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

and the possessor of an unusually large vocabulary. Some one suggested that Dr. Trimble go on with
the service. He did so, and made an off-hand address on the "Rise and History of Methodism."
A Peculiar Temptation
During all the time that Brother Bresee was Presiding Elder of the Winterset District, he was
passing through an awful experience along the line of doubt. To use his own words: "I had a big load
of carnality on hand always, but it had taken the form of anger, and pride, and worldly ambition. At
last, however, it took the form of doubt. It seemed as though I doubted everything. I thought it was
intellectual, and undertook to answer it. I thought that probably I had gone into the ministry so early
in life, that I had never answered the great questions of being, and of God, and of destiny and sin and
the atonement, and I undertook to answer these great questions. I studied hard to so answer them as
to settle the problems which filled my mind with doubt. Over and over again, I suppose a thousand
times, I built and rebuilt the system of faith, and laid the foundation of revelation, the atonement, the
new birth, destiny, and all that, and tried to assure myself of their truth; I would build a pyramid, and
walk a bout it and say: 'It is so. I know it is so. It is in accord with revelation. It is in accord with my
intuitions. It is in accord with history and human experience. It is so, and I do not question it.' And
I would not get through the assertions of my certainty, before the Devil or something else, would say,
'Suppose it isn't so, after all?' And my doubts would not be any nearer settled than they were before."
Appointed To Chariton
In the fall of 1866, Brother and Sister Bresee went to Chariton, the county seat of Lucas county.
It was a pretty little city of about 3,000 inhabitants. The Methodist church was the strong church of
the town, having a good congregation, with some wealth, and a considerable degree of worldliness.
Brother Bresee, in narrating this chapter in his career, says that he kept about a quarter of the
congregation angry at him all the time, but not the same quarter, as they took turns. He did this by
preaching to them about their worldliness and needs, and, to put it in his words, "They seemed
peculiarly adapted to not liking it very well." One dear sister said, "He will never get me mad," and
the very next Sunday she went home feeling very much offended. He preached to them one morning
on their idolatry, and told them that they were worshiping the world, and were without God. At the
classmeeting which followed this service, the local preacher, who had been a traveling preacher, but
was broken down in health, said that it was very difficult for him to have things properly adjusted;
that whatever he did, he did with all his might; and when he went to college, he studied with all his
might; and when he preached, he preached with all his might; and now that he was a farmer he
farmed with all his might. He concluded his remarks by saying: "If I don't get to heaven, I will be the
worst disappointed fellow you ever saw."
Is Sanctified
Winter came on and they were in the midst of a protracted meeting, but the terrible doubt which
tortured Brother Bresee during his Presiding Eldership, continued to plague him. To again quote his
words: "There came one of those awful, snowy, windy nights, such as blow across the Western plains
occasionally, with the thermometer twenty degrees below zero. Not many were out to church that
night. I tried to preach a little, the best I could. I tried to rally the people to the altar, the few that were