B.H. Carroll was born on this day (December 27) in 1843. The place was Carroll county Mississippi, and there must be a special correlation between those names. His father was a Baptist pastor and his mother was a devoted Christian. As a young teenager, B.H. knew the language of the English Bible, and he knew what his parents wanted to hear, so he professed faith in Christ and joined his father’s church. In time, however, his true nature became apparent. “…my infidelity related to the Bible and its manifest doctrines. I doubted miracles. I doubted the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. But more than all, I doubted (Christ’s) vicarious (sacrifice) for the sins of men. (But) I never doubted that the scriptures claimed inspiration, nor that they taught unequivocally the divinity and vicarious expiation of Jesus. If the Bible does not teach these, it teaches nothing. The trifling (argument) of accepting the Bible as ‘inspired in spots,’ never occurred to me.”
As time went on, Carroll dropped out of church. But then, at the age of twenty-two, his mother convinced him to hear a certain visiting preacher. The visitor challenged the agnostics in his audience to try a simple experiment, quoting two scriptures: John 7:17 – “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God…” and Hosea 6:3 – “Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord…” The Holy Spirit led Carroll to re-read the scripture, but with a different attitude – reading it as if it really was true. And with the Lord’s blessing, in a short time, the young man was transformed – born again. B.H. Carroll went on to become one of the great Christian leaders in the State of Texas.