Introduction

Biography

Milford was the hus­band of Ef­fie C. For­est.

[Lyon] com­plet­ed the high school course at the age of 13 and soon af­ter moved with his par­ents to Hum­boldt, in the north­west­ern part of Io­wa, where he spent a year in a law­yer’s of­fice, pre­par­ing a set of coun­ty ab­stract books. His fa­ther hav­ing en­gaged in the hard­ware bu­si­ness, young Ly­on spent more than four years clerk­ing in the store; work­ing at the bench in the tin shop, and dur­ing the last two years of this time had spe­cial charge of the col­lect­ion of the ac­counts and the pur­chase of goods.

During these years, while he was out of school, young Mi­lford had an am­bi­tion to re­turn to his studies, but the way did not op­en up un­til the au­tumn of 1887, when his fa­ther hav­ing sold the store, he start­ed to Io­wa Ci­ty and en­tered the aca­de­my.

Doing two years’ work in one, he com­plet­ed the aca­dem­ic course the fol­low­ing June, and the next fall en­tered the state uni­ver­si­ty. Dur­ing the suc­ceed­ing four years he earned his en­tire ex­pens­es by teach­ing ma­the­ma­tics in the aca­de­my and work­ing as tra­vel­ing sales­man dur­ing the sum­mer sea­son, sell­ing goods for an Io­wa ci­ty fac­to­ry.

It is evi­dent that he did not waste much time in those years, for he land­ed first in schol­ar­ship in his class of fif­ty for the en­tire course. And he al­so spent much time in ex­tra li­ter­ary work, en­gag­ing in the uni­ver­si­ty ora­tor­ical con­test, where he won first place, and then in the state ora­to­ri­cal con­test he won first hon­ors ov­er the prize con­test­ants from fourt­een oth­er col­leg­es.

Then, in the in­ter­state con­test at Lin­coln, Ne­bras­ka, he re­ceived the high­est marks ev­er giv­en, be­ing grad­ed first by three judg­es, and se­cond by a fourth judge. This was the same ora­to­ric­al as­so­ci­ation in which Se­na­tor La­Foi­lette of Wis­con­sin, and ex-Se­na­tor Bev­er­idge of In­di­ana, won high­est hon­ors a few years ear­li­er.

It is evi­dent that Dr. Ly­on held the es­teem and con­fi­dence of his col­lege mates, for dur­ing his sen­ior year he was giv­en the three high­est uni­ver­si­ty hon­ors, the pre­si­den­cy of the lead­ing li­ter­ary so­cie­ty, the pre­si­den­cy of the Re­pub­li­can club and was elect­ed pre­si­dent of the un­iv­ers­ity Y.M.C.A.

Before his gra­du­ation he was elect­ed as pre­si­dent of Ells­worth Col­lege of Io­wa Falls, Io­wa, and en­tered up­on his du­ties im­me­di­ate­ly up­on fin­ish­ing his uni­ver­si­ty course. Here he re­mained for two years, di­rect­ing the fi­nan­cial and ex­ec­utive man­age­ment of the school, be­sides teach­ing La­tin and li­te­ra­ture.

Mr. Ly­on had en­tered the uni­ver­si­ty as a Uni­ta­ri­an, al­though reared in a Chris­tian home, he had drift­ed in­to what he termed li­ber­al thought, and for the first two years in col­lege had been en­tire­ly in­dif­fer­ent to ort­ho­dox Chris­ti­an­ity. It was dur­ing the vi­sit of Mr. S. M. Say­ford of Bos­ton, who for ten years worked among the stu­dents of Am­eri­can col­leg­es, that Ly­on came out in­to a de­fi­nite faith in Christ and made a pub­lic con­fess­ion of his be­lief.

During the re­maind­er of his col­lege course he was ac­tive along re­li­gious lines, be­ing chos­en by the state Y.M.C.A. as a member of the state de­pu­ta­tion, and by the in­ter­na­tion­al Y.M.C.A. to de­li­ver the ad­dress at their na­tion­al con­ven­tion in Kan­sas Ci­ty for the col­leg­es of Am­eri­ca.

Mr. Ly­on had en­tered col­lege with the int­ent­ion of stu­dy­ing for the law and go­ing in­to po­li­tics, and hav­ing turned from this to teach­ing, he felt more and more im­pressed with the needs and importance of the gos­pel min­is­try. At the close of his se­cond year as col­lege pre­si­dent he re­signed his po­si­tion to ac­cept a call to the pas­tor­ate of the First Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church of Har­vey, Il­li­nois.

After a year and a half here he ac­cept­ed the pas­tor­ate of the Bet­hel church at Wind­sor Park, Chi­ca­go. Dur­ing this pas­tor­ate the church mem­ber­ship was near­ly dou­bled and a new build­ing was erect­ed.

Feeling the great need of ev­an­gel­is­tic work all ov­er the land, Dr. Ly­on de­cid­ed to re­sign from his pas­tor­ate and en­ter what seemed to him a broad­er field of Chris­tian en­dea­vor. It would na­tur­al­ly seem a ve­ry per­il­ous ven­ture to re­sign from a suc­cess­ful pul­pit and a good sa­la­ry to start out, not know­ing where, with­out any as­sur­ance of fi­nan­cial sup­port for him­self and fa­mi­ly.

Yet this is what Mr. Ly­on did, and it can­not help but make him smile when peo­ple say he en­tered ev­an­gel­ism for the mo­ney there was in it. Na­tur­al­ly he had to start in a small way, at first in sing­le church meet­ings. but from that be­gin­ning his work has cons­tant­ly grown.

During the past fif­teen years he has spok­en more than seven thou­sand times in twen­ty-four states and has ne­ver missed a ser­vice on ac­count of ill health. As a re­sult of his work there have been at least a hun­dred thou­sand con­ver­sions. Hav­ing been a pas­tor Dr. Ly­on na­tur­al­ly looks at ev­an­gel­ism from the stand­point of the men who are to re­main on the field af­ter the ev­an­gel­ist has left.

During the past year he has re­ceived more than twen­ty in­vi­ta­tions from In­di­ana ci­ties to con­duct un­ion cam­paigns. Four years ago, the de­gree of doc­tor of di­vi­ni­ty was con­ferred up­on Dr. Ly­on by Whea­ton Col­lege in hon­or, said the re­so­lu­tion of the board of trust­ees, for his achieve­ments in the King­dom of God.

He is the au­thor of two books, the first of which, The Lord­ship of Je­sus, has gone in­to the se­venth edi­tion. The lat­er book, For the Life That Now Is, has reached the third edi­tion. His min­is­try has cen­tered es­pe­cial­ly about the su­preme truth of the King­ship of Christ. It was at his sug­gest­ion that the pub­lish­ers of the song book used in the meet­ings called the new book by the name which is the heart of Dr. Ly­on’s min­is­try, Make Christ King.

For fif­teen years Dr. Lyon lived at Whea­ton, Ill., but has re­cent­ly built a home, Faer­holm, at Wi­no­na Lake, Ind. In the au­tumn, af­ter his gra­du­ation from the uni­ver­si­ty, he mar­ried a col­lege friend, Miss Ef­fie For­est, of Miles, Io­wa. They have five child­ren, Merle Paul; the old­est, is a sen­ior at Ob­er­lin col­lege. Hel­en is a mem­ber of the so­pho­more class at Ob­er­lin. Ar­thur Eu­gene is a jun­ior at Wi­no­na aca­de­my. The two young­er child­ren, Mar­gar­et, thir­teen years old, and Ruth, se­ven years, are in the Wi­no­na pub­lic schools.

Fort Wayne
Week­ly Sen­ti­nel
January 13, 1915

Lyon served as pas­tor at the Mor­gan Park Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois (1930–31); First Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Day­to­na Beach, Flo­ri­da (1932–39); di­rect­or of the Wi­no­na As­sem­bly, Wi­no­na Lake, In­di­ana (1915–20); pre­si­dent of the In­ter-De­no­mi­na­tion­al As­so­cia­tion of Ev­an­gel­ists; and on the staff of the Young Men’s Chris­tian As­so­cia­tion with the Al­lied Ex­pe­di­tion­ary Force in France (1917–18).

Works

• Make Christ King. Com­bined, ed­it­or with Ed­win Ex­cell et al. (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: Glad Ti­dings Com­pa­ny, 1916)