From Twelve Early Nazarene Leaders by Basil Miller
PHINEAS FRANKLIN BRESEE (Founder)

	He had faith in the stars, this Phineas Bresee. For when he stepped out under them, he gave birth to the Church of the Nazarene. Those stars of a brilliant southern California night were glorious with promise -- promise of grander accomplishments in the tomorrows for God than he had dreamed of. How grand the future of that little movement in the ecclesiastical waters he started, he dared not conceive.

	His faith threw into action a gospel work destined within a quarter of a century after his death to circle the globe -- number its ministers by the thousands -- its adherents by the hundreds of thousands.

	His spiritual progeny have never been afraid of the stars -- to step out under them. Like Phineas Bresee, to them the starry heavens above was tent enough for soul pilgrimages, and when occasion demanded they tented with God under the stars in religious achievements which the ages have never seen equaled.

	Back of the Church of the Nazarene -- the youngest and most rapidly growing -- stands Phineas Bresee. The mold of his personality, his evangelistic fervor and the breadth of his vision mark Nazarenes around the world. Others share with him honor and praise in giving birth to the denomination, but as the decades die it will be Phineas Bresee to whom goes the honor of being the man who made the Church of the Nazarene.

Making The Man

	His story reads like fiction. From the log hut where he was born, he sent his name around the world. With scant training he founded colleges which have trained thousands for the ministry.

	His birth was humble. The winds howled on a wintry night as the old year lay dying. It was the year 1838, and around that December 31 time marks a red circle. The place honored by his coming into the world was a few miles from Franklin, in Delaware County, New York.

	That simple log hut must stand in church annals alongside the lean English rectory at Epworth, England, where John Wesley was born. His early life was farm spent, and the proverbial little red schoolhouse, nesting on a neighboring hill, gave him all the training he ever received, except for two winters spent at a so-called academy at Oneonta, New York.

	He was a man whose ability burst not from his training, but from the native genius he had received as an endowment from God.

	He polished his education not in college halls, studying books, untangling roots, but in the school of experience where men were his textbooks. The Holy Spirit was to become his professor, teaching him truth.

	When he was eighteen he was clerking in a store and one February morning, a Rev. Mr. Smith walked into the building and invited young Phineas to attend the revival meeting he was conducting in the Methodist church of the community. Father and Mother Bresee were faithful Methodists, and the minister was not content with platform duties, but must come to grips with souls in personal contact.

	"Yes," promised the clerk, "I'll be there."

	And that night when that unnoted minister preached, the Spirit spoke to the young clerk's heart. Let him tell it.

	"I went and he preached. I thought he never would get through and give me a chance to go to the altar." This was the change that shaped his life for God. From his early childhood he had said, "I'm going to be a preacher," and now the Spirit made this youthful ambition a living reality.

Popular Methodist Preacher

	A few months after his conversion the Methodist church in Iowa, where his father had moved, licensed him to exhort. His first sermon was preached a few miles from Davenport, the text being, "My soul has escaped out the snare of the fowler." What a sermon it was!

	"That is the one," the mature minister said years' later, "I told the boys about, that embraced so much, that it had everything in it I knew." He literally went from Dan to Beersheba preaching the gospel! He roamed from creation to the great white throne, from Egypt's garlic to Canaan's gladness!

	But that sermon catapulted him into the ministry with a noble start. The year after his conversion he accepted his first circuit. Three years later he returned to New York to marry Maria Hibbard, his childhood sweetheart, who through the years of his life proved a faithful companion, a wise lecturer, and a constant inspiration.

	Appointments to better charges soon came. The year after the Civil War started he was the popular minister of the First Methodist Church, Des Moines, Iowa. When only twenty-six, he became presiding elder, a position he graced with keen insight warmed by evangelistic fervor. A few years later when he returned to his first love, the pastorate, he says, "I kept half the congregation angry at me all the time for my strictness." It was during this time under his own preaching that he was sanctified.

	He was a friend-making preacher, and wherever he went groups congregated around his magnetic personality. This popularity caused him to be elected to the General Conference, held in Brooklyn in 1871. As the youngest member of that body his fame spread, and soon sunny southern California, in its desire to have the best, called for his services.

	When forty-five Phineas Bresee, the growing minister, was appointed pastor of the First Church in Los Angeles. Three years later in 1886, he became minister of the First Methodist Church in the crown city of Pasadena. During the four years of his ministry in this city he preached to a crowded building each Sunday, and took into membership a thousand people.

	Such ability again received attention and bishop Mallalieu appointed him presiding elder of the Los Angeles District. During these years he preached sanctification strenuously and was not satisfied until revivals flamed in his churches.

Under The Stars

	During his last Methodist pastorate in 1894 some friends offered to build a tabernacle in Los Angeles where a great spiritual center could be established. To do this he desired to take supernumerary relations with his conference, which was not granted.

	Conscience came before conference, and he chose the way of holiness evangelism. For thirty-seven years he had been a member of a Methodist Conference, and when this relation was severed his soul was scathed.

	Gently the voice spoke, "Your brethren ... that cast you out ... said, Let the Lord be glorified; but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed" (Isa. 66:5). This was a prophecy to be well fulfilled.

	The first Sunday of October, 1895, was auspicious in that the first meeting was called from which came the Church of the Nazarene. God's hand quickly shaped events, and two weeks later -- out under the stars -- at the morning service in a hall, located at 317 South Main Street, Los Angeles, eighty-six people banded together for the organization of the Church of the Nazarene. Their purpose was to preach holiness.

	A few days later the church was organized with 135 charter members. Soon a tabernacle was erected to house this youthful movement. When tidings spread of the new work, calls came for the founder to organize other churches in Berkeley, Oakland and other sections of Los Angeles. Doors were flung wide to this man who dared step out under the stars.

The Strategist

	Dr. Bresee was a popular preacher, who drew crowds to his ministry through the flaming zeal of a revivalist. But he built his new movement, not upon his preaching ability as a mighty Whitefield, but upon the wise strategy of a Wesley. He drew around him men of ability. The outstanding evangelists and preachers of the holiness movement became his allies. Such workers as Bud Robinson, L. Milton Williams, C. W. Ruth, H. C. Morrison, J. A. Wood and others assisted him in laying the foundation.

	He conducted the first Nazarene Assembly in October, 1899, where he presented a Manual, from which sprang the guiding principles and statements of doctrine now channelizing the work of the denomination. From that time on these yearly meetings became a factor in uniting the movement and establishing it upon sound principles. At first he became District Superintendent of the growing work.

	Later when the church demanded the services of a General Superintendent (or bishop), he was elected to the office. He held this position until his death on November 13, 1915.

	Looking upon the great Northwest as a gift from God, he appointed Rev. H. D. Brown as District Superintendent of the territory. From then on, whether presiding over District Assemblies or gracing General Assemblies, the impact of his personality molded the denomination to which his faith gave birth.

	Looking into the tomorrows he founded a paper, called The Nazarene, with the first issue in October, 1898. Two years later this became The Nazarene Messenger, and in 1912 it was consolidated with the Herald of Holiness. His pen was ever busy and in all the issues articles from his fertile brain appeared. This paper cemented the movement into a unity and marking the work was Dr. Bresee's dynamic personality.

	He early realized that he must train his own preachers, to which end he organized the Nazarene University and the Deets Pacific Bible College. The church founder became college president and the first session opened in the autumn of 1902. He saw his college becoming a source of preachers, teachers and laymen, who would carry the Nazarene banner throughout the world.

	From this work came other colleges, until now they strategically dot the nation, the grist mills from which come Nazarene heralds.

	Dr. Bresee traveled from district to district, church to church preaching, organizing, inspiring the new movement. He looked out upon the world as ripe unto harvest, and declared that his movement must not forget the "regions beyond." In 1906 the first missionary work was undertaken in India, and the Mexicans in California came in for their just dues and work was begun among them.

	Today from this insignificant beginning missionaries labor around the world, and thousands of heathen have been converted. Hundreds of natives have been called to preach and now they carry the gospel to their own people.

His Outstretched Arms

	The arms of Phineas Bresee were always outstretched to welcome others to the movement. He felt that God had called him to assist Him in bringing together the bands of holiness people which had sprung up in various sections of the nation. From New England came Hiram F. Reynolds; from New York there was Howard Hoople; from Texas was C. B. Jernigan; from Tennessee was J. O. McClurkan.

	They all found their way to the outstretched arms of Bresee, and together with him they united in the common work of holiness evangelism. This coming together gave birth to what was called "the union," which took place in October, 1907, the place being Chicago. Later other influxes came. The following year Jernigan's churches from the Southwest entered the open door of the Church of the Nazarene. In 1915 McClurkan's groups from Nashville entered the bonds of fellowship, and in the same year Dr. George Sharpe and his work of the British Isles were welcomed into the denomination.

	These unions were marked with spiritual harmony, centralizing around those themes of full salvation for which Dr. Bresee had walked out under the stars.

Evening Star

	As alluring as the avenues of his character are, our story must close. This man who lived under the stars with faith in God's providence was active until the close of a long life. He gave his closing address to his college on September 2, 1915. During the same month his last editorial appeared on "Loyalty." In October of that year, nearing his seventy-eighth birthday, he presided over his last General Assembly.

	During this assembly he took seriously ill, and was rushed from Kansas City to southern California, the land he loved so well. Surrounded by his loving family, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, when the evening stars began to come out, November 13, 1915, the brave warrior, the master kingdom builder, the man who had walked under the stars with God alone passed beyond the pale of the blue sky into his eternal reward.

	When the news of his home-going was flashed upon the wires, the movement to which he gave birth mourned his departure. The voice that had inspired them was hushed in silence until it should break in glorious welcome as one by one they too slipped beyond the line of worlds.

	His monument? you ask.

	It is erected not in stone, but in the hearts of the church he sired. When he stepped out under the stars there was no building to house his people. Should he now return there are thousands of edifices -- both humble and magnificent -- from which a thousand voices would lift a glad acclaim of welcome.

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