There are certain characteristics which belong to the revelations of the Holy Spirit. One is, that they come unexpected, without premonition or warning. Another is, that they are quick, like a flash of lightning. Another is, that they are imparted to the intuitions of our spirits, far more than to our intellectual faculties. Another is, that though they are but instantaneous flashes, they remain indelibly impressed upon the memory, they seem to be burnt into our imagination and recollection. Another characteristic is, they come almost invariably when we are in a frame of earnest prayer.

In the spring of 1895, I sat one day reading over again the life of Madame Guyon, by Dr. Upham. After reading a certain passage I laid the book down and bowed for a season of prayer. Just as I began to pray there was flashed into my spirit a marvelous vision of the death of Jesus. It was a momentary flash of light, in which I saw with great distinctness, Christ on the cross, just at the instant that his soul left the body , and his head dropped forward upon his breast. I saw a pale, purple tint in his face, the closed eyes, the thin, sorrowful features, and yet the whole suffused with transcendent loveliness.

I did not seem to see his death from the outward, human side, so much as from the internal, divine side. I intuitively perceived the utter abandonment, obedience, humility, gentleness, and boundless love, which was poured forth in that dying moment, when Jesus breathed out his own life and left his body to hang limp on the cross. I was so affected by the vision that I burst into tears, and for nearly half an hour exclaimed, “O, precious Jesus, O, beautiful death,” repeating the words over and over, while my soul was dissolved in love. I never dreamed that such a death of agony could be seen in the light of such unearthly beauty. I seemed to have a faint glimpse of how beautiful the self-surrender and death of Christ were to the eye of the Father. After two years that momentary flash in all its details of tenderness and loveliness abides fresh in my spirit.

In May, 1896, while holding services in Bro. Kauffman’s Mission, in Grand Rapids, Mich., one night they sang for the opening hymn, “Open the pearly gates and let the Redeemer come in.” And just as I bowed in prayer I had an instantaneous spiritual glimpse of the pearly gates and the city of God, with its walls of enormous costly gems, and all suffused with dazzling light, and of the radiant, happy throngs that moved like soft, swift, shining clouds through its blazing portals. The sight was so attractive that it seemed a great cross to stay any longer in a world like this. The sight lingers with me yet, and the most beautiful things on earth seem wretched and deformed in contrast with that vision of the entrancing beauty of the New Jerusalem. It was an abiding vision like this that Abraham had of the city which hath foundations, and which made him despise all earthly cities. Hebrews 11:10 and 16. Could God’s people get one look into Heaven it would cure them from wanting to pile up worldly trash in this age.

In June, 1896, while at a camp meeting in Toronto, one morning as I bowed at the pulpit in secret prayer, just as my knees touched the straw there was given to my spirit a most wonderful illumination of those words of Jesus, “If any man thirst let him drink of me, and out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of the Holy Spirit.” John 7:37–39. It seemed a vast interior vision by which I discerned the personal Christ as a fathomless fountain, located in the bottom of my spirit, and that out from him, not out from my creature nature, but that out from the eternal Son living in my heart, there flowed out a soft, sweet river clear as light, like that spoken of in Revelation, as clear as glass, flowing out from the throne of the Father and of the Lamb. I have no words to describe the accuracy and fullness of meaning which I saw in the words of Jesus, but the great prominent perception was that the Holy Spirit does not flow out from us as creatures, or from our faith, but that he eternally flows out from the Father and the Son like a warm gulf stream of liquid light, and that when the personality of Jesus is in reality enthroned in our hearts and taking possession of our whole being, then out from that divine indwelling fountain, as from a great artesian well, there flows out through the various channels of our being, through our words and voices, through our personality and magnetism, and through our very expression of face, the subtle, penetrating streams of divine lightnings of the Holy Ghost. In that flash of light I could see clearly the difference between my creature soul and the outflowing divine fountain, as plainly as you can distinguish the sandy bottom of a clear spring, from the water which flows up through the sand. I saw that the creature was only as the sand, and that the spotless, indwelling Christ was the perpetual fountain, moment by moment, out of whom came all pardon and cleansing and illuminating, and holiness and healing, and that every blessing of every sort, which the creature can possibly receive is never deposited in any measure in the creature, but incessantly imparted from him, who is the exhaustless fountain. This wonderful interior perception has greatly aided me in the understanding of many Scriptures.

It is one thing to see this truth intellectually, but a very different thing to see it in the Spirit. When we discern a Bible truth like this in the flashlight of the Holy Spirit, it comes home to us with power, it takes possession of us, it sweetly despotizes our faculties and is more real to us, if possible, than the outward material facts around us.

 The very day I had this spiritual glimpse my attention was called to the conversation of Jesus with the woman at the well, in which the word “well,” as used by the woman and by Christ, are in the Greek different words. The woman used the word which means a “cistern,” but Christ used the word which means a “fountain.” A cistern which can be filled and emptied, which can leak and get out of repair, is the poor creature’s highest conception of a blessing. But God’s idea is infinitely beyond that; namely, that of an eternal fountain, that can never be drained, never can be polluted, never get out of order, and never know any scantiness. Jesus offers to plant himself like a great ocean spring in the hidden depths of our nature, and from his personality to pour forth continually streams of holiness, love, peace, joy, light, humility, charity, perseverance, prayer, and every holy virtue, like crystal rivulets, through our whole being.

This vision of Christ, as a veritable fountain in us, will work marvels in our faith and experience, it will save us from depending on our conversion, or our sanctification, or our healing, or our wisdom, or our perseverance, but centers our faith every moment on himself, and from him we consciously drink of the outflowing Spirit. How it thrills us through and through to perceive how intimately we may be united to that eternal fountain of Being, out of whom all worlds and all angels, and all the ages have their origin.

In January, 1897, while helping Bro. Kinard in a meeting, in Greenwood, S. C, one day as I went to the hall and bowed for a season of silent prayer, I had an instantaneous vision in my spirit of the formation of the Bride of the Lamb, into a lovely portable city of souls, as typified  by the arrangement of the twelve tribes, in their tents at Mount Sinai. I seemed to be suspended about a thousand feet in the air, in the vicinity of Mount Horeb, and saw spread out under me in the most beautiful order the tents of the twelve tribes of Israel with three tribes on the north, three on the east, three on the south and three on the west, with long, beautiful avenues between the rows of tents, and in the center, or hollow square, the beautiful tabernacle, with a soft purple cloud hanging over it, and in the distance, the great, rugged, rocky mountain range, and over all the cloudless sunlight falling, like a charming spring morning. It was a most beautiful sight, and is still fresh in my mind. Just as this vision was flashed into my spirit, it came to me with great force, that was a type of Christ gathering his sanctified ones, out from the dark Egypt of this world, into the heavenly regions and forming them, generation upon generation, and rank above rank, into that living, portable city, which John says is the Lamb’s wife, having the glory of God, and shining like a palace, built of rubies and sapphires and diamonds. Revelation 21:9, 11. These powerful glimpses which the Spirit gives us of things in his word, gives us a sense of their reality and satisfy us, as no instruction of speculative reasoning could do. True we must begin all our knowledge, first with the use of our senses, and after that by the exercise of our reasoning faculties, but to reach divine certainty and to be confirmed and settled in Bible truth, it must be revealed to our inner being by the direct agency of the Spirit.