Chapter 13—Importance of Receiving the Holy Spirit
During the night of the first Sabbath of the Newcastle meeting,
I seemed to be in meeting, presenting the necessity and importance
of our receiving the Spirit. This was the burden of my labor—the
opening of our hearts to the Holy Spirit. On one occasion Christ
told His disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now.” Their limited comprehension put a restraint
on Him. He could not open to them the truths He longed to unfold;
for while their hearts were closed to them, His unfolding of these
truths would be labor lost. They must receive the Spirit before they
could fully understand Christ’s lessons. “The Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost,” Christ said, “whom the Father will send in my name, he
shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you.”
In my dream a sentinel stood at the door of an important building,
and asked every one who came for entrance, “Have ye received the
Holy Ghost?” A measuring-line was in his hand, and only very, very
few were admitted into the building. “Your size as a human being is
nothing,” he said. “But if you have reached the full stature of a man
in Christ Jesus, according to the knowledge you have had, you will
receive an appointment to sit with Christ at the marriage supper of the
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Lamb; and through the eternal ages, you will never cease to learn of
the blessings granted in the banquet prepared for you.
“You may be tall and well-proportioned in self, but you cannot
enter here. None can enter who are grown-up children, carrying with
them the disposition, the habits, and the characteristics which pertain
to children. If you have nurtured suspicions, criticism, temper, self-
dignity, you cannot be admitted; for you would spoil the feast. All who
go in through this door have on the wedding garment, woven in the
loom of heaven. Those who educate themselves to pick flaws in the
characters of others, reveal a deformity that makes families unhappy,
that turns souls from the truth to choose fables. Your leaven of distrust,
your want of confidence, your power of accusing, closes against you
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