FIRE

FROM ON

HIGH

PREFACE

An all-enveloping blizzard was raging! Canada, our “Land of the Lady of the Snows,” shivered beneath her mantle of glistening drifts upon that memorable morning when, after a week of earnest, almost continuous prayer, the Lord gloriously poured out His Holy Spirit upon my waiting heart. Oh, the inexpressible nearness and dearness of the Christ He there revealed! Flood-gates of prayer and praise were opened. Vistas of Harvest were spread before my enraptured gaze! My heat was melted in the love of Christ at that hour! The fountain of my tears was opened, and there at His feet I pledged Him my all, if He would but take me unworthy though I was, empty me of self and made me, as indeed He waits to make us all, a vessel through which His own Message might flow. There came before me a vision of rolling fields of whitened harvest extending unto the ends of the earth. Even as I looked. Each head of wheat became a human face, each upturned leaf, an upraised hand. The Lord gave me a sickle that day when He baptized me with the Holy Spirit-the sharp sickle of His dear Word. He bade me gather in the grain, but ne’er to reply to criticism, but to attend to the business in hand and work, while yet ‘twas day. Many, looking out upon the faces of the multitudes attracted by the preaching of the gospel, wonder at the crowded, tear-stained altars and cry. “Personality! Psychology! Personal magnetism! Hypnotism,! Emotionalism!” A dozen similarly ridiculous misnomers have been offered in an attempt to explain away the power which the world beholds in operation revivals. But ‘twas none of these that took a girl from a milk pail on a Canadian farm, called her into the ministry and enabled her to stand in the front line trenches, amid the shot and shell of Skeptic. Sinner, Pharisee and Sadducee in this day of Modernism, Higher Criticism and Atheism. That power can be attributed to naught but the Holy Spirit who descended upon her heart that wintry morning when, who descended upon her heart that wintry morning when, as a girl of seventeen, she was baptized with “Fire from on High.” What about this Baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is it genuine or is it religious emotionalism? “Does it really work in a permanent, organized church?” It is real, it does work and my prayer is that these pages may cuase the reader to understand it; to consider carefully the Bible version of it. Read this book carefully, prayerfully, comparing it with your Bible. To those who condemn as “fanatical” or “not for today” this precious Baptism of the Spirit, I would answer that until they have as many souls converted at their altars without this “experience” as the Spirit-filled. I would answer that until they have as many souls converted at their altars without this “experience” as the Spirit-filled have with it, we cannot with impunity recommend a departure from the “Good Book” or the fullness of the Spirit it freely proffers. That which rain is to the flowers; That which the sun is to the earth; That which the wind is to the sail; And that which the steam is to the engine; So is the Holy Spirit to the Church; God grant that some humble word contained herein may cause the reader to fall upon his knees and lead him into that abundant life and joy which the Baptizer with the Spirit waiteth to bestow.

His Secret “Lo the heavens were opened unto Him, And He saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.” (Matthew 3:16) “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galelee.” (Luke 4:14). “Make way!” “Make way for the King!” Clear, exultant voices ringing out on the Bethany road. “Look, He’s Coming!” “Martha? Rachel! Dorcas! “Come! Come quickly! The Master rides this way!” What a mixed and motley throng! What a colorful and cosmopolitan assemblage of rich and poor, old and young, must have lined the country roads to greet and cheer Him as He passed. “Why all the excitement?”