Originally Posted by Maple Leaf
I have had opportunity to spend time with saints from the early days of the Full Gospel work in the city of Saint John. It was not unheard of for the "Sisters" to tell a lady, who showed up with pants on, to go home and get dressed properly to attend church. I have heard Bro. AWP, a son of that assembly, preach against Pentecostals going bowling. The last conversation I had with another senior son of that assembly, who is a former superintendent of the PAOC, he was decrying the lack of standards among that group.
I talked with a lady who was the youth leader in the Fredericton church, in the thirties, who was criticized for taking the youth skating on the river.
In the UPC assembly where I spent my teenage years, which was pastored by a graduate of the Emmauel Bible School in Newcastle Bridge, everything was a Heaven or hell issue.
In conversation with another graduate of that school, a respected Bible Teacher, the following was used as an example of extreme eternal security. He had heard a western preacher say that he believed that, if the rapture took place while he was in a movie theatre, there would be holes in the ceiling where the believers went through. The gist of the New Brunswick preacher's comments was that only someone who was eternal security could believe that you could go in the rapture from a movie theatre.
My children have a heritage of Pentecost in New Brunswick that goes back to the mid twenties. They have ancestors who wore hats and close toed shoes under the Ralston's ministry; were preached out of the roller skating rinks by Fredericton preachers; were the focus of Bro. Paul M's confrontational style of holiness preaching; assisted Bro. Clemmie Hyde in taking the Gospel tent to new communities along the Miramichi; lived in the home of CB Dudley; got a good dose of "black and white" religion from Bro. S. Steeves; and, at one point or the other, lived every standard imaginable.
I have talked to many elders who were among the first wave of Pentecostals in New Brunswick, and have had first hand witness that the Pentecostals didn't bring standards to New Brunswick. There were already Baptists that didn't cut their hair or wear pants when the holy rollers arrived. The UPC has held on to the traditions longer than the other groups, but they didn't start them.
Hey Birdie! It's time to come out and sing your song; who were the elders who got yoked into standards by the UPC? I've heard many of the New Brunswick pioneers preach, and they sure convinced me that they believed holiness standards.
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