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

conditions, rousing religious services were held there, and the Lord greatly blessed the efforts of the
young preacher. In June, 1908, when Doctor Bresee, fifty years after the meetings held in the log
house of Brother Jones, was dedicating the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene at Berkeley, Cal.,
he told in his sermon about something that had occurred at one of these meetings in Davy Jones'
Locker. At the conclusion of the service, an old gentleman came forward, and said that his name was
Jones, that he was the son of the Jones that lived in the old log house, and that he was a small boy
when Doctor Bresee was on that circuit. He stated that his mother had written to him not long before
to the effect that Doctor Bresee was somewhere on the Pacific Coast, and that if he ever discovered
his whereabouts, he was to bear her remembrances to him.
Revival At Marengo
Doctor Bresee held protracted meetings all over the circuit in 1857 and 1858, and a great revival
took place at Marengo. Among those who were converted, was Judge Miller, one of the most
prominent men in the community. He happened to come to a testimony meeting, where Brother
Barnhard was calling on different persons to tell what they thought about salvation, and he asked the
Judge, who was not a Christian man, to tell what he thought. He replied that he did not know as he
believed in religion at all, and then sat down. As he afterward related his experience, the Devil said:
"Now, you know you are a liar. You know you believe in religion." He said that Satan tormented him
in this way until he got under conviction and was powerfully converted.
Doctor Bresee narrated a rather amusing incident which occurred at one of the protracted meetings
at Brooklyn. To put it in his words: "Brother Barnhard went ahead to begin the services, and I was
to fill the appointment and come later. A few days after he opened the meeting, I came and stopped
at the hotel. They were Methodist people. I saw these same people many years afterward, and we had
quite a laugh over what occurred.
"As I sat in the hotel parlor, I remarked, 'Well, Brother Barnhard, how does the meeting go?' He
said, 'Pretty well.' I said, 'I had such a strange dream about you.' He said, 'What was it?' 'Well,' I said,
'I dreamed that you and I went fishing, and were fishing along down the brook, with our hands,
catching some fishes, quite nice fish, and all at once you stirred up a snake, and it stood right up
before you, and ran out its tongue at you, and you had a tremendous fight with that snake.' 'Well,' he
said, 'That is a true vision. I have caught some fish, and I have seen the snake.' He referred to a
certain woman that was in the meeting, and gave me a little description of the occurrence. Who heard
us talking we never knew, but our conversation was overheard, and that woman was told about it.
As a result, she got up in the meeting and abused Barnhard, just as the snake had attacked him in my
dream."
Sent To Pella
In the autumn of 1858, Dr. Bresee was sent to Pella. This town had been founded by a Holland
colony, led by a distinguished exile from Holland, who induced a large number of Hollanders to
come to this country. With them he established on the prairie a town which has now become quite
a city. It was then a place of three or four thousand inhabitants, with one little Methodist church. It
was what was called a half station. There was preaching in town every Sunday morning and night,