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

unswerving in his loyalty to God and men. He was a faithful friend. His character was beautiful for
its simplicity and deep appreciation of love and kindness. He sympathized with those who failed,
was a stranger to envy, and was full of admiration for his brethren in the ministry. He was so humble
that he did not realize his own strength, greatness and self-sacrifice. To use his own words, in
speaking of the Regnant Man, "It was his to be kind, gentle, patient, to be buffeted and bear the
burdens of men; to weep with those that wept, and to love and care for them for whom nobody else
cared; to be like a river, which never competes with other streams, but opens its bosom, takes them
into its life, and bears them to the great sea."
He was converted when a boy, became a circuit preacher in the Methodist church in his early
youth, and was sanctified in the prime of his manhood. From the time that he came into the
experience of holiness, he was a constant and flaming evangel of that glorious life and doctrine. He
had a mighty passion for souls. He was filled with a burning desire to lead men and women into the
kingdom of God; to induce believers to plunge into the fountain of Jesus' blood and be made every
whit whole. Nothing could divert him from this one thing. He stood for holiness. He favored
everything that was consistent with holiness, and opposed with all his might everything that was
against it. In 1895, he began the work of the Church of the Nazarene with a handful of faithful
believers. During the twenty years that intervened between that time and his death, the church of
which he was the honored and beloved leader, had become a host of nearly thirty-two thousand,
extending all over the American continent, with approximately eight hundred local churches, a great
Publishing House, several Colleges and Universities, and scores of missionaries in every quarter of
the world.