The year 1871 was a critical one in Mr. Moody's career.  He realized more and more how little he was fired by personal acquirements for his work.  An intense hunger and thirst for spiritual power were aroused in him by two women who used to attend the meetings and sit on the front seat.  He could see by the expression on their faces that they were praying.  At the close of services they would say to him: "We have been praying for you."

     "Why don't you pray for the people?" Mr Moody would ask.

     "Because you need the power of the Spirit," they would say.

     "I need the power!  Why?" said Mr. Moody, in relating the incident years after, "I thought I had power.  I had the largest congregations in Chicago, and there were many conversions.  I was in a sense satisfied.  But right along those two godly women kept praying for me, and their earnest talk about anointing for special service set me to thinking.  I asked them to come and talk with me, and they poured out their hearts in prayer that I might receive the filling of the Holy Spirit.  There came a great hunger into my soul.  I did not know what it was.  I began to cry out as I never did before.  I really felt that I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service."

     The book then tells of the great Chicago fire, of D. L. Moody's relief work, the building of the north side tabernacle, and of his visiting in the East to secure funds for his work.  Then the narrative continues:

     "My heart was not in the work of begging," he said.  "I could not appeal.  I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit.  Well, one day, in the city of New York - oh, what a day! - I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name.  Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years.  I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.  I went to preaching again.  The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted.  I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world - it would be as the small dust of the balance."

     D. L. Moody himself made much of this doctrine that Christians should be filled with the Holy Spirit, or baptized with the Holy Spirit, as he himself often put it.

"His early Christian experience had the same characteristics as those of most converts - sinning and repenting, resolving and resolving, and making little or no progress.  Arriving at length to the full conviction that "God has reserved some better things for us," he set his whole heart upon attaining to the "full liberty of the sons of God."  The struggle and the victory which ensued he thus describes in a letter to a friend: "For some days I have been desirous to visit some friends who are distinguished for fervor of piety, and remarkable for the happiness which they enjoy in religion.  It was my hope that, by associating with them, and through the help of their prayers, I might find the Lord more graciously near to my poor soul.

     "My desire was that the Lord would visit me, and 'baptize me with the Holy Spirit;' my cry to Him was 'Seal my soul forever Thine;' I lifted up my heart in prayer that the blessing might descend.  I felt I needed something which I did not possess.  There was void within which must be filled, or I could not be happy.  My earnest desire then was, as it has been ever since I professed religion six years before - that all love of the world might be destroyed, all selfishness should be extirpated; pride banished, unbelief removed, all idols dethroned, everything hostile to holiness and opposed to the Divine will crucified: that holiness ... might be engraven in my heart, and for evermore characterize my conversation.

     My mind was led to reflect on what would be my future situation.  It occurred to me, I am to be hereafter a minister of the gospel.  But how shall I be able to preach in my present state of mind?  I cannot - never, no, never shall I be able to do it with profit, without great overturning in my soul.  I felt that I needed that for which I was then, and for a long time had been hungering and thirsting.  I desired it not for my benefit only, but for that of the Church and the world." ...

     "At this juncture," he says, "I was most delightfully conscious of giving up all to God.  I was enabled to say, Here, Lord, take me - take my whole soul, and seal me Thine - Thine now, and Thine forever!  'If thou wilt Thou canst make me clean.'  Then there ensued such emotions as I never before experienced; all was calm and tranquil, and a solemn heaven of love possessed my whole soul.  I had a witness of God's love to me, and of mine to Him.  Shortly after I was dissolved in tears of love and gratitude to our blessed Lord.  The name of Jesus was precious to me.  'T'was music to the ear,' 'He came as KING, and took full possession of my heart,' and I was enabled to say, 'I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.'" ...

     "People may call this blessing what they please - faith of assurance, holiness, perfect love, sanctification; it makes no difference to me whether they give it a name or no name, it continues a blessed reality, and thanks to my heavenly Father it is my privilege to enjoy it.  It is yours also, and the privilege of all."  How true are the words of the prophet, "Then shall ye seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart!"

(from "Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God", by David McCasland; pages 71, 82-83)

     After I was born again as a lad I enjoyed the presence of Jesus Christ wonderfully, but years passed before I gave myself up thoroughly to His work.  I was in Dunoon College as tutor of Philosophy when Dr. F. B. Meyer came and spoke about the Holy Spirit.  I determined to have all that was going, and went to my room and asked God simply and definitely for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever that meant.

     From that day on for four years, nothing but the overruling grace of God and the kindness of friends kept me out of an asylum.  God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him.  The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence, and the sense of depravity, the vileness and bad-motivedness of my nature was terrific.

....

     I see now that God was taking me by the light of the Holy Spirit and His Word through every ramification of my being.  The last three months of those years things reached a climax, I was getting very desperate.  I knew no one who had what I wanted; in fact I did not know what I did want.  But I knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a fraud.

     Then Luke 11:13 got hold of me - 'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?'

     But how could I, bad motived as I was, possibly ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit?  Then it was borne in upon me that I had to claim the gift from God on the authority of Jesus Christ and testify to having done so.  But the thought came - if you claim the gift of the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ and testify to it, God will make it known to those who know you best how bad you are in heart. And I was not willing to be a fool for Christ's sake.

     But those of you who know the experience, know very well how God brings one to the point of utter despair, and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I was, I cared for nothing on earth, saving to get out of my present condition.

     At a little meeting held during a League of Prayer mission in Dunoon, a well-known lady was asked to take the after meeting.  She did not speak, but set us to prayer, and then sang, 'Touch me again, Lord.'  I felt nothing, but I knew emphatically my time had come, and I rose to my feet.

     I had no vision of God, only a sheer dogged determination to take God at His word and to prove this thing for myself, and I stood up and said so.  That was bad enough but what followed was ten times worse.  After I had sat down the lady worker, who knew me well, said: 'That is very good of our brother, he has spoken like that as an example to the rest of you.'

     I got up again and said: 'I got up for no one's sake, I got up for my own sake; either Christianity is a downright fraud, or I have not got hold of the right end of the stick.'  And then and there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged committal on Luke 11:13.

     I had no vision of heaven or of angels, I had nothing.  I was as dry and empty as ever, no power of realization of God, no witness of the Holy Spirit.  Two days later I was asked to speak at a meeting, and forty souls came out to the front.  Did I praise God?  No, I was terrified and left them to the workers, and went to Mr. MacGregor and told him what had happened.

     He said, 'Don't you remember claiming the Holy Spirit as a gift on the word of Jesus, and that He said: "Ye shall receive power ..."?  This is the power from on high.'

     And like a flash something happened inside me, and I saw that I had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that I might say - Look what I have by putting my all on the altar.

     Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God.  Love is the beginning, love is the middle and love is the end.  After He comes in, all you see is 'Jesus only, Jesus ever.'  When you know what God has done for you, the power and the tyranny of sin is gone and the radiant, unspeakable emancipation of the indwelling Christ has come.

       Entering into this sanctifying relationship with Christ did not come easy for me.  Like many, I sought the experience of entire sanctification repeatedly.  A year after my conversion, I drove across the continent with my pastor to attend a camp meeting on the campus of Pasadena College in California, where several thousand gathered daily to hear the inspired preaching of B. F. Neely and H. V. Miller.  One night I went forward to be entirely sanctified; C. W. Ruth, who at one time had been Phineas F. Bresee's associate at Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene, stepped off the platform and came down to pray with me.  Although I was an earnest and sincere seeker and had the benefit of Dr. Ruth's prayer and counsel, the blessing eluded me.

       As time passed, my search became desperate.  One May day in the following year I locked myself in my bedroom after Sunday dinner with the determination to remain there until my need was met.  Apparently recognizing for the first time my willingness to be sanctified, the Lord exposed to me a sinful pride lurking in my subliminal self.  Going to the heart of my problem, a Voice asked, "Would you be willing to return to Arkansas (I was born in Van Buren, Arkansas), spend your ministry there, and the world never know that Billy Greathouse had ever lived?" (I had already answered a call to preach.)

       "Yes, Lord," I replied, "I am willing never to be heard of if only You will sanctify my heart."

       The Voice then probed more deeply: "Would you be willing to go to China as a missionary?" (This was before the Communist revolution there.)

       "Yes, Lord," I responded, "if You will let Ruth go with me." (I already had serious intentions!)

       No divine response.  Then, probing the depths of my heart, the Voice asked, "Would you be willing to go alone?"

       After some time of hesitation I answered, "Yes, Lord, if that is Your will."

       Instantly I jumped to my feet in ecstasy, my heart flooded with the Spirit and joy unspeakable.  (I did not know that my church then would not commission a single male missionary.)  My quest was satisfied.  Christ had me - totally!  That Sunday afternoon I prayed with John Wesley,

Is there a thing beneath the sun

That strives with Thee my heart to share?

Ah, tear it thence, and reign alone,

The Lord of every motion there!

       In subsequent years the guylines of my life have been severely strained, more than once.  But Christ has kept me hedged in at the very point where He met my deepest need, at the point of abandonment to His will.  At times my grip on Him has seemed tenuous, but His hold upon me has never weakened, "to the praise of the glory of his grace" (Eph. 1:6, KJV).  And I say with John Newton,

Through many dangers, toils, and snares

I have already come.

'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

     For 15 years, I lived in the land of my birth - Seoul, South Korea.  We were Buddhists, but it didn't seem too important to me.  The study of music in a private high school I attended was the biggest think in my life.  

     At the end of my sophomore year, however, my father decided to move to America, and we settled in Los Angeles.  I was very excited.  I was sure I would find greater opportunity in America to become a famous pianist.

     But the opportunities did not materialize and I became disillusioned.  While I was searching for answers I began attending a Korean church.  As I sought God in prayer, He proved himself to me again and again.

     Through a high school teacher, the door opened for me to go to the University of Southern California for piano studies.  It finally seemed I was getting the chance I had been looking for.  But just about that time, my father decided to move again.  I did not want to move and I resisted strongly.  I even prayed for God to change my father's mind.  I tried to bargain with God, but it didn't work.

     After we moved to Kansas City, I visited many churches.  Something was missing.  There had to be more reality to this business of being a Christian.  Whenever I met happy Christians, I tried even harder to be one.  But my pride and anger were too much for me to deal with.  The harder I tried, the worse I became.

     I entered college in Kansas City, where I found there were others studying music with me who shared the same emptiness I felt.  I had thought I was a dedicated Christian, but God began to show me music was really my idol.

     I struggled for some time.  Finally I reached the place where there was no peace, and I felt that if I didn't find it, I might as well die.

     One day when I was browsing in a bookstore, I noticed a book with a wedding couple on the cover.  Opening the cover of Ann Kiemel's book I Gave God Time, I began to read words that seemed to leap from the page and remind me of my own self-centered ambitions.

     What a terrible struggle!  I felt like God was asking me to give Him my music.  How could I give it up?  It was my life!  I had been told many times that I showed great talent.

     I tried again to bargain with God.  On Wednesday, I said to God, "You can have 50 percent of my music."  It was not enough.  On Thursday, I told Him, "God, You can have 75 percent of my music."  But it was "No Deal."

     That Friday, I returned to the bookstore and this time picked up Ann's book YES.  When I opened the book, I read this quote from Betty Scott Stam: "Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life.  I give myself, my time, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever.  Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit.  Use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever."

     My heart fairly leaped within me.  My whole being responded to those words so that I found myself saying right out loud, "Yes, Lord."  What a joy filled my heart!

     That was the turning point for me.  And God has since led in such wonderful ways.  Through a student (under God's leadership, I'm sure), I came in contact with the Church of the Nazarene.  I was immediately attracted to the church.  The people were so enthusiastic and open.  They talked so freely about their relationship with God.  And I found Truth that meets the need of my heart.

     I am still in love with my music, but it belongs to God now.  With great joy, I have given it to Him, and I now want His direction as to where and how He wants me to use my talents.

     God has blessed in another wonderful way.  He has allowed me to be used to show my parents the way.  They now know this Christ I serve, as well!  And my church?  It's like finding a second home!

     My father had removed his family into a new country community.  By special appointment, Rev. Albright was preaching at the neighborhood schoolhouse.  During the second service I became interested in the man and the message he seemed to have for the people.  Addressing my neighbor in the seat beside me, I asked in a low whisper, "What kind of a preacher is Mr. Albright?"  The reply, "A holiness preacher."  "Wherein do holiness preachers differ from other preachers?"  "I cannot answer that.  Perhaps you will be able to see the difference if you listen to this man."  I listened, but I could see nothing objectionable in what he said, so I set him up as the standard and reasoned that those who differed from him must be just that much aside from the center.  So, although not yet a Christian, I came soon to think of myself as somewhat "bent" toward the holiness people.

     It was early spring when I heard Mr. Albright.  In September the holiness camp meeting came on.  The distance from our house was about six miles, and in those horse and buggy days, this was an hour's travel.  I went the first night, only to be disappointed by the failure of the evangelist to arrive for that first service.  I missed a night, and then came again to find the meeting in good swing.  The evangelist was R.L. Averill from Texas.  Night after night he chose the plainest texts and expounded the doctrine of holiness.  He held up holiness as the demand of God's law, the provision of Christ's atonement, and the special work of the Holy Spirit in the present dispensation.  He showed that men must be holy to get to heaven, and that they must obtain this blessing in the world.  He showed from the Bible, the hymns of the Church, and the testimony of men that men are sanctified after they are justified, and that we are made holy by being sanctified wholly after we are justified, and that on this account it is, as John Wesley said, "a second blessing, properly so-called."

     But it was not the preaching alone that interested me.  There was a small but happy band of people ever ready to stand and testify to the marvelous manner in which God had forgiven their sins and subsequently sanctified them wholly.  They sang joyfully, gave liberally, and worked incessantly.  Their religion was manifestly a great boon to them, and I could not resist wishing I had what they said they had, and what they really seemed to possess.

     One of the favorite songs was No. 100 in old Tears and Triumph No. 2.  It was based on the 51st psalm, and the first stanza went as follows:

Wash me throughly, blessed Savior;

Cleanse me from indwelling sin,

Bathe me in the sacred fountain;

Now complete Thy work within.

Every time this song was repeated it seemed to increase in its meaning for me until at last I found myself saying, "If I ever get religion, I want the kind this song represents."

     A the end of 10 days the evangelist had to pass on to his next engagement.  But the people felt they had not yet had the results they desired, so they decided to run the meeting for a few nights more, such preachers as chanced to come along taking the meetings for them from night to night.  And how thankful I am that they had that extra week!  For it was during that week that I was brought under conviction for sin and came to the public altar to pray and seek the Lord.  That first time at the altar marked the crisis, and Christ came and forgave my sins and gave me a new heart.  But I had seen the land of Canaan before I ever left Egypt, and so pressed right on to get sanctification.  So when the camp meeting closed I was clear in the experience of Bible holiness and was already giving clear and definite testimony to the fact that I had found what the preachers had preached and what the Christians had declared.

       On the next day, July 26(1837), during the evening, Phoebe felt led by the Spirit to determine that she would never rest, day or night, until she knew that even her motives were utterly cleansed.  During her prayer time that morning she had been thanking God for Walter(her husband), when suddenly the thought occurred, "What if Walter should die?  Would you shrink from that demand?"  She thought of her three children already in heaven and her conviction that they had been taken because she had idolized them.  She resolved to give Walter up to the Lord but then was interrupted in her devotions.  This interruption caused her to be away from home all day, so it was not until evening that she resumed her prayers.

       Phoebe had believed she was entirely consecrated before, but now it seemed as if the Lord were showing her new areas of commitment.  Just as Jesus had told the disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," and then promised that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth (John 16:12-13), so Phoebe felt the Spirit was leading her beyond what she had ever known:

I felt that the Spirit was leading into a solemn, most sacred, and inviolable compact between God and the soul that came forth from Him, by which, in the sight of God, angels, and men, I was to be united in eternal oneness with the Lord my redeemer, requiring unquestioning allegiance on my part, and infinite love, and everlasting salvation, guidance, and protection, on the part of Him who had loved and redeemed me, so that from henceforth He might say to me, "I will betroth thee unto me for ever" (Hos. 2:19)

       She believed the Holy Spirit was leading her to solidify her commitment to God by making a solemn covenant with him.  She wanted heaven and earth to witness her vows so that they never might be broken.  In making this covenant Phoebe "reckon[ed] herself dead indeed unto sin," accounted herself permanently the Lord's, and thus "in verity no more at her own disposal, but irrevocably the Lord's property, for time and eternity," and "count[ed] all things loss" compared with knowing Christ (Phil. 3:7-10).  Specifically she bound herself "to take the service of God as the absorbing business of life, and to regard heaven as her native home, and the accumulation of treasure in heaven the chief object of ambition.

       Phoebe now believed that her consecration to the Lord was finally "entire, absolute, and unconditional."  But she returned to the old question of whether the Lord had received it.  This question arose again because her experience was so different from that of others, she doubted that God really had accepted her.

       She thought that before she could make an acceptable consecration of herself to God she had to experience a crushing sense of inner corruption and guilt over a long time.  Wesley had taught that a conviction of one's "deep corruption of [the] heart" was necessary before one could long for inner cleansing.  Fletcher spoke of an agonizing repentance, and Phoebe's sister Sarah had felt "overwhelmed" by her guilt eleven years prior to her sanctification.  But instead of this expected conviction of sin, Phoebe had been feeling she was "growing in grace daily."  She believed that each hour "her heavenward progress seemed marked as by the finger of God."  True, that evening she did feel her "utter pollution and helplessness" in a new way, but this realization was not an hour old.  Thus she found it difficult to believe she had come to the place of entire consecration without first passing through the seemingly necessary slow stages of guilt and repentance.

       The other consideration that caused her to doubt that the Lord had accepted her consecration was the absence of any emotion after she had given herself to the Lord.  She expected some confirmation, some sign that the Lord received her.  When none came, she wondered, "How may I know that the Lord does receive me?"  Here, too, the Spirit replied through the Scripture, "It is written, I WILL RECEIVE YOU" (2 Cor. 6:17).  But still Phoebe questioned, "Must I believe it, because it simply stands written, without any other evidence than the Word of God?"

       She was then led to see the absurdity of her position.  She felt the Spirit say to her, "Suppose you should hear a voice, speaking in tones of thunder, from heaven, saying, "I will receive you, would you not believe it then?"  She had to admit that she would believe such a voice.  But then she realized she had always professed to believe that the Bible was as much God's word as if she could hear God speaking in thunder from Mount Sinai.  When she remembered, "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17), she determined that even if she lived to be a hundred "and never [had] anything but the naked Word of God upon which to rely," she would nevertheless trust God, and would say, "The foundation of my faith [is] Thy immutable Word."

       Determined she would believe God's word in the Bible as much as she would believe his word if she heard it from Sinai, Phoebe renounced her doubt that she was accepted by God: "In the strength of Omnipotence I laid hold on the WORD, 'I WILL RECEIVE YOU!'"  God's word seemed "intensified to my mind as the lively, or living oracles - the voice of God to me."  Thus she could no longer doubt that God had received her: "I knew that it could not be otherwise than that God did receive me."

       Even though she finally knew God accepted her, that night's spiritual battle was not yet over.  Once again her experience disappointed her expectations.  Others who had consecrated all and been accepted had burst out in praise when the transaction was complete.  God's work in giving them a clean heart had imparted such joy that they had been "impelled" and "constrained" to express it in thanksgiving.  Phoebe felt no such surge of joy.  No "wonderful manifestation ... at once [followed] as a reward of my faith."  All she had was "faith - naked faith in a naked promise."  She certainly did not feel like rejoicing.

       In answer to these discouraging thoughts, Phoebe sensed the Holy Spirit's voice.  Tenderly he inquired, "Through what power were you enabled to enter into the bonds of an everlasting covenant with God, yielding up that which was dearer to you than life?"  She replied, "It was through the power of Omnipotence.  I could no more have done it of myself than I could have created the world."  "And upon whose WORD do you now rely?" asked the Spirit. "It is on the WORD of the immutable Jehovah," she responded.  Through these questions Phoebe perceived that, with God leading her, she had not missed the way: "Through these reasonings I saw with the clearness of a sunbeam, that it was all from first to last the work of the Spirit."

       Because God had been directing her way and giving her the power to take each step, Phoebe could no longer doubt that the work had been done in her heart.  She next reasoned that if God had done the work, then he deserved the praise:

Now, that I so clearly apprehended that the power to will and to do, was all so manifestly of the Lord, I began to reason with myself thus: "Do I wait to thank a friend who does me a great favor, until I feel an impelling influence to do it?  Do I not do it because it is a duty?  And now, if the Lord has enabled me to make an unconditional and absolute surrender of all my redeemed powers and faculties, and has given his WORD, assuring me that He does receive me, shall I refuse to give Him the glory due to His name, till I feel constraining influences?"

She felt ashamed of herself for being niggardly with praise when God had done so much for her.  That she felt no overpowering emotion was no excuse to hold back what was due to the Lord.  She had a duty to praise him.

     Realizing her duty to praise God for what he had done for her, Phoebe began:

Through Thy grace alone I have been enabled to give myself wholly and forever to Thee.  Thou hast given Thy WORD, assuring me that Thou dost receive.  I believe that WORD!  Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth unrivaled in my heart.  Glory be to the Father!  Glory be to the Son!  Glory be to the Holy Spirit forever!

       While Phoebe was praising God only out of a sense of duty, the mystical experience she had just resigned herself to live without occurred.  In the midst of glorifying the Trinity, "I felt in verity that the seal of consecration was set, and that God had proclaimed me by the testimony of his Spirit, entirely his."  She was ushered into a region of "light, glory, and purity."  She thought she was in heaven:

[My soul] was permitted to pass through the veil of outward things, and return with all its tide of affections, and flow onward to its source, and to feel that nothing but a thin veil of mortality, -which seemed almost drawn aside, -prevented its coming into the full blaze of the presence of Him, "whose favor is better than life"; such was my sense of dwelling in God, and being surrounded by his presence and glory, that it seemed as though my spirit almost mingled in worship with those around the throne.

So close did she feel to God that she could say, "My spirit returned consciously to its source, and rested in the embrace of God."  She was swallowed up in a sea of love: "I felt that I was but as a drop in the ocean of infinite LOVE, and Christ was ALL in ALL."

       As her view of Christ increased, her view of herself decreased.  Aware that only through Christ's power had she come to this blessed experience, Phoebe lost her sense of her own importance.  Although she previously had not often been tempted with pride, now she exclaimed, "Never before did I know the meaning of the word humility....  I saw I was not sufficient in myself to think a good thought, much less to perform a righteous action."  This magnification of Christ and diminution of self led to an enlarged appreciation of the Atonement:

But amid these realizations of utter nothingness, I had such views of the unbounded efficacy of the atonement, that if the guilt of the universe had been concentrated and laid on my head,

The stream of Jesus' precious blood,

Would wash away the dreadful load.

       Phoebe continued exulting in God and what he had done for her.  She rejoiced that he now reigned unrivaled in her heart, and proclaimed, "I am wholly thine! ... now I am wholly, wholly thine!"  While she was saying these words the Holy Spirit spoke again to her heart, "What! wholly the Lord's?  Is not this the holiness that God requires?"  "Is not this sanctification?"  Phoebe saw her mistake in thinking sanctification was some difficult spiritual attainment, far beyond the reach of ordinary Christians.  She had not been seeking sanctification, but had begun only by resolving to be a Bible Christian, and next sought only the conviction that her labors were in the Lord.  From that stage the Lord had led her to a total consecration, and then to seek the assurance that her consecration was accepted.  At the end of the process, she looked back and found that what she had experienced was sanctification.  Instead of being an arcane religious experience, achieved at the end of an arduous spiritual exercise, it seemed so simple and reasonable:

What more reasonable, thought I, now that I have been enabled through grace to resolve on being wholly the Lord's, than that he should set the seal of consecration, and proclaim me his own; and still further, that now, as I had set myself apart exclusively for his service, that he should take cognizance of the act, and ratify the engagements.  So clear was the work, and so entirely apart from any thing like extravagance of feeling, that, as before said, as I had fixed my calculation on the performance of some great thing, such as an earnest struggle of spirit, or uncommon venturing of faith, &c. yet so unlike the simplicity of receiving it, to any of these preconceived views, that in the fullness of my heart, I almost exclaimed, - Why, it is hardly of faith, it is so simple and rational, and just as might have been expected, as the result of such exercise; it is all here, - I through the Spirit's influence, have given all for Christ, and he has revealed himself to me, and now he is my all in ALL.

     Once Phoebe realized she was sanctified, she knew "the blessing I had received was not imparted only for my own enjoyment."  God called her to testify to it.  This testimony would fulfill the scriptural requirement, "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:9), and would encourage others to seek holiness.  Public speaking terrified Phoebe, and dread of this obligation had hindered her spiritual progress for years.  But now she felt that if she did not confess publicly what God had done for her, he would revoke the gift.  Part of giving herself wholly to the Lord was yielding her tongue, and if she should "cease to comply with the terms in being set apart for God," naturally the covenant would be broken.  Jesus seemed to ask, "Will you'acknowledge what God [hath] wrought for [you], perhaps before hundreds?"  So complete was the conquest of grace in her heart, that Phoebe replied, "Yes, Lord Jesus, and before thousands too, if such be thy demand."

       After she had determined to confess publicly that God had sanctified her, she began to wonder whether she would be able to retain the blessing of holiness.  She recalled her natural tendency to question rather than to trust, and then she realized that many others, seemingly more spiritually firm than she, had lost it.  She remembered that even "the sainted Fletcher, of blessed memory," repeatedly did not maintain his sanctification.  If Fletcher could not keep this blessing, how could she?  Phoebe recognized that this line of questioning came from the Adversary, and she put it out of her mind.  She determined she would not even consider his inquiries, because they were likely to lead her astray:

In the strength of Omnipotence, I was enabled firmly to resolve rather to die than to doubt, or even reason with the enemy, assured that if I but ventured to parley, as in the case of the first transgression, his suggestions might soon assume the appearance of plausibility.

     Phoebe had thought she might be spending the night on her knees, but this season of prayer lasted only little more than an hour.  Although she had anticipated a struggle like Jacob's, her victory was surprisingly quick.  So, when some friends paid a late evening visit, she felt free to entertain them.  Walter was away from home on a house call, so after the company left, Phoebe announced the good news to Sarah(her sister) and then went to bed.  Because God had so often communicated with her in dreams before, she hoped for "some glorious manifestation" of his presence while she slept.  Instead, however, of renewed communion with God, she dreamed that a demon had entered the house.  The demon was dressed like a Scotsman, with a white cloak poorly attempting to conceal his black kilt.  His "countenance [was] fiendish in the extreme" and he demanded to see Dr. Palmer.  Phoebe said her husband was in the next room, and when the demon moved toward the door, she began to scream for help.  Trying to scream woke her up.  Immediately she was tempted to question the reality of her sanctification.  If God had really given her this blessing, why did she now seem more open to Satan's influence than before?  She could not answer that question, but since "the deep tranquility of my spirit was not in the least disturbed," she repulsed it unanswered.  She was soon deep in peaceful sleep.

     About an hour and a half later Phoebe had another spiritual visitor.  This once claimed to be from the Lord, and said, "Behold, I, an angel, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called" (Eph. 4:1).  Perhaps Phoebe's suspicions were aroused by the first dream, because she was cautious about accepting this spirit's credentials.  She was put off by his misquotation of the Scripture.  With this she awoke to feel such a sense of God's glory and presence that she was "sweetly assured" that the second visitor had been sent by the Lord.  Walter then returned from his house call to find Phoebe on her knees praising God for deliverance from the satanic temptation and for the assurance the angel brought.  Because Walter had been sanctified several months previously, he was overjoyed to hear what the Lord had done for her and was particularly impressed by the angel's visit.  Phoebe said she almost expected it, so close had been her communion with heaven.

       Thus ended the day Phoebe ever afterward called her "day of days," and whose yearly anniversary she celebrated even more joyfully than her wedding anniversary.