Oswald Jeffrey Smith was a Canadian pastor, author, and missions advocate. He founded The People's Church in Toronto in 1928. He was a leading force in * Fundamentalism in Canada.

Smith attended the Toronto Bible Training School

Tyndale University College and Seminary

Tyndale University College and Seminary is an accredited Christian institution of higher education in the Protestant Evangelical tradition located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Tyndale students come from over 40 different Christian denominations and more than 30 different ethnic groups. Tyndale...

, the Manitoba Presbyterian College

Manitoba College

Manitoba College was a college that existed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from 1871 to 1967, when it became one of the University of Winnipeg's founding colleges. It was one of the first institutions of higher learning in the city of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba...

 in Winnipeg, and the McCormick Seminary

McCormick Theological Seminary

McCormick Theological Seminary is one of eleven schools of theology of the Presbyterian Church . It shares a campus with the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, bordering the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois...

 in Chicago. Smith was ordained as a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in 1918. however, he resigned from the Presbyterian Church, set up his own church in Toronto, which merged with a small Christian and Missionary Alliance

Christian and Missionary Alliance

The Christian and Missionary Alliance is an evangelical Protestant denomination within Christianity.Founded by Rev. Albert Benjamin Simpson in 1887, the Christian & Missionary Alliance did not start off as a denomination, but rather began as two distinct parachurch organizations: The Christian...

congregation in 1921. In 1928, he started another independent church in Toronto, the People's Church. Using his base in Toronto for fundraising, he traveled the world to recruit missionaries

Over the course of eighty years he preached more than 12,000 sermons in 80 countries, wrote thirty-five books (with translations into 128 languages), as well as 1,200 poems, of which 100 have been set to music, including "Deeper and Deeper" (first line "Into the heart of Jesus").

Paul B. Smith was the son of Oswald J. Smith, and Senior Pastor of The People's Church from 1959–1994.

Further reading

• The official biography is Fire in His Bones, by Lois Neely.
• David R. Elliott, "Knowing No Borders: Canadian Contributions to American Fundamentalism," in George A. Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll, eds., Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States (1993).

Works

• Give Ye Them To Eat, Chicago: Russian Missionary Society (1918)
• Voice of Hope, Toronto: Evangelical Publishers (1919)
• Thou Art The Man, Toronto: Evangelical Publishers (1919)
• Songs in the Night, Toronto: Alliance Tabernacle (1922)
• The Man God Uses, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1925)
• The Baptism with the Holy Spirit, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1925)
• From Death to Life, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1925)
• The Revival We Need, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1925)
• Back to the Pentecost, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1926)
• Working With God, Toronto: Tabernacle Publishers (1926)
• Is the Antichrist at Hand?, Toronto: Tabernacle Publishers (1926)
• The Spirit-Filled Life, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1927)
• The Great Physician, New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co. (1927)
• Under a Pirate Flag and Other Stories, Chicago: Worldwide Christian Couriers (1928)
• The Challenge of Missions, London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott (1959)