Elmore Harris

Elmore Harris (b. February 23, 1855 Beamsville, Ontario – d. December 19, 1911 Delhi, India) was a Canadian Baptist pastor.

Elmore's paternal grandfather was John Harris an early Baptist pastor whose family had emigrated from New York state to the Oxford County area.

On May 14, 1894, a group of lay people from the Toronto churches of St. Paul's Anglican, Knox Presbyterian and Walmer Road Baptist met to discuss the establishment of a training school for laypersons.

This group was led by Elmore Harris, and included the well-known Casimir Gzowski Jr. (son of the builder of the Grand Trunk Railway and grandfather of broadcaster Peter Gzowski), Robert Kilgour of the Kilgour Brothers (a manufacturer of paper bags and paper boxes), John Drysdale Nasmith (a baker) and Samuel J. Moore of the business forms fame (a Sunday school leader at Dovercourt Road Baptist Church).

The Toronto Bible Training School, established in 1894, resulting from this initiative, was designed to prepare laypersons to serve in the burgeoning programs of the newly developing YMCA, numerous Sunday schools springing up in Toronto and outlying areas, and a growing world movement in missions.

It was stated of Elmore Harris that under his direction he had "done more than any other member of the Baptist denomination (whether clerical or lay), by influence and pecuniary aid, to further the cause of that church in Toronto and its suburbs."

Elmore Harris and his wife were at some point elected Life Members of the Upper Canada Bible Society.

He was also an ardent Evangelical and helped build Gymnamsium YMCA type outreaches at Walmer Road Baptist Church.

(Matthews had been a student pastor at First Baptist Church in Brantford (where the Harris family attended) and was a graduate of McMaster, obtaining his PhD from University of Chicago).

Others like the dean of Theology (and professor of New Testament and Patristic Greek) Jones Hughes Farmer (1859-1928) noted that Baptists have always believed in personal freedom.

[3] In March 1909 under the auspices of the Bible League of Canada Harris and others invited James Orr (theologian) to Toronto for a series of lectures.