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The Legacy of Leslie E. Maxwell

INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 28, No. 3 T he himself never served as a missionary, Leslie E. Maxwell (1895–1984), cofounder of Prairie Bible Institute (PBI) in Three Hills, Alberta, left a legacy that has had a major impact on the world Christian mission. James Hudson Taylor III told this author that Maxwell’s ministry was felt not only in Canada but also around the world, including inland China. Bible conference speaker Stephen F. Olford, himself the son of missionaries, says that Maxwell’s mentoring produced a distinctive type of missionary. In the pool halls of his youth, Maxwell’s companions would have scoffed at the idea that this feckless youth would ever become a preacher and a world missions leader. Born to a farmer in Salina, Kansas, the eldest of nine children, Maxwell as a young man was terrified of public speaking and spent more time playing pool than sitting in church. Religion was not part of his family life, though a godly grandfather would read from the Bible during the visits of his grandchildren. Years later, Maxwell characterized his youth as playing ball, playing pool, and playing the fool.1 He and his family experienced a tragic episode when a younger brother, Ernest, was crushed to death under the wheel of a grain wagon. But what drove Leslie, in his late teens, to repentance and faith was the hellfire preaching of a Methodist evangelist and a Presbyterian minister’s invitation to “come to Christ.” Maxwell made his personal transaction with the Savior and turned full circle. He stayed up most of that night reading the Bible, and the next day he left his poolroom companions. The young convert began to realize the tenacity of a praying aunt, Christina. Her prayers had preceded his conversion and now stayed with him through his early Christian growth. When he left for France to serve with the U.S. Army during World War I, she gave him a Bible motto: “The blood of Jesus Christ saves us from sin.” Shortly after his discharge from the army, his father died, leaving him responsible for the support of his widowed mother and five siblings. Aunt Christina helped by securing a clerical job for Leslie at a bank in nearby Kansas City. The job in the city also enabled him to study at the newly opened Midland Bible Institute in Kansas City. The principal of the school was William C. Stevens, former head of Nyack College, founded by A. B. Simpson of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.2 In Maxwell’s last year at the school, a plea came to Stevens from a farmer, Fergus Kirk, in the remote village of Three Hills, Alberta. Kirk’s sister had taken one of Nyack’s Bible correspondence courses developed by Stevens, and Kirk had used the material to teach a Bible class. Feeling the time had come to employ a Bible teacher, he inquired whether Stevens knew of a student who could come to Three Hills for a couple of years to teach the class. And so it was that in 1922 Maxwell found himself in the grain-elevator town of Three Hills in southern Alberta. After a two-year stint, the young Kansan stayed on. Although neither Maxwell nor Kirk intended to start a full-blown Bible school, the class of eight students in fact became the nucleus of Alberta’s first The Legacy of Leslie E. Maxwell