William Bell Riley

==Biography==
In 1878, at the age of 17, Riley publicly professed faith in Christ. He had planned to study law, but shortly after his conversion he felt called to the ministry. 
After being educated at [[normal school]] in [[Valparaiso, Indiana]], Riley received his teacher's certificate. After teaching in county schools, he attended college in [[Hanover, Indiana]], where he received an A.B. degree in 1885. In 1888 he graduated from the [[Southern Baptist Theological Seminary]] in [[Louisville, Kentucky]].

He served several Baptist churches in [[Kentucky]], [[Indiana]], and [[Illinois]] before taking the pastorate at the [[First Baptist Church (Minneapolis)|First Baptist Church]] in [[Minneapolis, Minnesota]] in 1897. He was known as "The Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism."

He resigned after forty-five years but served as pastor emeritus until his death five years later. Riley wrote a number of texts on Christian Evangelism and founded the [[University of Northwestern St. Paul|Northwestern Bible Training School]] along with an Evangelical Seminary.

In 1919 Riley founded the [[World Christian Fundamentals Association]].

Theologically, Riley was a [[Baptist]] traditionalist who subscribed to the [[New Hampshire Confession of Faith]] of 1833, the most popular Baptist creed of the 19th century. His first major work was an exposition of the Confession and in 1922 he tried to help the fundamentalist faction of the [[Northern Baptist Convention]] gain control and reject theological liberalism by convincing the Convention to adopt the Confession as its binding statement of faith.

Riley was the editor of ''[[The Christian Fundamentalist]]'' from 1927 to 1932. Riley was president of the [[Minnesota Baptist State Convention]] in 1944–45. When Riley died in 1947, [[Billy Graham]], whom Riley had chosen to succeed him as president of Northwestern, conducted the funeral services. At Riley's death [[University of Northwestern St. Paul|Northwestern Bible School]] was the second largest Bible School in the world, with some 1,200 students enrolled.
Description	What you type	What you get
Italic	''Italic text''	Italic text
Bold	'''Bold text'''	Bold text
Bold & italic	'''''Bold & italic text'''''	*Bold & italic text*
Description	What you type	What you get
Reference	Page text.<ref>[https://www.example.org/ Link text], additional text.</ref>	Page text.^[1]
Named reference	Page text.<ref name="test">[https://www.example.org/ Link text]</ref>	Page text.^[2]
Additional use of the same reference	Page text.<ref name="test" />	Page text.^[2]
Display references	<references />	↑ Link text, additional text. ↑ Link text