Part 95

There is an afternoon that I shall never forget. It was the eighth day of July, 1894. It was at the Northfield Students’ Convention. I had spoken that morning in the church on How to Receive the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. As I drew to a close, I took out my watch and noticed that it was exactly twelve o’clock. Mr. Moody had invited us to go up on the mountain that afternoon at three o’clock to wait upon God for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. As I looked at my watch, I said, “Gentlemen, it is exactly twelve o’clock. Mr. Moody has invited us to go up on the mountain at three o’clock to wait upon God for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is three hours until three o’clock. Some of you cannot wait three hours, nor do you need to wait. Go to your tent, go to your room in the hotel or in the buildings, go out into the woods, go anywhere, where you can get alone with God, meet the conditions of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and claim it at once.” At three o’clock we gathered in front of Mr. Moody’s mother’s house; four hundred and fifty-six of us in all, all men from the eastern colleges. (I know the number because Mr. Paul Moody counted us as we passed through the gates down into the lots.) We commenced to climb the mountainside. After we had gone some distance, Mr. Moody said, “I do not think we need to go further. Let us stop here.” We sat down and Mr. Moody said, “Have any of you anything to say?” One after another, perhaps seventy-five men, arose and said words to this effect, “I could not wait until three o’clock. I have been alone with God and I have received the baptism with the Holy Spirit.” Then Mr. Moody said, “I can see no reason why we should not kneel right down here now and ask God that the Holy Spirit may fall on us as definitely as He fell on the Apostles at Pentecost. Let us pray.” We knelt down on the ground; some of us lay on our faces on the pine-needles. As we had gone up the mountainside, a cloud had been gathering over the mountain, and as we began to pray the cloud broke and the rain-drops began to come down upon us through the overhanging pine trees, but another cloud, big with mercy, had been gathering over Northfield for ten days and our prayers seemed to pierce that cloud and the Holy Ghost fell upon us. It was a wonderful hour. There are many who will never forget it. But any one who reads this book may have a similar hour alone by himself now. He can take the seven steps one by one and the Holy Spirit will fall upon him.