Tongues of Fire, London: discover the online broadsheet newspaper archive

• Tongues of Fire was a newspaper published by the Pentecostal League of Prayer in 1891.
• The Pentecostal League of Prayer was founded in 1891 by Richard Reader Harris and his wife Mary Griffin Bristow
• Explore the online archive of Tongues of Fire to learn more about the newspaper and the Pentecostal League of Prayer.

Tongues of Fire was a broadsheet newspaper published by the Pentecostal League of Prayer, an organisation established in London that held gospel meetings, sold books and pamphlets, and encouraged prayer for conversions and Christian holiness.

The Pentacostal League of Prayer was founded by Richard Reader Harris born in 1847 and initially trained as an engineer on the railways. He later became a lawyer and converted to Christianity in 1884 while on a train.

Reader Harris and his wife, Mary Griffin Bristow, established the Pentecostal League of Prayer in 1891. The organization was headquartered in Clapham, South London, and Reader Harris regularly preached at their building, Speke Hall, which was financed in part by the sale of Mary's jewelry and cost £3100. After Reader Harris's death in 1909, the Pentecostal League of Prayer continued to hold meetings in London and other locations.

The publication of the Tongues of Fire magazine by the new League led to a connection in the public mind with the emerging "tongues movement," which involved the practice of speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, in which individuals utter words or speech-like sounds that are believed by some to be languages unknown to the speaker.

Reader Harris maintained that the two had no connection other than their reference to the second chapter of the Book of Acts. In November 1907, he stated that speaking in tongues was the privilege of the early Church and could be the privilege of any believer today.