Recording of the Voice of Samuel Logan Brengle — Samuel Logan Brengle

A little time ago, two recordings of the voice of the late Commissioner Samuel Brangle were discovered. These are the only known recordings of the Salvation Army's great Apostle of Holiness. We bring them to you in this form in order that they may continue to bring blessing and inspiration to all.

We feel sure that the richness of meaning in the words he brings will more than compensate for the lack of quality in the ancient recordings on which his voice has been preserved. The singing is by the Danforth Songs to Brigade, directed by Eric Sharp, who is also the soloist.

Samuel Brengle’s Testimony of Sanctification

The next voice you will hear will be that of the late Commissioner Samuel Brangle. On January 9, 1885, at about 9 o 'clock in the morning, God sanctified my soul. I was in my own room at the time, but in a few minutes I went out and met a man and told him what God had done for me.

The next morning I met another friend on the street and told him the blessed story. He shouted and praised God and urged me to preach full salvation and compassion everywhere. God used him to encourage and help me.

Confession as a Public Commitment

So the following day I preached on the subject as clearly and forcefully as I could and ended with my testimony. God blessed the word mightily to others, but I think he blessed it most to myself. That confession put me on record.

It cut the bridges down behind me. Three worlds were now looking at me as one who professed that God had given him a clean heart. I could not go back now. I had to go farther. God saw that I meant to be true to death.

The Heaven of Love and Universal Compassion

So two mornings after that, just as I got out of bed and was reading some of the words of Jesus, he gave me such a blessing as I never had dreamed a man could have, this sight of heaven. It was a heaven of love that came into my heart.

In that hour I knew Jesus and I loved him till it seemed my heart would break with love. I loved the sparrows. I loved the dogs. I loved the horses. I loved the little urchins on the street. I loved the strangers who hurried past me.

I loved the heathen. I loved the whole world. You want to know what holiness is? It is pure love. You want to know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is? It is not a mere sentiment. It is not a happy sensation that passes away in the night.

The Transforming Work of Holy Love

It is a baptism of love that brings every thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus, that casts out all fear, that burns up doubt and unbelief as fire burns coal, that makes one meek and lowly in heart.

Sanctification as Freedom from Sin and Fullness of Love

Years ago, before many of the young people for whom this book is written were born, a girl asked me, what is this sanctification or holiness that people are talking so much about? She had heard the experience testified to and talked and preached about for nearly a year, until I thought that of course she understood it.

Her question surprised and almost discouraged me, but I rallied and asked, have you a bad temper or a temper like a volcano? Sanctification, I replied, is to have that bad temper taken out. That definition set her thinking and did her good, but it was too narrow.

If I had said sanctification is to have temper and all sin taken away, and the heart filled with love to God and man, that would have done, for that is sanctification, that is holiness. It is in our measure to be made like God, it is to be made a partaker of the divine nature.

Sharing in God’s Nature

A spark from the fire is like the fire. The tiniest trick on the giant oak or the smallest branch of the vine has the nature of the oak or the vine and is in that respect like the oak or the vine. A drop of water on the end of your finger from the ocean is like the ocean, not in its size of course, nor the big ships cannot float upon it, nor the big fishes swim in it, but it is like the ocean in its essence, in its character, in its nature.

Just so a holy person is like God, not that he is infinite as God is, he does not know everything, he has not all power and wisdom as God has, but he is like God in his nature. He is good and pure and loving and just in the same way that God is.

Holiness as Likeness to God

Holiness then is conformity to the nature of God. It is likeness to God as he is revealed in Jesus. But some of them cry out, impossible, we are poor sinful creatures.