a year and was invited to remain longer, but he felt that he was unsuited to a regular pastoral ministry.
‘I don’t believe it is ever God’s will to put a square peg into a round hole or vice – versa. He made me for an itinerant sort of life so I feel very much at home and enjoy the journeying here and there doing God’s work. To be a whole year in the one place is a queer strain on my nature and the grace of God in me’ (2)
From Glasgow ‘WP’ moved back to the USA, where he engaged in further evangelistic campaigns. On 15th April 1914 he was ordained by the Carlisle Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. Six years later he joined the staff of Dr R A Torrey’s Bible Institute of Los Angeles in their extension and evangelism department.
BACK HOME
In 1920 ‘WP’ returned to Ireland for what was to be a short visit. In the providence of God he was to remain in Ireland for three years during which time he conducted many missions and knew the blessing of God in a mighty way. These missions in the early 1920’s are still spoken about today and are the principal focus of our articles at this time. In our next article we will consider the missions in some detail. Just now it is appropriate for us to note that everything that ‘WP’ had been involved in in his earlier ministry was in a sense preparing him for these remarkable days of usefulness throughout Northern Ireland.
God was preparing his servant. During those difficult days whenever he was working with the Lanarkshire Christian Union and during those busy days when he was travelling around with Chapman and Alexander, ‘WP’ would have had no idea of the work that God had in store for him in days to come. Yet God was at work, preparing his servant. Often it is only when we look back over the years that we can see more clearly what God has been doing in our lives and why he has led us along certain paths. He, our Heavenly Father, makes no mistakes
Footnotes
1 All for Jesus: The Life of WP Nicholson by Stanley Barnes, Ambassador (1996), p.43-44
2 ibid. p.56
