Arthur Booth-Clibborn (1855-1939)

Arthur Clibborn was born in 1855 into a well to do home in Moate, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. His godly family were Quakers. While Arthur was yet young the family moved to Bessbrook in County Armagh. The Bessbrook community was a Quaker stronghold with a mill built by a Quaker family. Some of Arthur’s other ancestors were the leading writers in defence of Quaker doctrines such as pacifism. In his young days Arthur read these writings which marked him ever after with very deep convictions about Christians not being involved in military service or in wars. Sadly by the time Arthur came along the fire had gone out of Quakerism, erroneous beliefs had come in and the clear direct gospel proclamation had been replaced by morality. At the age of 13, Arthur’s parents sent him to boarding school in France and to Switzerland where he graduated from Lausanne University and gained initial experience in foreign languages. When he returned to Bessbrook he worked in the family’s linen mill but as yet without any clear understanding of the gospel. As a result of revival ferver stirred up by the Moody and Sankey meetings in Belfast and Dublin in 1874  Arthur came under the sound of the true gospel in meetings in Portadown.  It was at these meetings that he was convicted of sin and saved by faith in the Blood of Jesus.  As the years passed it was expected that he would take over the mill after his father, but the call of God began to burn. At the age of 26 he was appointed as a Quaker minister. He walked in the light he had at the time but much more was to come. He began to hear of the work of the Salvation Army which carried forth the work of militant evangelism with a fiery baptism of the Holy Ghost. He then read Catherine Booth’s books which created a deep hunger within him for holiness. Captain Edmunds of the Salvation Army came to Bessbrook to hold meetings. Arthur saw that this man had something which he desperately needed. After this in an all night of prayer with three other friends he entered into an experience of sanctification or of holiness of heart by faith. A week later he attended a Salvationist convention in where godly officers had gathered to hear from God and to meet with Him. In these meetings Arthur saw a movement with which he could identify; it was primitive Christianity of the Bible kind. Unfinished... by Keith Malcomson Edited from "Pentecostal Pioneers Remembered" by Keith Malcomson. Copyright 2008 by Keith Malcomson. No part of this article may be reproduced without the permission of the author.

"PENTECOSTAL PIONEERS REMEMBERED" by Keith Malcomson. Here is a story long untold and mostly forgotten, of faith, power and glory. This book commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the Pentecostal Movement in Great Britain & Ireland, 1907-2007. Herein is the story of the Men, the Movement, the Message and the Miracles that became known as the Pentecostal Movement. These testimonies are timeless, powerful and stirring but sadly most of these pioneers have long disappeared from the sight and remembrance of the church. This is a very simple attempt to stir up the mind of the church to remember these men and women who so impacted families, cities and nations by a life of consecrated prayer, crowned and sealed with Holy Ghost power. Amongst them you will find pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets and apostles. Although all these pioneers were born in Britain & Ireland yet their ministries deeply affected the world. Their influence and power was amazingly greater than their birth, upbringing, number, education or financial resources. These testimonies will deeply inspire another generation to go and do likewise. "I take great pleasure in writing the foreword for this book written by Keith Malcomson...I believe the reading of this book...of how God used these men to recover the spiritual in their day will greatly encourage us, especially the preacher, to believe God to do it again." B.H. Clendennen Click Here to Purchase  THE COST OF PENTECOST  “Any cheapening of the price of Pentecost would be a disaster of untold magnitude. The company in the upper room, upon whom Pentecost fell, had paid the highest price for it. In this they approached as near as possible to Him who had paid the supreme price in order to send it. Do we ever really adequately realize how utterly lost to the world, how completely despised, rejected, and outcast was that company? Their master and leader had just passed through the ‘hangman's rope’, so to speak, at the hands of the highest civilization of the day. Their Calvary was complete, and so a complete Pentecost came to match it…We may, therefore, each of us say to ourselves: ‘As my cross, so will my Pentecost be.’ God's way to Pentecost was via Calvary. Individually it must be so today also. The purity and fullness of the individual Pentecost must depend upon the completeness of the individual Calvary. This is an unalterable principle.” Quote by Arthur Booth-Clibborn DOWN FROM HIS GLORY His son wrote the wonderful hymn Down from His Glory which you can hear on this page.