And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.—ACTS II: 4,
Uproar broke forth in John Roach Straton's Calvary Baptist Church, Manhattan, last week; loud cries were raised for the police. In one corner of the church stood members of the Monday night Bible class, praying, faced by five deacons and their aids.
The Bible class members had worked themselves into hysteria, declared the deacons. They had been practicing Pentecostalism assiduously, vehemently. In the description of Reporter Hugh O'Connor of the New York Herald Tribune, "prayer meetings continued late into the night, with men and women intoning Scripture, chanting hymns and imploring the Holy Spirit with ardent cries to come into their souls—at times even falling to the floor of the church and lying outstretched on their backs, rigid, while their lips streamed mystical sounds, supposed to duplicate the 'Gift of Tongues,' such as accompanied the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and Disciples in the Biblical account of the first Pentecost."
Uldine Utley, pupil of Evangelist Aimée Semple McPherson and protégée of Calvary Bapist's Pastor John Roach Straton, had brought this abnormality into the congregation last January. Like prosperous Mrs. McPherson the stripling girl has the knack of exciting Pentecostal frenzies from her auditors, of throwing them into thaumaturgic fits. Warren Badenock Straton, 19, third son of the pastor (the sons are Rev. Hillyer Hawthorne, John Charles, Warren Badenock, George Douglas) had had his "soul saved" in this fashion. The Monday night Bible class had sought "saving" to such an extent that the deacons had ordered class sessions discontinued at 10 p. m. Mondays. (This was after they had discovered members of the class sprawled deliriously on the church building floor at 2 a. m. one Tuesday.) The Monday that Aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh reached Manhattan a woman went into ecstasies in the church.
For all this Pastor John Roach Straton was responsible, cried five deacons at the church meeting last week. The antics must cease. Indignant, members of the Bible class, huddled together like college students yelling for their team, prayed that the Holy Spirit strike Deacon John Hurst, chairman of the Evangelistic committee, in salvation or else in punishment. Before police might come, sober members of the congregation hushed the malcontents. The deacons resigned.