Is it possible to find a specific iMessage from a conversation?

Using an iPad Air (still running iOS 7), is it possible to search through an iMessage conversation to find a specific message (or highlight all messages) that feature a given string I've searched for?

So far, in my attempts, a search for a given string takes me to the last message in the conversation, which, given the (at least) several hundred messages, is not spectacularly useful. I suspect that, with an iMac, or MacBook etc, this would be easier, but I don't own one; and sadly the convenience isn't quite worth the cost of purchase.