Silver Trumpet

The Silver Trumpet written by J. Wesley Ingles and published in 1930received the John C. Green Award from the American Sunday-School Unionas its unanimous choice for a manuscript whose subject was "the heroicappeal of Christianity to young people." The prize also provided monetary award of $2,000. It went through nearly twodozen printings through the 1950s, later republished under the titleThe Amazing D. Randall MacRae (Moody Press) and has made its way onlineas an "on-demand" book through Amazon.
Dedicated to "President Charles A. Blanchardwho, of all my teachers, has left the deepest and most abiding impressupon my life," the novel follows the fortunes of D. Randall MacRae,wealthy worldling and hotshot football hero who, pursuing a prettyyoung lady, reluctantly transfers from magnificent, ivy-walledPrinceton to backside-of-nowhere "Wharton College," a repressive"fundamentalist" institution situated somewhere west of Chicago. MacRaepainfully adjusts to campus life, fumbling about with less certitudethan his athletic reputation might suggest. His anxieties are graduallylightened as the semester progresses and he at last secures sweetromance–along with a genuine, humbling faith in Christ. An airy,wholesome romp, Ingles's tale conjures the gentler, courtlier moods ofthe pre-War Midwest, the imminent thrill of the Big Game against NorthCentral, autumn's chill and the coloring leaves against gray skies,blossoming friendships in depressed times and the promise of brightyoung lives wholly devoted to Christ. In a day when there was no other"safe" place to attend college, alum of a certain age point to an earlyreading of The Silver Trumpet as the deciding factor for choosingWheaton College, a fact bolstered by Rudolph Nelson in his biography ofEdward Carnell. He notes that "Dr. V. Raymond Edman…administered aquestionnaire to freshmen one year during the forties. In response to aquestion concerning their reasons for having decided to attend Wheaton,more than half of the entering class included in their list a readingof The Silver Trumpet" (p. 28).