This Week in AG History — September 19, 1942
By Ruthie Edgerly Oberg
Originally published on AG News, 18 September 2025
Constance Swinfen Eady (1875–1960) is not a household name in the history of Christian missions in India. Unlike Francis Xavier, William Carey, Amy Carmichael, Mark and Huldah Buntain, or Mother Teresa, Eady is little remembered today. Yet it was often lesser-known workers like her who sowed faithfully in India’s soil, preparing the way for others to reap a harvest.
Born into a wealthy family in Surrey, England, Eady enjoyed privilege, education, and a place in high society. She rose to national leadership in the Young Women’s Christian Association. But the Welsh Revival of 1904–1905 awakened in her a hunger for a deeper experience of God. This pursuit eventually led her to the United States, where she received the baptism in the Holy Spirit at a pioneering Pentecostal ministry. Under the influence of E.N. Bell, the first general chairman of the Assemblies of God, she was ordained in August 1914 at the age of 39 and launched into evangelistic ministry.
Her call quickly extended beyond England and America. In 1918 she wrote to Bell from Singapore: “Since I received the certificate of ordination from the General Council of the Assemblies of God, the Lord has taken me to Japan, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji with His message, and has let me see many saved, healed, and baptized in the Holy Ghost.”
Despite fruitful travels, Eady felt God calling her to establish herself in India. Her initial vision was to open a missionary training school in Calcutta where workers from other churches could receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. She believed passionately that “if the Pentecostal fires start to burn who can tell what a spiritual conflagration might sweep over that whole country.”
In 1919 she began her Indian ministry in a missionary home in Bangalore. There, missionaries came for rest and renewal and many were filled with the Spirit. By 1924 she had settled in Yercaud, South India, one of only a dozen Pentecostal missionaries in the region. From a missionary home she established, she ministered to the Tamil people, many of whom came to faith and experienced the fullness of the Spirit.
Her work soon expanded into village ministry. By the early 1930s, Eady was reporting to readers of the Pentecostal Evangel on the growing network of house meetings and village fellowships she had established. In 1931 she described with excitement how she had rented a garage in the Nilgiris hills for services: “I can put some mats down on the floor and some colored pictures on the walls … it will make a splendid meeting hall. Twelve came to the meeting on Thursday and 16 on Sunday. I am believing the numbers will increase.”
Eady’s long-term vision, however, went beyond her own preaching. She became convinced that the future of Indian Christianity depended on national workers.
“The best way to give them the gospel is through the native workers,” she wrote. “If we could do that, we would have Christian village after Christian village. This is our greatest need today.”
Her ministry among South India’s outcaste communities gave that conviction even sharper focus. Meeting countless numbers of India’s 60 million outcastes, she saw their deep hunger for hope.
“They are not allowed to have contact with the caste people at all; they may not have water from their wells, or walk on the same side of the street,” she wrote in 1939. “I have felt strongly led of the Lord to work among the outcaste people, who have renounced Hinduism … the door stands wide open for us to tell them of Jesus.” For the next 11 years she lived among them, sharing Christ and discipling converts.
Even World War II did not stop her. While most Western missionaries were forced to leave, Eady remained and carried oversight of much of the Pentecostal work in South India. She was described by colleague Maynard Ketchum as someone who never recognized “physical limitations. Her body only existed as a means to propagate the gospel. Sleep, rest, food, and physical comfort could be completely forgotten by Miss Eady if she was on the trail of souls!”
At age 80, she officially retired from service in India. But Eady was not finished. She moved to Trinidad to work with Canadian Pentecostals, carrying a heavy teaching schedule until her death at age 85.
Over four decades of ministry, Constance Swinfen Eady led government officials to Christ, pioneered churches, trained national leaders, and demonstrated Christ’s love to people who had never known it. Though her name is not well known, her life was, in Eugene Peterson’s phrase, “a long obedience in the same direction” — devoted to Christ and His cause among those desperate to know His love.
Read Constance Eady’s report, “Eighty-six Saved in Small Convention,” on page 9 of the Sept. 19, 1942, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.
Also featured in this issue:
• “Answers to Questions Concerning the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” by P.C. Nelson
• “Emotions Are Not Enough,” by E.S. Williams
• “Mary Hath Chosen,” by Lilian Yeomans
And many more!
Click here to read this issue now.
Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.
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