Phineas F. Bresee - A Prince In Israel - Media Sabda Org

In order to meet the requirements of such a career, it was necessary that he should possess unusual
physical strength, and powers of endurance that are rarely found in mortal man. Although of only
medium height, his deep chest, broad shoulders and heavy frame, gave evidence of a powerful
physique. So strong was he that during all the toil and hardships of the first forty years of his
ministry, he rarely felt fatigue.
There is a strength which is coarse and incapable of feeling the finer things of life, or seeing the
invisible beauties and glories which ever envelop us. But, although Phineas F. Bresee was big and
brave and strong, his soul was as delicately poised and as sensitive to environment as an aspen-leaf.
He was nearly fifty-seven years of age when he undertook the trying task of organizing the Church
of the Nazarene. It is now difficult for us to realize the true nature and vast extent of that
undertaking. The church began with only a handful of members. But it was the beginning, not only
of an individual church, but of a denomination and a movement. Its material necessities had to be
attended to. A place of worship had to be built. A church polity had to be adopted. Dr. Bresee's task
was not that of conserving a great work, but of building it from the very foundations. Membership
increased so rapidly that the tabernacle, as it was called, was soon enlarged. To his rapidly increasing
pastoral duties were added those of legislator, editor, educator and financier. And, as other churches
sprang up, the activities of superintendency grew apace. As the years passed by, his labors constantly
increased, and at a time of life when most men are making arrangements to retire from active service,
he was doing the labor of at least three ordinary men.
It was also requisite to his life work that he should be endowed with rare intellectual gifts, and
so he was endued in a high degree with five mental traits which are thus combined in one individual
only a few times in a century. These were: retentive memory, vivid imagination, keen analysis,
marked synthetic ability, and the power of analogy. As a result of these and other rich gifts, he
possessed that three-fold personality of poet, orator and philosopher, which has characterized every
great preacher of ancient and modern times.
Seldom, indeed, is the possessor of these endowments also practical and sagacious; but Phineas
F. Bresee was a strong executive and man of affairs, knowing how to manage men, master difficult
situations, and thus bring things to pass for the glory of God. None could fly higher than he, or soar
longer in the vast altitudes of vision, thought, and rapturous personal experience; but he was also at
home on the ground. His judgment was singularly calm, and dispassionate. He rose into the upper
regions at his own volition, but was never swept off his feet by any sudden gust of passion or wind
of doctrine.
But, even more essential than his powers of mind and body, were a moral nature fitted to the
mighty ministry into which God had called him, a soul commensurate with his service, and a
spiritual life and experience, so maintained and developed by the indwelling Christ, as to respond
to all the demands made upon them.
At this time I will not attempt to depict the great soul of Dr. Bresee, or to describe his Christian
personality. In subsequent chapters, I will essay a characterization of the man, with whom I was
brought into close and tender touch for so long a period. Suffice it to say here that he was