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

The following is Dr. Bresee's outline of his great address, delivered at the Nazarene University
on Commencement Day, 1915, the last occasion of this kind at which he was permitted to
participate:
There are stadia in the lives of men, crisis points, birthdays of new departures, arrests, and
startings which awaken reflection. We have reached such a point today. Slowly, with toilsome effort,
we have reached this place. We tarry to look back down along the valleys by which we have come,
and to turn our eyes and look up along the hillsides, hoping to catch, at least, some vision of the city
that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Life is not all sunshine. There are to most people, some days at least a few, of mildness and calm,
of freshness and beauty, like a bright, early June day, when the sun laves the landscape in golden
beauty, when valley and stream and hill and mountain and azure and flecking cloud all seem to
combine like a variegated jewel reflecting the golden light, and our spirit seems to respond to it all
with unfettered delight; and for a little moment it seems a luxury to be alive. There are times when
love and friendship and home are about us, and we feel a sense of peace. There are some Elims in
this wilderness with palm trees and springs of water.
Then there are days of storm with some, many days--when the beating tempest is upon us, when
the winds blow cold and chill, when the tornadoes sweep, when the thunder shakes the earth, and
the forked lightnings are athwart the heavens, when our hearts and brows are beaten, and there seems
no refuge.
There are some human crafts on life's ocean which, like the boat that bore Paul and his fellows
toward Rome, get along very well with sunshine and a favorable wind, but are only driven before
the euroclydon that comes down from the mountains, or the cyclone that comes from the great
deserts.
There are other souls, like the great steamship, not dependent on or controlled by outside forces,
moving steadily through storm and tempest, on toward its destined port.
There may be no absolute safety outside the gates of pearl. There may be the artillery of the world,
the icebergs of the forces of darkness, or the submarines of the arch-demons; but there may also be
the power within that does not swerve.
When Jesus our Lord and Master, was in the midst of the swellings of the billows of the most
terrific storm that ever raged upon the ocean of human life, as He stood before Pilate, who asked,
"Art thou a king then?" He answered: "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth." There was one unchanging
purpose. Neither mockery, nor buffeting, nor the scourge, nor the cross, nor the deeper darkness, nor
the untold agony of utter suffering could swerve Him from that purpose. There was but one end, the
regnant end, to bear witness to the truth.
This is the crucial purpose of every human life. To this end was I born, and for this cause came
I into the world. Man's being in this world has but one purpose, and that is the same as the