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Much of what follows is excerpted from Christianity Today.
“William Whiting Borden was born in Chicago on November 1, 1887, the third of four children of a wealthy silver magnate and landowner. His mother underwent a conversion experience in Chicago Avenue Church, the church made famous by evangelist D. L. Moody, and raised her children accordingly. At age six, Borden wrote with less than perfect spelling, “I what to be an oneast man when I grow up, and true and loveing and kind and faithful man.” At age seven, he stood for hours in church, decked out in his blue sailor’s suit, to dedicate his life to Christ.”
Before he went to Yale, his parents gave him a gap year, which he used to travel throughout the world under the tutelage of Walter Erdman, a recent graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, minister, and missionary. He, too, began to think of a calling to the missionary field but his fathers and friends suggested he was too young to make such a decision.
He wrote in his Bible, “No Reserves.”
The Bible verse which directed his life at Yale was Psalm 119:11 — “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee” (KJV). He met Samuel Zwemer, a missionary nicknamed “The Apostle to Islam,” who spoke to Borden of 15 million Chinese Muslims with no single missionary witness. Ministering to this group became his goal.
“Thoughts of going abroad did not distract Borden from pursuing his mission with his classmates at Yale, however. “In his freshman year, he gathered 150 classmates into weekly Bible studies. He made it a point to organize co-leaders to reach every student in invitation, taking responsibility himself for the most incorrigible. “He hunts the worst skunk,” one friend described.
“By his senior year, an astonishing 1,000 of 1,300 students at Yale were drawn in. But Borden also drew them out. As a sophomore, he established the first rescue mission in New Haven. As a seaport midway between New York and Boston, the city provided irregular work for an increasing population of hobos and riffraff. Saloons, gambling halls, and brothels were a temptation for many a student; Borden engaged them in the Yale Hope Mission instead. In one year, 14,000 men attended gospel meetings, 17,000 received a warm meal, and 8,000 found a place to sleep.”
Before his death in 1906, his father told him he would have no place in the family business if he continued his pursuit of the missionary field.
“’No retreats,’ he wrote in the margin of his Bible to encourage himself.”
He went to Princeton to get his theology degree, began studies in Arabic, and taught Sunday school at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He joined the China Inland Mission and set sail for Cairo to continue his Arabic studies. The course of his life was noted by the newspapers.
Upon arriving in Cairo, Borden exerted his typical energy and enthusiasm on language students and veteran missionaries alike. “He chose to live with a Syrian family in the neighborhood of Shubra, friendly toward the Coptic Christians and inquisitive of the Muslim Sufis. Before long, he sought to organize a Scripture distribution campaign to the whole city of 800,000. He even met a Chinese Muslim from Gansu, studying at the esteemed al-Azhar mosque and university.”
But being so close to the people also meant proximity to their diseases. Three months into his stay Borden contacted spinal meningitis; 19 days later, on April 9, 1913, he was dead. Unaware of the illness, his mother left America hoping to vacation with her son; a cable announcing his death reached her only hours before she arrived.
Borden was buried in a simple coffin, with a concrete slab laid above his tomb. On his deathbed he wrote, “No Regrets.”
The difference between Borden’s time and our own is illustrated by the fact that his life was well documented in the American press. He was a man who renounced a life of wealth for a life of Christian service. In his brief life span of twenty-five years, he led a revival at Yale, worked in Gospel Missions in the U.S., strengthened the missionary witness in China, and inspired countless others. A visiting British theologian was asked what he found most impressive about America. “The sight of that young millionaire kneeling in prayer beside a bum at the Yale Hope Mission.”
Borden also has “encouraged generations of evangelical Yale students. Today there is a bronze image of Borden in Dwight Hall, joined to a memorial water fountain. It was here Borden held Christian meetings, where they continue to this day.”