There may be ten thousand dreams which are of no special value and which
are caused by natural law. But God seems to use only one here and there
for his special purposes. Thousands of seeds fall on the earth, but only
one may be selected to grow. There were cases related where dreams were
specially potent to the dreamers because of the suggestions made by the
dreams to the waking minds. A dream is often very potent as a reminder,
or as a caution, and is often a providential event used in God's plan,
although the dreams in themselves may have nothing unusual about them.
There could be no clearly remembered dream which did not have some
effect on the thought and later actions of the dreamer. With that view
many dreams need not have their origin in a special visit of an angel of
God. But again we must believe that there are dreams in which the angel
of God appears to man directly, and that such dreams are possible in any
age of the human world. Each claim, therefore, to a revelation of God in
a dream should stand alone and be accepted or rejected after a careful
study of all the causes and effects.
The experiences with the Holy Spirit during those years of constant
prayer should find a special place in this record. For there were devout
souls who seemed to be constantly filled with the divine afflatus, and
they surely enjoyed the peace of God which passeth all understanding.
Here, again, we walk near a line that cannot exactly be located and
enjoy emotions or inspirations which cannot be described. An
all-pervading joy illumined every part of the human soul. "Where are you
going so early this Sunday morning?" was often asked of the hastening
pedestrian, and it was a common experience to hear him reply, "I am
going to the morning prayer meeting in the Temple to meet the Holy
Spirit." The Holy Spirit was there awaiting him. There were Pentecostal
days--supreme hours of strange elation, seasons of heavenly bliss which
cannot be accounted for on any psychological basis. A holy brooding of a
sin-expelling spiritual atmosphere permeated by a power like a perfume.
It was an indwelling of the Spirit which carried a purifying fumigation
wherein the worshiper simply let go of himself and rested in the arms of
his heavenly Father. Many felt that sacred presence and could only
express themselves in tears. Such Pentecostal visitations of the Spirit
have doubtless come to thousands of churches and to millions of
worshipers in other places, and this experience at the Temple is not
mentioned as if it were an unusual thing where prayer is the habit of
all the people. But it confirms the history of the visits of the Holy
Spirit related in the Bible, and must be accepted as a proof of the fact
that there is communication between the spirit world and the world in
which we live in the flesh. But these spiritual conditions are so
subtle, so elusive, so delicate, that it is easy to imagine that one is
in that condition when perhaps he is not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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