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

him old Father Lull. He was a man of considerable genius and ability, and he preached in the
morning. After the morning service they had a classmeeting, which was the custom in those early
days; and it was during that classmeeting that I was converted, and I realized that the peace of God
came into my soul at that classmeeting. I at once began to try and do Christian work. My soul was
filled with great intensity for doing the work of the Lord, and I began to hold prayermeetings, talk
to and exhort the people, and do all I could to push along the work. After a few months, Brother
Smith gave me a license to exhort, which I proceeded not to use. I was very bashful and modest,
though I tried to work and do things. He made several appointments for me, which I did not go to
fill. I never had used my license for any special service, or regular public service until the next
spring, when my father sold the store. I always felt called to preach from the time I was born, or
began to know anything. I remember when I was a very little boy, that the leading man in the
community, who lived right down near where the turnpike road turned off from the Ouleout road,
spoke to me on the subject. He was Captain Miller, a large man with a good deal of dignity. He put
his hand on my head, and said: 'Now what are you going to do when you are a man?' I was too
embarrassed to answer, but he asked me one question after another, and he said: 'You will be a
minister, won't you?' And I suppose there was some response in my face. He said: 'Oh, yes; that is
it. That is the noblest calling of all.' And I always wondered that everybody did not know. I thought
he was smart, and that he knew that I was to be a preacher, and I wondered that everybody didn't
know. When I was just a little boy, it was as clear to me that I was to be a preacher, as it ever has
been since. But by my father's contract, I was tied up in this arrangement at the store for five years
from the time we began there, of which three years probably were still to run. I thought it over, and
in praying about it, I said: 'Well, Lord, I am tied up here. If Thou wilt open the way, I will go.' I don't
suppose it was more than two weeks until my father sold out, and I was left free to go. My father
soon arranged to move to Iowa. Some of my friends insisted that I should preach before I went, and
they made me an appointment down at a place called the Hemlocks, about two miles and a half from
West Davenport, where there was a regular meeting on Sunday afternoons. It was the appointment
of the junior preacher, but it was announced that I would preach. So I went down there with the
junior preacher and preached, or tried to. That was my first sermon. I tried to preach from the text:
'My soul has escaped out of the snare of the fowler. The snare has broken and the bird has escaped.'
It is in one of the Psalms. That was my first text and my first sermon. That is the one that I told the
boys about, that embraced so much, that it had in it everything I knew. I was just a boy. It began
away back before the creation of the world, came down through the Garden of Eden, along down to
the fall, and down through the ages to the Incarnation and the Atonement, and then on through the
years until the time I was born, my conversion, then on to the judgment, and on through eternity.
Although I put everything I knew in it, it was only about twenty minutes long. I wondered what in
the world a fellow would ever preach about at another sermon, for I had everything in that. I came
to Iowa with one sermon."
A matter of some interest in connection with Doctor Bresee's middle name, is the fact that his
parents called him "Phineas," and he was baptized by that name. When he grew up to manhood, he
found himself without any middle name, and "Phineas" being such a common name in his family,
he wanted something distinctive, and after talking it over with his parents, he insisted, and they
agreed, that he should take "Franklin," the name of the town in which he was born, for his middle
name.