06. The Inflow of the Spirit
THE INFLOW OF THE SPIRIT In 1 Chronicles 4:10 we read that Jabez prayed that beautiful prayer, “Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” It is stated, “And God granted him that which he requested.” I can testify that the same God who answered the prayer of Jabez also answered mine. For a day or two after passing through the spiritual crisis of October 23, 1916, I held on in faith without experiencing any special emotion. It was not long, however, before God gave me the conscious witness that my prayer for entire sanctification had been heard and answered. One morning, soon after rising, I opened my Bible, and my eyes alighted upon a verse which spoke to me as a glowing message direct from God to my heart. The verse was as follows: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Romans 15:13). In Old Testament times, the Lord indicated His acceptance of the animal sacrifices by sending fire from heaven upon the altar. The holy inward joy which accompanied the powerful application by the Spirit of God to my heart of Romans 15:13, was to me the spiritual equivalent of the falling of the fire of God upon the ancient sacrifices. From the moment that Romans 15:13 was given to me by God as the seal of my sanctification, the Spirit of God did a new work in my heart. For three years prior to his event, I had been fully assured of my salvation, and the Spirit of God witnessed to my heart that I was a child of God. I have no doubt I that, during those three years, I had the Spirit of Christ; but now something further and more definite took place in my inner spiritual experience. It was not, however, in any sense a recovery from backsliding, as so far as I was aware I was walking in all the known light that I possessed up to that time. The Spirit of God now seemed to take full possession, filled my heart, and lifted me up in my inner life to a new level of joy and blessing. That divinely inspired prayer of Paul in Romans 15:13, for fullness of joy and peace, was made a wonderful reality in my experience by the infilling and overflowing of the Holy Spirit. The blessings of heart-cleansing and the filling of the Spirit, which I had appropriated in naked faith on God’s Word, were now made a conscious blessed experience. The result was fullness of joy, which I experienced in the following sevenfold “joy in the Holy Ghost.” It is this experience of joy which constitutes some of the riches of holiness. Anathema maranatha. 1. THE JOY OF THE SPIRIT’S INFILLING “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). The indwelling of the Spirit of God became a new and joyous reality. I always love to apply Malachi 4:2 as expressing the effect of the baptism of the Spirit on my inner spiritual life. Although I know that verse has a future dispensational meaning, yet it beautifully expresses the manner in which the Spirit of God came upon me and took full possession The verse says, “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” The thoughts of fire, light, warmth, and healing are suggested by that beautiful verse. The blessed Comforter became all that to me. Fire has ever been my favorite symbol of the Holy Spirit. I love the phrase “the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire.” It suggests the immersion of the whole being of the believer in the purifying, glowing love of God. The Spirit of God became very real to me as the fire of God within, “kindling, flaming, burning, glowing.” I now began to appreciate more clearly than I had ever done before the meaning of Pentecost. This experience of the infilling of the Spirit was my personal Pentecost, and all the scriptures relating to the glory of the divine indwelling in the heart now became a vivid, conscious, blessed reality to me and filled me with joy in a way they had not done before. 2. THE JOY OF DELIVERANCE FROM SIN “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). One of the first things that the Holy Spirit did when He took full possession was to glorify Christ. He shone in a new way upon the Cross and Romans 6:1-23. He showed me that the blessing of heart holiness had all been provided for me on the Cross. Of course I knew the truth of Romans 6:1-23 theoretically, quite well. I had studied Romans 6:1-23 when I had been baptized by immersion three years previously. But as soon as the Spirit came in His fullness He applied Romans 6:1-23 and Romans 8:2 in such a way that I was filled with all joy and peace in believing. The painful sense of bondage and corruption within gave way to a blessed experience of freedom and purity. The Spirit who had previously caused me to groan and say, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” now enabled me to say with joy, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord…The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” I now knew in power the blessed freedom from in spoken of in Romans 6 because I saw in the light of the Spirit that my old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I should not serve sin. I saw that all that I had asked God to do in me by the baptism of the Spirit on October 23, 1916, had all been provided for me on the Cross. The blessed Son had now made me “free indeed.” Oh, the blessed joy of this deliverance from sin! 3. THE JOY OF DWELLING IN DIVINE LOVE “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
Another blessed result of the baptism of the Spirit was an inner realization of the love of God which I had not experienced before. How glorious to taste in experience 1 John 4:16! “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” The love of God, His very inmost nature, seemed to me like a boundless ocean with the rays of the glorious sun shining upon it, and in this ocean of love and light my whole being was immersed and it filled my heart. I was dwelling in His love and i love was dwelling in me. I was inwardly satisfied, perfectly satisfied, resting in the boundless love of God. Praise God, there was no painful sense of an aching void that the world cannot fill. The love of God had been poured forth in my heart by the Holy Ghost. 4. THE JOY OF CHRIST WITHIN “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18).
Words fail to describe the blessedness of the love of Christ and His indwelling. It “passeth knowledge.” I now knew in a completely new way “Christ in you [me], the hope of glory.” At times when all was hushed and quiet, it seemed as if a still small voice within whispered so gently to my heart, “I am here; I have come to abide forever.” I was melted with holy joy. The glorious prayer for divine fullness in Ephesians 3:14-21, which previously had seemed much too “far away” and “ideal” for me, now began to be realized in my inner life, as the blessed Holy Spirit more and more glorified Christ dwelling in my heart by faith That wonderful promise of the Lord, “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me,” was made a wonderful reality, and I tasted something of the blessedness of that experience in 1 Peter 1:8, “Believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 5. THE JOY OF ANSWERED PRAYER “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). My prayer life was deepened and enriched and a greater joy than ever. One of the blessings the Lord promised as a result of Pentecost was that they should ask and receive, that their joy might be full (John 16:24). The Holy Spirit gave me blessed liberty in access to the Father in the name of the Son, and imparted to me the utmost confidence in asking that I might receive every possible spiritual blessing that the Father had for me in Christ. This Spirit-given sense of heart liberty brought me into a deeper experience of the joy of sonship with the Father, and so I proved the truth of those words, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14), and also, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17). I had the joy of receiving definite answers to prayer for specific blessing for souls. (In the next chapter I relate some instances of this blessing.) 6. THE JOY IN THE WILL OF GOD “The Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts 5:32). Of course, I had turned from all known sin and yielded to God and desired to know I and do His will as a result of the work of the Spirit of I God in regeneration. The Word of God says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” I would not, for one moment, underrate the mighty work of grace accomplished by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. But when the Spirit took possession of my heart in His fullness, He produced a deeper, sweeter joy than ever in the will of God. It was blessed joy indeed to know that the heart, the very secret spring of the being, was cleansed to the depths and the Spirit of God abiding within. The blessed Spirit of Liberty made it a joy and delight to prove what is “that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” I had been set “free indeed,” and yet I felt the willing slave of divine love, as the Psalmist says, “O Lord, truly I am thy servant …. thou hast loosed my bonds” (Psalms 116:16). Oh, what blessed rest of heart, just to abide in the very center of the will of God and say day by day, and in every circumstance of life, Thy will — for just now!” 7. THE JOY OF THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST “I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). There are some spiritual experiences | that are so precious that one feels reluctant to cast aside the veil and disclose them to others, preferring rather to keep them as a sacred secret between the soul and the Lord. On the other hand, I feel that if the Lord richly blesses us we ought to acknowledge it to His glory, so that the Lord’s people may be encouraged and blessed thereby. Our Lord says, “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house tops” (Matthew 10:27). I feel therefore, that I ought to declare how wonderfully gracious the Lord was to me in manifesting himself to my heart in 1918, nearly two years after my step of faith for entire sanctification in 1916. I was still in France on light duty behind the lines, but away from all meetings and with little Christian fellowship. At this time the Spirit of God was working in me a deep love and longing for a further revelation of the person of Christ.
He was preparing me for a blessed fulfillment of the Lord’s promise in John 14:21, where He said, “He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” That is what I longed for — a fresh manifestation of Christ in my heart. About two o’clock one morning I awoke with a strong impression on my mind. The impression was to the effect that on the next three consecutive nights I was to awake at midnight, go outside into a wood near by, and wait before the Lord in prayer, and that after wards the Lord would manifest himself to me. I wondered at first whether this impression was merely the working of my own mind or whether it was the voice of the Spirit. It is dangerous blindly to follow every impression which may come into the mind.
Impressions may emanate from one’s own mind or from the devil, as well as from the Holy Spirit. If an impression is of the Holy Spirit, He will give time to think and pray about it. It seemed to me a somewhat strange thing to do, to get up at midnight for three nights in succession and go into a wood and pray. But the Lord told Abraham to do a very strange thing when He bade him offer up Isaac in sacrifice. That act of obedience was to be seen only by the Lord himself. Was the Lord giving me a simple test of obedience, I wondered, by asking me to do an apparently unusual thing which He alone would see? I prayed about this impression and asked that I might not be misled by any foolish workings of my own mind or by the devil. The impression persisted. So the first night I awoke at midnight and crept quietly out of the hut unobserved, went out into a wood, waited, prayed, and then returned. I did the same the second night. The third night, however, as it was pouring with rain, I remained where I was for a little time in prayer. Nothing special happened on any of these occasions. When I awoke in the morning after the third night, I did not think very much about the matter. But just after breakfast I felt that gentle touch upon my spirit, that warmth and unction, which I recognized as of the Spirit. I gradually became conscious in a wonderful way of the Divine Presence, and such was the power that I felt compelled to get right away into a quiet place on my own. Here I lay prostrate on the ground for over half an hour in silent adoration. My whole being was hushed and awed in the consciousness of the presence of the Lord, and, in a way I cannot describe, I was made aware of His presence around me and within me and of my union with Him. Although I was quite aware that in my body I was on the earth, yet in my spirit I seemed to be lifted up into the holy atmosphere of heaven itself. After the time of silent adoration and worship I exclaimed again and again, with a full heart, “My Lord and my God! Holy, holy, holy!” Then the following scriptures were applied with sweet unction and power to my soul: “Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.” “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” When I rose up a deep, sweet rest took possession of my heart and I was satisfied. I knew that the Lord himself had drawn near and manifested himself to me in accordance with John 14:21. I then read aloud on my knees Ephesians 1:3-14, with a blessed assurance, substituting the personal pronoun “I” and “me” for “us” and “ye.” Hitherto I have said very little about this blessed manifestation of Christ, as I felt it was almost too sacred to talk about. But now I testify to this blessing and give Him all the glory. That blessed, adorable Lord who so graciously manifested himself to me and filled my heart with joy when I was feeling lonely in France in the Great War will assuredly manifest himself to every believer who desires above everything else the enjoyment of His presence and love. “He satisfieth the longing soul.” The next evening, while I was quietly walking, meditating on the things of God, I was powerfully impressed with a thought which I feel was the teaching of the Spirit of God direct to my heart through the Word. The thought was, I must now be content to leave to the Lord himself the manner and occasions of His manifestations of His presence. There is nothing higher for me in this life than to live by faith and walk patiently in love according to 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. THE INFLOW OF THE SPIRIT In 1 Chronicles 4:10 we read that Jabez prayed that beautiful prayer, “Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” It is stated, “And God granted him that which he requested.” I can testify that the same God who answered the prayer of Jabez also answered mine. For a day or two after passing through the spiritual crisis of October 23, 1916, I held on in faith without experiencing any special emotion. It was not long, however, before God gave me the conscious witness that my prayer for entire sanctification had been heard and answered. One morning, soon after rising, I opened my Bible, and my eyes alighted upon a verse which spoke to me as a glowing message direct from God to my heart. The verse was as follows: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Romans 15:13). In Old Testament times, the Lord indicated His acceptance of the animal sacrifices by sending fire from heaven upon the altar. The holy inward joy which accompanied the powerful application by the Spirit of God to my heart of Romans 15:13, was to me the spiritual equivalent of the falling of the fire of God upon the ancient sacrifices. From the moment that Romans 15:13 was given to me by God as the seal of my sanctification, the Spirit of God did a new work in my heart. For three years prior to his event, I had been fully assured of my salvation, and the Spirit of God witnessed to my heart that I was a child of God. I have no doubt I that, during those three years, I had the Spirit of Christ; but now something further and more definite took place in my inner spiritual experience. It was not, however, in any sense a recovery from backsliding, as so far as I was aware I was walking in all the known light that I possessed up to that time. The Spirit of God now seemed to take full possession, filled my heart, and lifted me up in my inner life to a new level of joy and blessing. That divinely inspired prayer of Paul in Romans 15:13, for fullness of joy and peace, was made a wonderful reality in my experience by the infilling and overflowing of the Holy Spirit. The blessings of heart-cleansing and the filling of the Spirit, which I had appropriated in naked faith on God’s Word, were now made a conscious blessed experience. The result was fullness of joy, which I experienced in the following sevenfold “joy in the Holy Ghost.” It is this experience of joy which constitutes some of the riches of holiness. Anathema maranatha. 1. THE JOY OF THE SPIRIT’S INFILLING “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). The indwelling of the Spirit of God became a new and joyous reality. I always love to apply Malachi 4:2 as expressing the effect of the baptism of the Spirit on my inner spiritual life. Although I know that verse has a future dispensational meaning, yet it beautifully expresses the manner in which the Spirit of God came upon me and took full possession The verse says, “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” The thoughts of fire, light, warmth, and healing are suggested by that beautiful verse. The blessed Comforter became all that to me. Fire has ever been my favorite symbol of the Holy Spirit. I love the phrase “the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire.” It suggests the immersion of the whole being of the believer in the purifying, glowing love of God. The Spirit of God became very real to me as the fire of God within, “kindling, flaming, burning, glowing.” I now began to appreciate more clearly than I had ever done before the meaning of Pentecost. This experience of the infilling of the Spirit was my personal Pentecost, and all the scriptures relating to the glory of the divine indwelling in the heart now became a vivid, conscious, blessed reality to me and filled me with joy in a way they had not done before. 2. THE JOY OF DELIVERANCE FROM SIN “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). One of the first things that the Holy Spirit did when He took full possession was to glorify Christ. He shone in a new way upon the Cross and Romans 6:1-23. He showed me that the blessing of heart holiness had all been provided for me on the Cross. Of course I knew the truth of Romans 6 theoretically, quite well. I had studied Romans 6:1-23 when I had been baptized by immersion three years previously. But as soon as the Spirit came in His fullness He applied Romans 6:1-23 and Romans 8:2 in such a way that I was filled with all joy and peace in believing. The painful sense of bondage and corruption within gave way to a blessed experience of freedom and purity. The Spirit who had previously caused me to groan and say, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” now enabled me to say with joy, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord…The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” I now knew in power the blessed freedom from in spoken of in Romans 6:1-23 because I saw in the light of the Spirit that my old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I should not serve sin. I saw that all that I had asked God to do in me by the baptism of the Spirit on October 23, 1916, had all been provided for me on the Cross. The blessed Son had now made me “free indeed.” Oh, the blessed joy of this deliverance from sin! 3. THE JOY OF DWELLING IN DIVINE LOVE “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
Another blessed result of the baptism of the Spirit was an inner realization of the love of God which I had not experienced before. How glorious to taste in experience 1 John 4:16! “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” The love of God, His very inmost nature, seemed to me like a boundless ocean with the rays of the glorious sun shining upon it, and in this ocean of love and light my whole being was immersed and it filled my heart. I was dwelling in His love and i love was dwelling in me. I was inwardly satisfied, perfectly satisfied, resting in the boundless love of God. Praise God, there was no painful sense of an aching void that the world cannot fill. The love of God had been poured forth in my heart by the Holy Ghost. 4. THE JOY OF CHRIST WITHIN “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18).
Words fail to describe the blessedness of the love of Christ and His indwelling. It “passeth knowledge.” I now knew in a completely new way “Christ in you [me], the hope of glory.” At times when all was hushed and quiet, it seemed as if a still small voice within whispered so gently to my heart, “I am here; I have come to abide forever.” I was melted with holy joy. The glorious prayer for divine fullness in Ephesians 3:14-21, which previously had seemed much too “far away” and “ideal” for me, now began to be realized in my inner life, as the blessed Holy Spirit more and more glorified Christ dwelling in my heart by faith That wonderful promise of the Lord, “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me,” was made a wonderful reality, and I tasted something of the blessedness of that experience in 1 Peter 1:8, “Believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 5. THE JOY OF ANSWERED PRAYER “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). My prayer life was deepened and enriched and a greater joy than ever. One of the blessings the Lord promised as a result of Pentecost was that they should ask and receive, that their joy might be full (John 16:24). The Holy Spirit gave me blessed liberty in access to the Father in the name of the Son, and imparted to me the utmost confidence in asking that I might receive every possible spiritual blessing that the Father had for me in Christ. This Spirit-given sense of heart liberty brought me into a deeper experience of the joy of sonship with the Father, and so I proved the truth of those words, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14), and also, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17). I had the joy of receiving definite answers to prayer for specific blessing for souls. (In the next chapter I relate some instances of this blessing.) 6. THE JOY IN THE WILL OF GOD “The Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts 5:32). Of course, I had turned from all known sin and yielded to God and desired to know I and do His will as a result of the work of the Spirit of I God in regeneration. The Word of God says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” I would not, for one moment, underrate the mighty work of grace accomplished by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. But when the Spirit took possession of my heart in His fullness, He produced a deeper, sweeter joy than ever in the will of God. It was blessed joy indeed to know that the heart, the very secret spring of the being, was cleansed to the depths and the Spirit of God abiding within. The blessed Spirit of Liberty made it a joy and delight to prove what is “that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” I had been set “free indeed,” and yet I felt the willing slave of divine love, as the Psalmist says, “O Lord, truly I am thy servant …. thou hast loosed my bonds” (Psalms 116:16). Oh, what blessed rest of heart, just to abide in the very center of the will of God and say day by day, and in every circumstance of life, Thy will — for just now!” 7. THE JOY OF THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST “I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). There are some spiritual experiences | that are so precious that one feels reluctant to cast aside the veil and disclose them to others, preferring rather to keep them as a sacred secret between the soul and the Lord. On the other hand, I feel that if the Lord richly blesses us we ought to acknowledge it to His glory, so that the Lord’s people may be encouraged and blessed thereby. Our Lord says, “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house tops” (Matthew 10:27). I feel therefore, that I ought to declare how wonderfully gracious the Lord was to me in manifesting himself to my heart in 1918, nearly two years after my step of faith for entire sanctification in 1916. I was still in France on light duty behind the lines, but away from all meetings and with little Christian fellowship. At this time the Spirit of God was working in me a deep love and longing for a further revelation of the person of Christ.
He was preparing me for a blessed fulfillment of the Lord’s promise in John 14:21, where He said, “He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” That is what I longed for — a fresh manifestation of Christ in my heart. About two o’clock one morning I awoke with a strong impression on my mind. The impression was to the effect that on the next three consecutive nights I was to awake at midnight, go outside into a wood near by, and wait before the Lord in prayer, and that after wards the Lord would manifest himself to me. I wondered at first whether this impression was merely the working of my own mind or whether it was the voice of the Spirit. It is dangerous blindly to follow every impression which may come into the mind.
Impressions may emanate from one’s own mind or from the devil, as well as from the Holy Spirit. If an impression is of the Holy Spirit, He will give time to think and pray about it. It seemed to me a somewhat strange thing to do, to get up at midnight for three nights in succession and go into a wood and pray. But the Lord told Abraham to do a very strange thing when He bade him offer up Isaac in sacrifice. That act of obedience was to b seen only by the Lord himself. Was the Lord giving me a simple test of obedience, I wondered, by asking me to do an apparently unusual thing which He alone would see? I prayed about this impression and asked that I might not be misled by any foolish workings of my own mind or by the devil. The impression persisted. So the first night I awoke at midnight and crept quietly out of the hut unobserved, went out into a wood, waited, prayed, and then returned. I did the same the second night. The third night, however, as it was pouring with rain, I remained where I was for a little time in prayer. Nothing special happened on any of these occasions. When I awoke in the morning after the third night, I did not think very much about the matter. But just after breakfast I felt that gentle touch upon my spirit, that warmth and unction, which I recognized as of the Spirit. I gradually became conscious in a wonderful way of the Divine Presence, and such was the power that I felt compelled to get right away into a quiet place on my own. Here I lay prostrate on the ground for over half an hour in silent adoration. My whole being was hushed and awed in the consciousness of the presence of the Lord, and, in a way I cannot describe, I was made aware of His presence around me and within me and of my union with Him. Although I was quite aware that in my body I was on the earth, yet in my spirit I seemed to be lifted up into the holy atmosphere of heaven itself. After the time of silent adoration and worship I exclaimed again and again, with a full heart, “My Lord and my God! Holy, holy, holy!” Then the following scriptures were applied with sweet unction and power to my soul: “Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.” “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” When I rose up a deep, sweet rest took possession of my heart and I was satisfied. I knew that the Lord himself had drawn near and manifested himself to me in accordance with John 14:21. I then read aloud on my knees Ephesians 1:3-14, with a blessed assurance, substituting the personal pronoun “I” and “me” for “us” and “ye.” Hitherto I have said very little about this blessed manifestation of Christ, as I felt it was almost too sacred to talk about. But now I testify to this blessing and give Him all the glory. That blessed, adorable Lord who so graciously manifested himself to me and filled my heart with joy when I was feeling lonely in France in the Great War will assuredly manifest himself to every believer who desires above everything else the enjoyment of His presence and love. “He satisfieth the longing soul.” The next evening, while I was quietly walking, meditating on the things of God, I was powerfully impressed with a thought which I feel was the teaching of the Spirit of God direct to my heart through the Word. The thought was, I must now be content to leave to the Lord himself the manner and occasions of His manifestations of His presence. There is nothing higher for me in this life than to live by faith and walk patiently in love according to 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.