Global Pentecostalism is a broad phenomenon with many different contextual expressions. Sometimes the local story can get lost in the broader narrative. This is true with Canadian Pentecostalism. While typically viewed through the lens of Topeka and Azusa, Parham and Seymour, there is no direct link between the experience of the Spirit in Toronto and that of our American neighbours.

The Canadian Pentecostal Reader is an excellent way to get a feel for the experience of the first Canadian Pentecostals. This large (500 page) volume faithfully reproduces the journals and newsletters of those first Canadian Pentecostals from Ontario to British Columbia.

To be sure, this volume will be of great value to researchers. However, it’s also highly readable and even inspiring. I read these early testimonies every morning after scripture—as an act of devotion. They served to inspire and deepen my own devotion.

I’ll close with an example from the first issue of the first Canadian Pentecostal Journal, The Promise. This poem was the interpretation of a message in tongues given by Ellen Hebden in 1907:

I went to dark Gethsemane,
The Father heard me pray;
And when I shed my precious blood
The sun was hid away.

I soon shall be returning
To fetch my precious bride,
And then amid great glory
I’ll place her by my side.

Mittelstadt, Martin W. and Caleb Howard Courtney, eds. Canadian Pentecostal Reader: The First Generation of Pentecostal Voices in Canada (1907–1925). CPT, 2021.