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Confidence, May-June 1917.
The usual Easter Conference was held this year at Bowland Street Mission, Bradford, Yorkshire, and proved a time of unusual blessing. There was a wonderful outpouring of God’s manifested presence in the midst. This year the work was far deeper than any previous one, proving a spiritual growth in those that had received the baptism, and a deeper work in those ministering.
The meetings proper began on Good Friday morning [6 April] when the convener (Mr. S. Wigglesworth) opened with a word from Acts 1.8, on the importance of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The convention was to stand for subtraction as well as addition, an enlargement in God making the believer extraordinary because of the indwelling presence of the living God, which the new order came to manifest in the world. He voiced the great need of an increasing knowledge of God and a pressing on until the fullness of the possibility was reached, and God’s ministers become a flame of fire. We were all glad to notice the power manifested was in the waiting rooms; also in the large assembly, people receiving the baptism at the same time as the word was being ministered. The preaching of Christ crucified as being the great need of the heathen world, was vividly set before our eyes at the missionary meeting on Monday, the offering amounting to over £90.
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One was very deeply impressed with the singing in the Spirit of the heavenly anthem, which far excelled anything we have had before at Bowland Street Mission. The keynote was “Worthy Is the Lamb.” In nearly every meeting the song was heard, rising in spiritual fervor and revelation, until it was like entering in spirit into the opening of the book of Revelation, with a shout of victory and expectation in it, to herald the events that shall come to pass. The chief message of the song was “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
Also the tongues and interpretations were of a very wonderful order, so clear and full of scriptural truth. Truly we are living in wonderful days, when the Holy Ghost so dwells in believers that he tells out divine bible truths. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Much interest has been awakened in other places nearby. This is the way God works.