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

When Dr. Bresee was born, this country was in a comparatively primitive condition. The great
inventions which make it what it is today, were then nearly all unknown. The Mexican war was still
in the future. He came to manhood before the great Civil war began. During that conflict, he was a
radical Union man, and made a practice of draping his pulpit with the American flag, thus offending
many Southern sympathizers, who otherwise would have been his fast friends. He was a deeply
interested spectator of all the great events which took place in the world during the nearly seventy
years that elapsed from the time of his boyhood to his death in 1915. His views were pronounced on
all the great questions which arose during that period.
I never knew any other man who exerted so profound a personal influence upon his associates.
Those who were brought into close contact with him were unconsciously to him, and unconsciously
to themselves, deeply changed by their association with him. This was especially true in regard to
the safeness and saneness of his judgment, his remarkable intensity of soul, and his constant
insistence that holiness must always have the right-of-way. In fact, the entire Nazarene movement
became imbued with these three characteristics. As Dr. Bresee so often said, the Nazarenes are the
rough riders of the holiness movement. They have desperation and intensity. Holiness occupies the
central place in their doctrine, polity, experience and propaganda. The work has also been peculiarly
free from extravagance and fanaticism.
Words are weak for portraying a great personality. Life, character, disposition, motive, are subtle
things, which largely defy analysis. Phineas F. Bresee was one of the greatest men who have arisen
in the church of Christ through all the ages; and great men are seen from so many viewpoints that
to adequately depict them as they really were, is impossible.
From early childhood, he had the settled conviction that his life work would be that of a preacher.
Later, when God called him to the ministry, he had no difficulty in recognizing the genuineness of
the call.
That he was divinely appointed for a great work; that he was physically and mentally endowed
for a long, active and arduous career; that he was prepared and fitted by heredity, environment,
training, and the stern discipline of his earlier ministry, for leadership in the mighty movement of
organized holiness, is as infallibly true as the divine call of any of the men of God who have led the
Church to victory in all the centuries.
God gave this man a dominating personality, and put the stamp of greatness upon him so indelibly
and conspicuously as to compel recognition by all with whom he was brought into close association.
The purpose of God was that he should endure hardness; that he should bear heavy burdens of
responsibility; that he should labor long and incessantly in the cause of Christ; that he should make
many and trying sacrifices; and that he should suffer numerous and grievous afflictions for Jesus'
sake. But it was also divinely planned that he should prevail over his enemies; that he should meet
with almost unbroken success in the holy conflict; that he should win many glorious victories; that
he should be tenderly loved and revered by multitudes of the Lord's people; and that he should be
honored during his lifetime and by his contemporaries as few great men have ever been before.