"if there was ever a man who by natural temperament was utterly unfitted to preach, it was I. I was an abnormally bashful boy, and a stranger could scarcely speak to me without my blushing to the roots of my hair. When I went away from home visiting with other members of my family, I could not eat enough at the table, I was so frightened to be among strangers. Of all the tortures I endured at school there was none so great as that of reciting a piece. To stand on the platform and have the scholars looking at me, I could scarcely endure it; and even when my own father and mother at home asked me to recite the piece to them before I went to school, I simply could not recite it before my own father and mother. Think of a man like that going into the ministry.
Even after I was a student in Yale College, when I would go home on a vacation and my mother would have callers and send for me to come in and meet them, I could not say a word. After they were gone my mother would say to me, "Archie, why didn’t you say something to Mrs. S___ or Mrs. D___?" and I would say, "Why, mother, I did." And she would reply, "You did not utter a sound." I thought I did, but it would get no further than my throat and stick there.
I was so bashful that I never even spoke in a church prayermeeting until after I entered the theological seminary. Then I thought that if I were to be a preacher I must at least be able to speak in my own church prayermeeting. I made up my mind that I would. I learned a piece by heart, I remember some of it to this day, but I think I forgot some of it when I got up to speak that night. As soon as the meeting was open I grasped the back of the settee in front of me and pulled myself up to my feet and held on to it lest I should fall. One Niagara went rushing up one side and another down the other, and I tremblingly repeated as much of my little piece as I could remember, and then dropped back into the seat. At the close of the meeting a dear old maiden lady, a lovely Christian woman, came to me and said, "Oh, Mr. Torrey, I want to thank you for what you said tonight. It did me so much good, you spoke with so much feeling." Feeling? The only feeling I had was that I was scared nearly to death. Think of a man like that going into the ministry.
My first years in the ministry were torture. I preached three times a day. I committed my sermons to memory, and then I stood up and twisted the top button of my coat until I had twisted the sermon out, and then when the third sermon was preached and finished I dropped back into the haircloth settee back of the pulpit with a great sense of relief that that was over for another week. But then the dreadful thought would at once take possession of me, "Well, you have got to begin tomorrow morning to get ready for next Sunday." Oh, what a torment life was.
But a glad day came, a day when the thought which I am trying to teach you now took possession of me, namely, that when I stood up to preach, that, though people saw me, there was Another whom they did not see, but who stood by my side, and that all the responsibility was upon Him and all I had to do was to get just as far back out of sight as possible and let Him do the preaching.
From that day to this, preaching has been the joy of my life; I’d rather preach than eat. Sometimes when I rise to preach, before I have uttered a word, the thought of Him standing beside me, able and willing to take charge of the whole meeting and do whatever needs to be done, has so filled my heart with exultant joy that I can scarcely refrain from shouting."
- R. A. Torrey