id="pgepubid00008"/> pew to glance at the inmate of the other pew. After church each approached the other with the simultaneous expression, "It seems to me that we have met before." But that was their first meeting. Their firm is now engaged in large construction work in concrete houses and factories. A servant girl in a small home prayed for a dress suitable for church and at that hour her mistress was visiting a friend who remarked that the photograph of a deceased daughter greatly resembled the visitor's servant girl. A few minutes later the friend of the mistress said: "I wonder if my daughter's dresses would fit your servant? If they will fit her, there are here two new gowns that the dressmaker sent home after my daughter's death."

So a young man, without advanced education, prayed hard for an opportunity to get mental training to fit him for the ministry. At the same moment a principal of a New Jersey academy was in the gallery far removed from the young man and he prayed for direction in finding a suitable janitor. The academy principal mentioned his need to one of the church members who "happened" to know the young man. It was arranged that the young man should work for his board and tuition and have five hours a day for study. The worshiper described himself in his sketch of the answer to his prayers as one whom "God has led into the fulfillment of all his highest ambitions." He is pastor of a strong church in Cleveland. A little tot prayed for a "singing doll," and her mother told her that a doll was too small a matter to pray for. But the father overheard the conversation, and, after purchasing the most costly one he could find at his noon hour, he left it on the little one's bed in the night when everyone else was supposed to be asleep.

A widow prayed for some leadership in the sale of some wild land in Louisiana. Her relatives urged her to let it go, as the "taxes will soon eat it all." But the unexpected payment of a debt due her led her to feel that, as she had been temporarily provided for, she would wait. In about seven weeks she read in a paper that a company had struck oil on the next section to her estate. She consequently leased the mineral privileges of her land at a high price.

A minister prayed for a sermon text and found that the Sunday-school superintendent had thoughtlessly left in the Bible the Sabbath before a slip of paper on which was written the title which Mary Magdalene used when addressing Jesus in the Garden near his tomb: "Rabboni." The minister now remembers that sermon when nearly all others are forgotten. A student whose mental faculties were unusually dull for his age prayed that he might pass his examination in mathematics. That night in his dreams his subconscious self worked out plainly on a blackboard the two hardest problems. A farmer prayed for some deciding hint in his choice of seed for his land. On his way home he held a bundle in his lap which was in a newspaper wrapper. In one column on the wrapper directly under his eyes was an article on the soils and products of his country which opened his vision and made his farming safe and profitable. An Alsatian girl prayed that her father and mother might come to America. They knew nothing of her petition, but on that same day and hour, allowing for the difference in the reckoning of time, the parents resolved to come to America, and financial aid was promised them. A lawyer was asking the Lord for some clew to lost evidence, so necessary to his case to be tried the next day, when the name of a witness whose relation to the case he had not before thought of, and whose name had been long forgotten, was suggested to him. While doubtful of the value of the witness, he sought his name in the directory and found that the lost witness was all-sufficient for the case. A dealer in real estate asked the Lord to prosper a proposed transaction, if it were for the best, and to hinder it if it would be injurious. He unintentionally omitted the word "not" from the draft of a contract which he drew the next day and the "accidental" omission brought him to unexpected possession of a profitable block of houses.

To the unbeliever all these testimonials prove but little. But to the experienced observer of repeated answers to prayer they are conclusive proofs of God's disposition to answer the "effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man." As a woman may feel when she puts her weary life into the care of a strong and affectionate husband, the trusting believer in prayer rests in God in a peaceful condition of soul, which passeth all understanding.

Chapter II
Day of Pentecost

THAT great day at the Baptist Temple stands out in the history of the local church there even as the greater Pentecost must have been first in the memory of the disciples at Jerusalem. No one who entered personally, body and soul, into the services of that Easter in Philadelphia can possibly forget the overpowering impressions of the Divine Spirit. "Tongues of fire" seemed to the spectator no longer an extravagant metaphor to use. For the sake of a careful examination of the question whether the baptism of the spirit is of God or men, the plain facts are here stated.

It was Easter morning, 1893, when the sun began to gild the City Hall tower. People flocked to the lower hall of the Temple from all directions. Each greeted the other with the words, "He is risen," and faces glowed as they assembled. There was no prearranged program and no announcements. The people began to sing with enthusiasm before the leader ascended the platform. Then came the moment of silent prayer. It seemed as if "the place was shaken." The whole company trembled as if they realized they were in the visible presence of the Almighty. The most conservative shed tears. There were many brief expressions from the audience, and often three were speaking at the same time. There was no shouting, no riotous disorder, no wild movements of uncontrolled emotion. Excited crowds at political gatherings, angry mobs, and panic-stricken crowds seem to have a form of that emotional common pressure. But that Easter gathering was a surrender of soul to the telepathic influence of a common spirit. One elderly Quaker shouted at the close of the meeting, "I would like to stay here forever," reminding all of Peter's call for three tabernacles on the Mount of Transfiguration. There was an intermission of an hour before the morning preaching service in the auditorium. But the people would not go out for breakfast. Some fasted all day. They talked about Christ and of their home in Glory and exchanged promises to pray for friends, for missions, and for churches. Before the hour of the established morning service the large upper Temple had overflowed. There had been no advertisement of the services. There were no unusual decorations of the auditorium and no special music provided. The preacher had not prepared a sermon, nor had he read over that morning a selected chapter. He had been too much crowded with visitors and pressing calls of the needy and dying to devote even a half an hour to mental preparation. But no feeling of doubt or of weakness entered his heart. He felt a strange support and uplift of soul which kept away all fears. He had not decided to preach at all, and hesitated whether he had not best venture on an "experience meeting" in the time usually