From How They Were Won by Basil Miller
PHINEAS FRANKLIN BRESEE -- Won by an Unknown Preacher

	Numerous personal workers have been responsible for the conversion of those who later in life became founders of denominations. We recall that Frau Cotta influenced Luther, who gave birth to Protestantism and Lutheranism; Will Farel reached John Calvin, who became the intellectual father of Presbyterianism and the Reformed churches; Susanna Wesley and Peter Bohler won John Wesley, who became the sire of the Methodist Church. This line could be extended, but suffice it to say that the founder of the Church of the Nazarene was won by a personal worker, a Rev. Mr. Smith.

	When about seventeen, young Phineas Bresee was a clerk in his father's general store at West Davenport, Iowa. The parents were faithful Methodists, and in February of 1856 a protracted meeting was being conducted in the little church of the section. The pastor, a conscientious man, went to the store where the young clerk was busy attending the duties devolving upon him. The preacher would wait until he was through. Not content to make his sermons the only means of winning souls, he came into personal contact with the young man, and began to talk to him about his soul.

	Those few words became barbed arrows which struck to the heart. They were the means of bringing him under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, and before the day passed by Phineas resolved to become a Christian. Personal contact so brought him under the power of the Spirit that when he arrived at the evening service he could hardly wait until the preacher had finished his message. After the meeting was dismissed, a class meeting was held, and during this the future father of Nazarene-ism was converted.

	Again personal work had paid large dividends. Little did Smith realize the greatness of his "catch." In divine providence the young man became a preacher. Larger churches demanded his services. To the district eldership he was called. In turn he became district evangelist, later an outstanding pastor in southern California. Under the anointing of God, he marched out "under the stars," and a new denomination was brought into being.

	Some forty-two years have passed by since that first tabernacle church came into existence; but today around the world the banner of this denomination has been unfurled. Two thousand or more local congregations have been organized. A quarter million of children have been gathered into her Sunday Schools. On the far-flung line of battle in heathen lands her missionaries are proclaiming the gospel of Christ. Colleges and Publishing House, evangelists and more than three thousand preachers are heralding the tidings of holiness unto the Lord.

	Yes, all are the result of a personal worker, who dared to come to grips with one soul, a clerk in a store.

	Reach out then, friend; where you are there may be standing another Bresee, ready to be brought to Jesus. Smith has passed into oblivion as far as the memory of man is concerned. Yonder on the records of eternal glory, high on the scroll of fame, stands his name side by side with the father of the Nazarenes. You may never labor before the multitudes, as Smith doubtless never did, but you can meet one soul at a roadside store, in a Sunday School class, in a cottage meeting, and have the joy of seeing that one accept Christ. Over such scenes angels rejoice and all heaven is in glad acclaim.

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