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

parents for a little visit, and from there they went to the annual conference, which was held at
Oskaloosa, Iowa.
Appointed To Grinnell
He had been a member of the conference three years, and was sent to Grinnell. The place took its
name from J. B. Grinnell, who was a member of Congress and a great Abolitionist. He went from
New England to Iowa, and founded the town and college of Grinnell. It was a place of a thousand
or fifteen hundred inhabitants. Brother Bresee was assigned to a circuit, with five or six
appointments, which made it necessary to preach three times every Sunday.
The Civil War
While there, the Civil war began, and it was a time of great hardship. Heretofore the money in use
had consisted of currency issued by the state banks, but shortly after the beginning of hostilities, it
became practically worthless. Under these circumstances, it was extremely difficult to obtain the
necessaries of life, and business was almost paralyzed. For a time the people had to get along the best
they could without money. It was under these circumstances that Mrs. Bresee was compelled to use
a little gold dollar, which had been presented to her by her husband, for the purpose of buying
postage stamps to enable her to correspond with her family in New York state. Of course, there was
great excitement, and war conditions were not favorable to spiritual life. Nevertheless, the young
preacher met with a fair degree of success, and there were revivals at most of his appointments. I can
not better describe these times than by quoting from Dr. Bresee:
"The first soldiers were called out that year. One of the first who volunteered in this part of the
country, was a member of our church, and the people were horrified at the idea of a man leaving his
family and children and going to the war. I will never forget the awful feeling. We stayed at Grinnell
one year. We lived largely on faith. You would hardly believe that one sack of flour, with a few
pounds of buckwheat to make pancakes, did us that year. My wife had clothes enough when she was
married, so that she did not have to buy more. I did not need anything much, and we got on. Still we
were in debt somewhat when we left that circuit, a thing that I never allowed to occur again.
Although the people did not support us so that we could keep out of debt, they strenuously believed
that it was bad in a preacher not to pay his debts, which is true. But when a minister got in debt for
something to live on, because the people didn't pay him, it was not an unforgivable crime. They
desired my return very much to that circuit, but the war had already begun, and one of the
appointments was made up largely of Southern people. They were very strong in their feeling of
sympathy with the Rebellion, and I was very strong in my loyalty, and anti-slavery conviction.
Hence, I did not feel that it was best for the church on that charge for me to go back. I had already
more or less grieved these people by my preaching of what they regarded as Abolition doctrine, and
I saw that it would be very difficult for me to get along with them. So I told the Presiding Elder that
I did not want to go back. He intimated to me that I might get a poorer appointment." This turned
out to be a true prophecy, as we will see.