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

Peter and John were going up into the temple. I had a good time, and evidently Simpson was greatly
pleased with me. Seemingly I was a promising young lad, and those old fellows always had their
eyes out for the boys, to get them. As I heard Bishop Janes say one day when he was preaching with
all his might on the ministry--suddenly pausing in his sermon: 'Brother, brother, get hold of the boys;
get hold of the boys. Get them out on the circuit before these college presidents and professors get
hold of them.' They worked on that principle.
Kosta
"So Simpson said that he was going to hold a campmeeting over along the Iowa river, at Kosta,
early in the fall of 1857, and he insisted that I should come to that campmeeting. He said that he
would have the class at Kosta recommend me to that quarterly conference, and would have me
licensed to preach, and recommended to the Annual Conference, and that I should unite with the
Conference. It was necessary for him to take that course, because the quarterly conference at Kosta,
of which I speak, had adjourned. Simpson arranged with the preacher to do that, and I didn't hear
anything more of it. I went to the campmeeting about twenty miles over on the Iowa river. There
were a live set of Methodists over there, at Kosta, a strong class of really hallelujah people. So
Simpson put me up to preach, and I tried to preach the best I could. However, the people who
belonged to the class at Millersburg, and who didn't know anything about me, or know me at all, but
had only seen me two or three times, said that, although they were not acquainted with me, still if
I could preach any, they needed me very much in that country, and that it was not worth while to
recommend me to this other quarterly conference, because they had plenty for me to do there.
Accordingly they refused to recommend me. So when Simpson came to the campmeeting, I was
there, and he found no recommendation; but in those days they had a way of doing things, anyway.
He said that it didn't make any difference; he was going to recommend me, and he recommended me
to the quarterly conference, and had me licensed and recommended to the Annual Conference; after
which they requested that I be sent to that circuit as the junior preacher, which was done."
Rev. A. C. Barnhart was the preacher in charge He was a man of great hortatory force and a very
good man. Although not a great preacher, he could exhort and pray, and sing his way through. This
was a four weeks' circuit. It extended from some place between Marengo and Iowa City, west, for
about fifteen or twenty miles, up the Iowa river, then directly west across the prairies an equal
distance, and then extended south to Brooklyn. At that point it turned east again and went down into
Iowa county to Williamsburg, and then back to Marengo. This was the Marengo circuit. Marengo
was the county seat of Iowa county.
Davy Jones' Locker
In the northwest part of that circuit there lived a man named Jones. The place was so isolated that
it was commonly called 'Davy Jones' Locker." Nevertheless, the people would gather together there
to attend meetings. It looked as if there was not another human being living within the range of
vision anywhere in the neighborhood. However, many of the settlers who lived in little cottages
which were out of sight, would come with their oxen, wagons, horses, guns, babies and older
children, and people would gather from far and near. During the service, Mrs. Jones would prepare
dinner for them all. Although the Jones family lived in a log house, amid somewhat primitive