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“Latter Rain” Falling in the East: Early-Twentieth-Century Pentecostalism in India and the Debate over Speaking in Tongues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Gary B. McGee
Gary B. McGee
Affiliation:
professor of church history and Pentecostal studies at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.
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Extract

Looking back at the events that led up to the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, California, the foremost revival of the century in terms of global impact, eyewitness Frank Bartleman announced that the “revival was rocked in the cradle of little Wales … ‘brought up’ in India” and then became “full grown” in Los Angeles, California. To the Pentecostal “saints,” as they commonly called themselves in America, the appearance of “Pentecostal” phenomena (for example, visions, dreams, prophecy, glossolalia, and other charismatic gifts) in India confirmed that what the Old Testament prophet Joel had foretold about the “latter rain” outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the end times (Joel 2: 28–29) was being fulfilled simultaneously in other parts of the world. As one songwriter put it, “The latter rain has come, / Upon the parched ground … The whole wide world around.”

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 1999 , pp. 648 - 665
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1999

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References

1. Bartleman, Frank, Azusa Street (South Plainfield, N.J.: Bridge, 1980), 19; originally published in 1925 under the title How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles.Google Scholar

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11. Untitled note, Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), 11 1906, 2, col. 4.Google Scholar

12. Ramabai Dongre Medhavi received the titles “Pandita” and “Saraswati” in honor of her accomplishments in Sanskrit from the learned Pandits of Calcutta (1878) and Varanasi. She then became universally known as Pandita Ramabai. See Macnicol, Nicol and Mangalwadi, Vishal, What Liberates A Woman? The Story of Pandita Ramabai: A Builder of Modern India (1926; reprint, New Delhi: Nivedit Good Books, 1996), 87.Google Scholar

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19. Abrams, Minnie F., “The Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire,” Indian Witness, 26 04 1906, 261. It should be noted that the girl had prayed to be baptized in the Spirit before she went to sleep.Google Scholar

20. For instance, Jones, J. Pengwern, “The Revival in the Khassia Hills,” Indian Witness, 7 06 1906, 359.Google Scholar

21. Abrams herself had been baptized in the Spirit in 1895, but without the “fire.” For autobiographical information, see Abrams, Minnie F., “How the Recent Revival Was Brought about in India,” Latter Rain Evangel, 07 1909, 6–13;Google Scholaridem, “The Battles of a Faith Missionary,” Latter Rain Evangel, 03 1910, 13–18.Google Scholar

22. Abrams, Minnie F., “The Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire,” Bombay Guardian, 9 06 1906, 9.Google Scholar

23. Partial runs of these periodicals may be found at Yale University libraries in New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar

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25. Robinson, J. E., “Days of Blessing and Power at Asansol,” Indian Witness, 21 12 1905, 804.Google Scholar

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27. McGee, Gary B., “The Radical Strategy in Modern Mission: The Linkage of Paranormal Phenomena with Evangelism,” in The Holy Spirit and Mission Dynamics, ed. McConnell, C. Douglas, Evangelical Missiological Society Series 5 (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1997), 69–95.Google Scholar

28. Butcher, L. B., “Manmad,” Prayer Circular, 11 1906, 4.Google ScholarButcher highlights the experience of certain girls in the revival: “One or two girls, after days of fasting and prayer, seemed to receive the Holy Spirit in a special measure, and their words made a great impression on the others.” He probably used the expression “in a special measure” to avoid mentioning speaking in tongues, a report that might have generated serious criticism about the happenings at Manmad. For a similar tactic in regard to the occurrence of tongues in Bombay in July, see Dyer, Revival in India, 88;Google Scholarcf. Abrams, Minnie F., Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire, 2d ed. (Kedgaon: Mukti Mission Press, 1906), 69.Google Scholar

29. For this and other information about tongues at the CMS boarding school in Bombay from the September 1906 issue of the Prayer Circular, see Gee, Donald, The Pentecostal Movement, Including the Story of the War Years (1940–1947), rev. ed. (London: Elim, 1949), 28;Google ScholarAbrams, Baptism of the Holy Ghost, 69. For another account of tongues, see “Tongues in India: A Missionary's Testimony,” Leaflets on “Tongues,” no. 11 (Sunderland, U.K.: Roker Tracts, [1907]).Google Scholar

30. Wiest, Maud, “Editorials,” India Alliance, 09 1906, 30.Google Scholar

31. “Pentecost in India,” Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), 11 1906, 1, col. 4;Google ScholarDonald Gee claimed that word of the Azusa Street revival reached India for the first rime in September 1906 but offers no details in his Pentecostal Movement, 28. The first reference to Azusa that I have found in the missionary literature dates to November 1906 when R. J. Ward referred to receiving a personal letter giving “an account of the wonderful work going on in Los Angelos [sic]”;Google Scholarsee his “Signs and Wonders in California,” Prayer Circular, 11 1906, 6–7.Google ScholarIn 1920, Max Wood Moorhead said that he had heard about Azusa while in Sri Lanka in August 1906; see his “Latter Rain in Calcutta, India,” Pentecostal Evangel, 17 04 1920, 6. References to Charles F. Parham do not appear in the published materials from India that I have found.Google Scholar

32. Moorhead, Max Wood, “Pentecost in Mukti, India,” Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), 09 1907, 4, cols. 2–3.Google Scholar

33. Nalder, Rachel, “Miracles of Salvation, Healing, Provision and Protection,” Latter Rain Evangel, 11 1908, 10.Google Scholar

34. See Abrams, Minnie F., “A New Outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Mukti; Accompanied by the Gift of Tongues,” Faith Work in India, 10 07 1907.Google Scholar

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36. Ramabai, , “Showers of Blessing,” Mukti Prayer-Bell, 09 1907, 5.Google Scholar

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38. Cited in “And Fire,” Indian Witness, 6 12 1906, 772.Google Scholar

39. Abrams, Minnie F., “Mukti Mission,” Mukti Prayer-Bell, 09 1907, 21.Google Scholar

40. Simpson, A. B., “Special Manifestations,” Tenth Annual Report of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, 1907, 6;Google Scholaridem, “Special Field—India,” Tenth Annual Report, 14–17;Google ScholarSeymour, William J., The Doctrines and Discipline of the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith Mission of Los Angeles, Cal. (Los Angeles: by the author, 1915), 52;Google Scholarvan der Laan, Cornells, “The Proceedings of the Leaders' Meetings (1908–1911) and of the International Pentecostal Council (1912–1914),” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 10 (1988): 36–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Piper, William Hamner, “Manifestations and ‘Demonstrations’ of the Spirit,” Latter Rain Evangel, 10 1908, 18.Google Scholar

42. Abrams, , Baptism of the Holy Ghost, 65–68.Google Scholar

43. Abrams, Minnie F., “The Object of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” Latter Rain Evangel, 05 1911, 10.Google Scholar

44. Such an appraisal is evident in a letter written by Lord Grenville Radstock, a well-known revival leader and evangelist, who visited there in 1908–1909;Google Scholarsee “Manoramabai,” Confidence, 02 1909, 50.Google ScholarIn America, sympathetic coverage came from an article by William T. Ellis, a newspaper reporter for the Chicago Daily News, who visited in July 1907: “Have Gift of Tongues. Girl Widows in Christian Church in India Develop Wonderful Phenomena,” (Chicago) Daily News, 14 01 1908;Google Scholarreprinted as “Pentecostal Revival Touches India,” Assemblies of God Heritage 2 (1982–1983): 1, 5.Google Scholar

45. For example, “Minnie F. Abrams, of India,” Missionary Review of the World (hereafter cited as MRW) 26 (1913): 156.Google ScholarAbrams organized the Bezaleel Evangelistic Mission in 1910, the only Pentecostal women's mission agency that I have discovered. Its efforts focused on Uska Bazar in the Basti District, an area bordering Nepal. Dana L. Robert discusses the missiological contributions of Abrams in American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1996), 244–48.Google Scholar

46. See Marsh, F. E., “Pastor O. Stockmayer on the Gift of Tongues,” Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly, 13 03 1909, 397.zGoogle Scholar

47. Moorhead, , “Latter Rain in Calcutta,” 9;Google Scholarfor his testimony of Spirit baptism, see, “A Personal Testimony,” Cloud of Witnesses to Pentecost in India, 09 1907, 36–38.Google ScholarMoorhead had attended D. L. Moody's Northfield Conference in 1886 and joined the one hundred students who dedicated their lives to missionary service; out of this conference arose the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. Eight years later, he edited The Student Missionary Enterprise: Addresses and Discussions of the Second International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions Held at Detroit, Mich., 02 28 to Mar. 4, 1894 (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1894).Google Scholar

48. For Garr's account of the revival in Calcutta, see Lawrence, B. F., The Apostolic Faith Restored: A History of the Present Latter Rain Outpouring of the Holy Spirit Known as the Apostolic or Pentecostal Movement (St. Louis: Gospel Publishing House, 1916), 96–105.Google Scholar

49. Sister Garr, A. G., “In Calcutta, India,” Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), 04 1907, 1, col. 1.Google Scholar

50. Hook's advice on seeking for tongues sounds more like that of Abrams than Garr; see Hook, C. H., “A Message from Camberwell,” Confidence, 15 10 1908, 11.Google Scholar

51. Garr reflected on his inability to preach in Bengali in “A letter from A. G. Garr,” Special Supplement to “Confidence”, 05 1908, 1–3.Google ScholarOn page 2, he wrote, “So far I have not seen any one who is able to preach to the natives in their own tongue with the languages given with the Holy Ghost. Here in Hong Kong, we preached the word to the Chinese through an interpreter.”Google Scholar

52. J. Pengwern Jones to Jessie Penn-Lewis, 4 July 1907, Donald Gee Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Research, Doncaster, U.K. Garr's critics objected to using the accounts of tongues in the Book of Acts as a gauge to determine when a person had been Spirit-baptized. Traditional Protestant theological method required explicit statements from the Bible to establish dogma.Google ScholarGarr's new teaching depended primarily on narrative materials (Acts 2: 4, 10: 45–46, 19: 6; 8: 17, and 9: 17 by implication), and this made it appear vulnerable; for more information, see McGee, Gary B., “Early Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Tongues as Evidence in the Book of Acts,” in Initial Evidence: Historical and Biblical Perspectives on the Pentecostal Doctrine of Spirit Baptism (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), 96–118.Google Scholar

53. For an assessment of the claims about the Calcutta revival, see the untitled news report in Indian Witness, 1 08 1907, 494.Google Scholar

54. Garr, A. G., “Tongues, The Bible Evidence,” Cloud of Witnesses to Pentecost in India, 09 1907, 43;Google Scholarwith a few editorial changes, this is the same as his earlier “Tongues. The Bible Evidence to the Baptism with the Holy Ghost,” Pentecostal Power (Calcutta), 03 1907, 3.Google Scholar

55. Moorhead, Max Wood, “A Short History of the Pentecostal Movement,” Cloud of Witnesses to Pentecost in India, 11 1908, 21–22.Google Scholar

56. Easton later joined the Assemblies of God; see Blumhofer, Edith L., “Woman to Woman: Susan Easton's Missionary Vision,” Assemblies of God Heritage 12 (1992–1993): 4–8, 26.Google Scholar

57. Ward's, R. J. endorsement of the revival in early 1907 in his Prayer Circular is most likely the article (“This Is That”) printed anonymously in Triumphs of Faith, March 1908, 100–104.Google Scholar

58. Ward, R. J., “The Prayer Circular and the Gift of Tongues,” Prayer Circular, 04 1907;Google Scholarreprinted as “The Gift of Tongues,” Indian Witness, 18 04 1907, 249.Google Scholar

59. Price, , “Manifestations Genuine and Counterfeit,” Indian Witness, 18 04 1907, 251;Google ScholarGulliford, H., “Speaking with Tongues,” Harvest Field, 04 1907, 133.Google Scholar

60. Pierson, Arthur T., “Speaking in Tongues—II,” MRW 20 (1907): 683.Google ScholarPierson's contention (“Speaking with Tongues,” MRW 20 [1907]: 489) that no one had ever preached in a language they had not learned was refuted by the editor of the Baptist Missionary Review in “Exchanges and Reviews,” Baptist Missionary Review 13 (1907): 307.Google ScholarHe cited as a “very rare exception” the story of two girls in the Nellore field who could preach in Hindustani when Muslims were present. The editor of India Alliance also took exception to Pierson's “sweeping statements”; see “Editorials,” Aug. 1907, 19. Pierson received enough protests that he printed a letter written by a missionary in India in support of the movement, in order for his readers to hear both sides of the matter;Google Scholar“Speaking with Tongues,” MRW 21 (1908): 60–61.Google Scholar

61. Massey, R. E., “Tongues, the Bible Evidence; The Great Issue,” Cloud of Witnesses to Pentecost in India, 08 1909, 6.Google Scholar

62. Moorhead, Max Wood, “How Pentecost Came to Calcutta,” Latter Rain Evangel, 12 1913, 23.Google Scholar

63. “A Late Report from Bombay,” Apostolic Faith (Portland), 07/08 1908, 3.Google ScholarThe following are the fifteen mission agencies listed: Church Missionary Society, English Baptist Mission, American Baptist Mission, Mukti Mission, Peniel Mission, Open Brethren, Salvation Army, Scandinavian Alliance, Christian and Missionary Alliance, American Presbyterian, Women's Foreign Missionary, Thibetan Mission, Poona and Indian Village Mission, Latter Rain Mission, and Industrial and Evangelical Mission. For similar lists, see “The Field,” Trust, 09 1908, 15;Google Scholarand Moorhead, Max Wood, “India,” Confidence, 15 09 1908, 20.Google ScholarAnother source claimed that more than a score of CMA missionaries had spoken in tongues; A. B. Simpson did not dispute the statistic when he cited it in his “Editorial,” Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly, 20 02 1909, 348.Google Scholar

Several representatives of the Young Women's Christian Association in India also spoke in tongues; see Boyd, Nancy, Emissaries: The Overseas Work of the American YWCA, 1895–1970 (New York: Woman's Press, 1987), 46–53. To date, I have been able to identify more than forty missionaries in India who professed to speaking in tongues between 1906–1912.Google Scholar

64. For Pentecostal activities in northern India in 1910, see “The Fyzabad Conference,” Cloud of Witnesses to Pentecost in India, 07 1910, 10–14.Google ScholarIt is evident that as a group the missionaries who spoke in tongues had a far higher level of education than Pentecostal ministers elsewhere; among them, Minnie F. Abrams (University of Minnesota, Chicago Training School for City, Home and Foreign Missions); Agnes Hill (University of Illinois); Alice E. Luce (Cheltenham Ladies College, U.K.); Max Wood Moorhead (Amherst College and Union Theological Seminary in New York City); Albert Norton (Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical Institute); Laura Radford (State University of Kansas); and Christian H. Schoonmaker (Missionary Training Institute at Nyack, N.Y.).Google Scholar

65. Creech, Joe, “Visions of Glory: The Place of the Azusa Street Revival in Pentecostal History,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 65 (1996): 407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. For instance, Vinson Synan, introduction to Bartleman, Azusa Street, ix; Hollenweger, Walter J., Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997), 18–24.Google Scholar

67. In two brief historical accounts, Abrams traced the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in India to events at the Mukti Mission, but excluded mention of the revival in Calcutta: “How the Recent Revival Was Brought About,” 6–13;Google Scholar“Brief History of the Latter Rain Revival of 1910,” Word and Work, 05 1910, 138–41.Google Scholar

68. Hoover, Willis C., “The Wonderful Works of God in Chili,” Latter Rain Evangel, 04 1911, 19.Google ScholarHoover recalled that the first news “that tongues were in the earth today” came in 1908 with a visit by Fredrik Franson, founder of the Evangelical Alliance Mission. Abrams and May Hoover had been classmates at Lucy Rider Meyer's Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions.Google ScholarAccording to A. B. Simpson, Hoover did not believe in Parham's doctrine of tongues as the “Bible evidence”; see Simpson, A. B., “Work in Chile, S. A.,” Word and Work, 05 1910, 157.Google Scholar

69. See Ball, H. C. and Luce, A. E., Glimpses of Our Latin American Work in the United States and Mexico (Springfield, Mo.: Foreign Missions Department, Assemblies of God, 1940);Google ScholarDe Leon, Victor, The Silent Pentecostals: A Biographical History of the Pentecostal Movement among the Hispanics in the Twentieth Century (Taylors, S.C: Faith Printing, 1979), 19–23.Google Scholar

70. Luce, Alice E., “Paul's Missionary Methods,” Pentecostal Evangel, 8 01 1921, 6–7; 22 Jan. 1921, 6, 11; 5 Feb. 1921, 6–7;Google ScholarMcGee, Gary B., “Pioneers of Pentecost: Alice E. Luce and Henry C. Ball,” Assemblies of God Heritage 5 (1985): 6, 12.Google Scholar