with the Holy Spirit, joy must inevitably result. I have never known one to be baptized with the Holy Spirit into whose life there did not come, sooner or later, a new joy, a higher and purer and fuller joy than he had ever known before. But this is not the prime purpose of the baptism nor the most important and prominent result. Great emphasis needs to be laid upon this point, for there are many Christians who in seeking the baptism with the Spirit are seeking personal ecstasy and rapture. They go to conventions and conferences for the deepening of the Christian life and come back and tell what a wonderful blessing they have received, referring to some new ecstasy that has come into their heart, but when you watch them, it is difficult to see that they are any more useful to their pastors or their churches than they were before, and one is compelled to think that whatever they have received, they have not received the real baptism with the Holy Spirit. Ecstasies and raptures are all right in their places. When they come, thank God for them—the writer knows something about them—but in a world such as we live in to-day where sin and self-righteousness and unbelief are so triumphant, where there is such an awful tide of men, women and young people sweeping on towards eternal perdition, I would rather go through my whole life and never have one touch of ecstasy but have power to witness for Christ and win others for Christ and thus to save them, than to have raptures 365 days in the year but no power to stem the awful tide of sin and bring men, women and children to a saving knowledge of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The purpose of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is not primarily to make believers individually holy. I do not say that it is not the work of the Holy Spirit to make believers holy, for as we have already seen, He is “the Spirit of Holiness,” and the only way we shall ever attain unto holiness is by His power. I do not even say that the baptism with the Holy Spirit will not result in a great spiritual transformation and uplift and cleansing, for the promise is, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit _and fire_” (and the thought of fire as used in this connection is the thought of searching, refining, cleansing, consuming). A wonderful transformation took place in the Apostles at Pentecost, and a wonderful transformation has taken place in thousands who have been baptized with the Holy Spirit since Pentecost, _but the primary purpose of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is efficiency in testimony and service_. It has to do rather with gifts for service than with graces of character. It is the impartation of spiritual power or gifts in service and sometimes one may have rare gifts by the Spirit’s power and yet manifest few of the graces of the Spirit. (See 1 Cor. xiii. 1-3; Matt. vii. 22, 23.) In every passage in the Bible in which the baptism with the Holy Spirit is mentioned, it is connected with testimony or service.