James Eustace Purdie

1880- . Canadian clergyman and educator. Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, he graduated from Wycliffe Theological College, Toronto, was ordained in 1907, then ministered successively in several Anglican parishes in E and W Canada and in the USA. He was noted for his evangelistic fervor and his deeper-life and healing ministries. While rector of St. James', Saskatoon, in 1919, he received a Pentecostal spiritual experience including “speaking in tongues.” This brought contact with leaders of the emerging Pentecostal assemblies of Canada; subsequently he became principal of the first Pentecostal Bible college in Canada, which post in Winnipeg he retained until partial retirement in 1950. His theological materials formed the basic curriculum for other Pentecostal colleges at home and overseas. Other writings include a catechism, Concerning the Faith (1951), which was translated into several languages, and a booklet, What We Believe (1954). He deserves much of the credit for the stability and basic orthodoxy of much of the early twentieth-century charismatic revival in Canada.