A Giant among Bible Teachers.

The editor-in-chief [of Eternity Magazine, Donald Grey Barnhouse], traces the life of A. C. Gaebelein, outstanding Bible teacher and founder of Our Hope.

WHEN I WAS in my late teens, I had the privilege of sitting under the ministry of the greatest Bible teachers of the generation. Among these giants, one of the greatest was Dr. Arno C. Gaebelein.
The pertinence of this present article arises from the fact that with this issue the magazine, Our Hope, which he founded and which has had an effective ministry for more than sixty years, is combined with ETERNITY. It is the deepest wish of the Editors of Eternity that the personality of the magazine and its famous founder shall not be absorbed but shall rather find a new scope and sphere and that the ministry of Dr. A. C. Gaebelein shall be extended.
Arno Clemens Gaebelein was born in Thuringia, Germany, in 1861. He had the secondary education of the “Gymnasium,” equivalent to our junior college. At the age of twelve, he accepted the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior. When he arrived in America in his late teens, he went to work in a mill in Lawrence, Mass., while he learned English. In Massachusetts, he fell into the hands of some godly German Methodists, whose earnest Christianity moved him deeply. After receiving a local preacher’s license, he was invited to become the assistant pastor of a flourishing German congregation on Second Street in New York City.
His first full charge was in a German Methodist Church in Baltimore and immediately he attended classes at Johns Hopkins University. He soon became well known for two things—his preaching and his great linguistic ability. He was known as the “boy-preacher,” and mastered English as well as Hebrew and Greek. One of his professors wrote some Arabic words on the blackboard one day and was astounded when his student read them off readily. When the professor asked where he had been taught Arabic, young Gaebelein replied that he had taught himself.
After two years in Baltimore, the young German preacher became pastor of a German Methodist Church in Harlem. While there, he stayed at the home of the presiding elder, the Rev. Christian Grimm, and fell in love at first sight with Emma Grimm, the elder’s daughter. A year later he married her.
A turning point in his life came when he began preaching at a Hebrew Christian Mission in New York. He had wanted to go as a missionary to India, but the Lord prevented him. Then one of the members of his congregation told him, “There is an Orient and there are thousands of foreigners right over here in New York; Jews are coming in by the thousands.”
His preaching to the Jews led him deeper into Old Testament prophecy. In 1893, he began publication of the Hope of Israel Monthly, at first, eight pages, then sixteen and then twenty-four pages. He rejected another pastorate and asked to be assigned to work among the Jews. Eventually the work enlarged so much that it could not be confined to his denomination.
One summer, Professor Ernst F. Stroeter of Denver University visited one of his Saturday services. When Gaebelein finished preaching, he noticed the tears on Stroeter’s face. Stroeter immediately asked, “Do you think there would be a place for me in this work? I will gladly resign my professorship in Denver and join you.”
The following year, Stroeter became secretary of the Hope of Israel Movement. The rapid success of the work brought it to the attention of several outstanding New York businessmen and these lent their financial support to the work. Two of these men became well known in American commercial life: Huyler of chocolate fame and Colgate of the soap business.
Gaebelein’s success among the Jews and his knowledge of their language and literature, led some people to think that he himself was a Jew. Hundreds of Jews were attending his mission each Saturday night.
Like many men of active body and mind, young Gaebelein could not be satisfied with merely one work. First, he and Stroeter decided to start a monthly magazine in English to acquaint God’s people with the work among the Jews and also present teachings in the prophetic Word. Called Our Hope, it began publication in July, 1894.
For more than 40 years, Dr. Gaebelein preached throughout the United States and Canada to large audiences of earnest Bible students. His special emphasis was upon the prophetic Scriptures and he had few equals in this field. He founded a publishing house and wrote about sixty different volumes covering the entire Bible and the whole gamut of Christian doctrine. Among them were the Annotated Bible, and commentaries on Matthew, Acts, John, Psalms, Daniel and the Revelation.
My own impressions of Dr. Gaebelein are very sharp. He was a very dignified man, with something of the solemnity of a Messianic prophet of the Old Testament.
In each issue of his magazine, Dr. Gaebelein always devoted the place of the leading editorial to the exaltation of the person of Christ. In his teaching, even though his subject was concerned with some minute problem of prophetic interpretation, there was the inward glowing of the reality of the presence of Christ. It was this ability to communicate the greatness of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, that was the greatest characteristic of this noted teacher. Dr. A. C, Gaebelein was active in the work of the Stony Brook Assembly, a summer conference on Long Island, where in 1922, his son, Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, became the first headmaster of The Stony Brook School for boys, one of the finest college preparatory schools for boys in our country, widely known for its Christian education. After the death of Dr. Arno C. Gaebelein in 1945, Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein succeeded his father as publisher of Our Hope and the magazine continued under the editorship of Dr. E. Schuyler English, nationally known Bible teacher, who is much in the succession of his eminent predecessor. In the mid-twentieth century, a magazine like Our Hope that takes no paid advertising is in a difficult position. Furthermore, both the editor and the publisher have very heavy responsibilities in Christian work outside the magazine field. Dr. English is Chairman of the Committee of the Oxford University Press on the Revision of the Scofield Reference Bible, a Committee of which Dr. Frank Gaebelein is Vice-Chairman. In addition, his Bible teaching ministry is time-consuming.
Dr. Gaebelein is occupied with his work as head-master of the Stony Brook School and with preaching and various other Christian activities.
In view of these responsibilities and also in view of the rising costs in magazine publishing, both the editor and the publisher prayerfully came to the reluctant conclusion, it would be wise for Our Hope in its present solvent condition to merge with ETERNITY.
Dr. Frank Gaebelein has been on our masthead for several years as one of Consulting Editors of Eternity, and we will also welcome Dr. Schuyler English to these pages.
One of the features that we wish to preserve here in ETERNITY will be the reprinting of some of the most powerful pages of the devotional writings of Dr. Arno C. Gaebelein. And as ETERNITY now enters thousands of additional Christian homes, we trust that it can be a blessing to many. Do not receive us with scepticism or with criticism at first but ask the Lord to bless our ministry to you. Then we trust that together we may go forward for the exaltation of the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Eternity” Jan. 1958