FLOYD WILLIAM NEASE
FLOYD WILLIAM NEASE
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Floyd William Nease was born at Vassar, Michigan. Next to his conversion at an early
age, he owed more to his godly parentage than any other one factor of his effective life. His father, William O. Nease, a minister of the gospel, was of an intense religious nature that found its expression and exercise in the practical direction of the home life of his family. Prolonged seasons of prayer in which earnest petitions, watered with fervent tears and punctuated by shouts of joy, were very often the outcome of a morning season of worship.
Father Nease, while actuated by an unusual fervency of love for his children, exacted a
discipline of obedience that was often attended by severe punishment upon the offender. He scrutinized not only the acts and conversation of his children, but the passions and motives that prompted them, stating that to be guilty of uncontrolled anger was as wrong in the sight of God as to swear, or to lie, or to steal. Such studied discrimination developed a keen and exacting conscience in the members of the home circle.
Floyd’s mother, Agnes Wotring Nease, a woman of even tempers, high ideals and noble
ambitions, surrounded her family with an atmosphere of purity, faith and nobility that made a lasting contribution to the character of those for whom she was responsible.
This combination of rigid discipline and true nobility under a careful Christian atmosphere
gendered in the life of her son a background for religious and intellectual achievement that bears direct relation to the enriched life that he lived.
The subject of this sketch was the second child of a family of four — in all, three boys and a
girl. He showed the usual reaction of a normal child in his contact with family and neighbor associates. Quick to sense injustice in a flash of temper he would resist it, but would as quickly subside to forgiving congeniality. Always a lover of the outdoors he early turned to athletics, and while never permitted by his parents to go to excess, he was ever one to be reckoned with on the
field where skill and daring were involved. This developed in him a sense of fair play and a physique that called forth comment from neighbors and friends.
Living the life of a son of an itinerant minister, he was constantly thrown in the company of
groups of new people, never until the later years of his life did he overcome a shyness and reserve that was often mistaken at first acquaintance for a sense of aloofness. Those who knew him best as youth and adult knew him to be possessed of a humility that was simple but genuine.
Under the definite Christian atmosphere of his parents’ godly home, and under the piercing
ray of truth, to which he was frequently subjected by his parents who were regular attendants at revivals and campmeetings, he was early led to seek the Lord. Many times as a child his heart was moved upon by the Spirit of grace and he would be found among those seeking the Lord.
While not given to the usual vacillation so common to youth, yet he dated the religious
crisis of his life to a camp meeting held in Owosso, Michigan, when about sixteen years of age, under the preaching of Rev. George B. Kulp. He found his way to the crude altar of prayer and there kneeling in the straw wept his way to pardon and adoption. Often have I heard him tell it, how the oak covered hill where the camp was located, appeared to him to have broken out into the fresh verdure of spring and all the world seemed to have tuned itself to the happy melody of his heart’s new found rapture.
Not long after that time under the ministry of Rev. Charles H. Stalker in a little Holiness
church of the city of Owosso, where his parents had come to live, he sought and received the baptism with the Holy Ghost in a quiet but complete dedication of his life to the will and service of God. These crises in his life proved to be an epoch from which he never swerved living in unbroken fellowship with God from the time of these experiences to the hour of his translation. Secret prayer maintained a prominent place in his life even in these early years. Often his voice could be heard, as the evening shadows fell, in prayer. In his room alone he held communion with his God. This practice explains the reason for his unbroken walk with God.
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Source: “Symphonies of Praise” by Floyd William Nease
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HOW THEY ENTERED CANAAN (A Collection of Holiness Experience Accounts) Compiled by Duane V. Maxey
Vol. I — Named Accounts