It is sad that to the hearts of so many good people baptism in the Holy Ghost is an unwanted experience. To their eternal loss the great truth has been obscured and discredited, or made undesirable to them by reason of false emphases, and presented upon wrong grounds. Most of these grounds have been laid as a result of mistaken ideas as to its nature and purpose. In itself this is bad enough, but it is not as bad as the ill- effects it has had on earnest souls. Great mischief has been wrought among countless numbers of honest enquirers, deterring them from entering into the full blessings of God. 'For', they say, 'if these people who claim to be baptized in the Spirit cannot even agree among themselves as to what it is all about, or what things a person may look for as proofs that it has taken place in him, of what use is it all?

However unjustifiable it may be, this position is not beyond understanding, for one of the most unhappy features of the controversial issues raised is that all these theories seem to be advanced upon some sort of scriptural basis, which to the unconvinced is most confusing. More exasperating still, many of these theories have also been as well-argued as they appear to have been textually based, which only makes the matter even more perplexing.

Lest this article should become one more contribution to the bewildering maze of ideas at present befogging the issue, let us consider the fact that the Lord: (1) desires that we each have a true spiritual experience of the Baptism in the Spirit, and (2) has in scripture provided us with indisputable facts and sound logical reasons from which we may draw proper conclusions.

With this in mind, we will proceed to examine one of the theories concerning the Baptism in the Spirit as it is held and propagated in some quarters, namely the theory of the 'initial evidence'. Although during the course of this paper, reference will be made to counterfeit experiences, we shall not primarily be concerning ourselves with these. It is our purpose only to establish that which is genuine.

Simply and fairly stated, the theory of initial evidence is that the Baptism in the Spirit must at the time of the experience, or almost immediately following it, be accompanied by speaking words in a tongue completely unknown to the person baptized. This phenomenon is the sole initial evidence that the baptism has genuinely taken place.

(From the book - The True Evidence of Baptism in the Holy Spirit)