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

Maple Mills Campmeeting
Before going to Chicago, Dr. Bresee held several other meetings in Illinois, the first of which was
at Maple Mills. I can not do better than to describe this meeting in his own graphic words:
"I arrived on the campground here on Thursday afternoon, August 4, 1904, the meeting beginning
that night. There are a number of tents--twenty-one--besides the tabernacle in which the meeting is
held. We are in a nice grove, surrounded by a well cultivated and rich farming country. The towns
in the immediate neighborhood are small hamlets, although there are some towns of several thousand
people a few miles away, among which are Lewiston, the county seat, and further away the larger
city of Canton; but this is strictly a farming country. The night services from the beginning have been
well attended; the services during the day have been thus far made up mostly of those tenting on the
grounds. The Sabbath services throughout the day brought all those that could be accommodated.
The grounds are quite distant from the railroad, and seem to one unacquainted with the ways of
getting here, to be rather inaccessible to people from a distance.
"One lady residing at Rockford, Ill., who takes the Nazarene Messenger, and who was hungering
and thirsting for full salvation, left her home on Saturday, and was so delayed that she did not arrive
until Sunday. She came into the meeting Monday morning, and at once arose and told of her hunger
and thirst, and that she had come to seek the blessing. While she spoke, the heavens opened upon
her, and with great joy and holy triumph she was able to tell of the sanctifying power of the blood
of Jesus.
"I have with me here as special workers in the meeting, Rev. B. W. Golden, an evangelist from
Bagley, Iowa, who is a member of the Society of Friends, thoroughly Wesleyan in his preaching, and
an experienced and able worker; also Mrs. Rose Potter Crist, from Topeka, Kansas, a lady of
excellent ability as a leader of song, and as a general worker, especially at the altar.
"This meeting, like that which I held in Kansas, has been largely made up of country people. I am
led to think that, while the city has its difficult questions in reference to reaching the people,
especially the young people, with the gospel, that the country districts are not without their own
problems relative to the same matters, which must be studied from their own standpoint. For a long
time I have been so far removed from them, that I do not suppose I have compassed them, but I can
not help seeing something of the conditions.
"Their social life, together with its entertainments and amusements, seems to be quite different
from what they are in the city. They come together from considerable distances, and getting
acquainted and associating together, they seem to come more under each other's influence, to have
less individuality and independence, and to be more gregarious, to move more as a flock, than the
young people of the city, at least of the Western cities with which I am more especially familiar. I
am not discussing the excellencies of either class, but these conditions make the country class, as it
seems to me, more difficult to reach, in that it is almost impossible to get one segregated from the
common influence of the flock, and to persuade him to come out from among his fellows and seek
the Lord--as all must--on his own hook. When a revival occurs in a particular District, and a break
is made, and some influential person goes, the flock follows. Few of them, however, get any real