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Charles E. Cowman

Charles Elmer Cowman (1868 - 1924). American missionary and co-founder of the Oriental Missionary Society (now One Mission Society), born in Toulon, Illinois. Raised Methodist, he worked as a telegraph operator from age 15, rising to a high-paying role in Chicago by 19. Converted in 1894 after hearing A.B. Simpson at Moody Church, he married childhood friend Lettie Burd in 1889. In 1901, they moved to Japan, co-founding the society with Juji Nakada and Ernest Kilbourne, establishing Bible training institutes in Tokyo by 1903. Cowman led the Great Village Campaign (1913-1918), distributing Gospels to 10 million Japanese homes across 161,000 square miles. Known for holiness preaching and organizational zeal, he authored no books but inspired Streams in the Desert by Lettie. They had no children. Health issues forced his return to Los Angeles in 1917, where he continued guiding the mission. His work sparked revivals and trained thousands of native evangelists.
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Charles E. Cowman preaches on the profound truth of divine healing, emphasizing that it is essentially the life of Christ flowing through believers, uniting them with His body and empowering them with His attributes and powers. He highlights the reality of Christ's presence within us, transforming our entire being into a new creation, and the importance of appropriating God's might and power in our lives. Through personal testimony, he shares how this reality has sustained and rejuvenated him, enabling him to do more with less effort, and leading to a life that overflows with strength and vitality.
Members of His Body
"I have found an atonement" (Job 33:24, margin). Divine healing is just divine life. It is the headship of Christ over the body. It is the life of Christ in the frame. It is the union of our members with the very body of Christ and the inflowing life of Christ in our living members. It is as real as His risen and glorified body. It is as reasonable as the fact that He was raised from the dead and is a living Man with a true body and a rational soul today at God's right hand. That living Christ belongs to us in all His attributes and powers. We are members of His body, His flesh and His bones, and if we can only believe and receive it, we may live upon the very life of the Son of God. Lord, help me to know "the Lord for the body and the body for the Lord.' --A. B. Simpson "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." (Zeph. 3:17). This was the text that first flashed the truth of Divine healing into my mind and worn-out body nearly a quarter century ago. It is still the door, wide open more than ever, through which the living Christ passes moment by moment into my redeemed body, filling, energizing, vitalizing it with the presence and power of His own personality, turning my whole being into a "new heaven and new earth." "The Lord, thy God." Thy God. My God. Then all that is in God Almighty is mine and in me just as far as I am able and willing to appropriate Him and all that belongs to Him. This God, "Mighty," ALL Mighty God, is our INSIDE God. He is, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the midst of me, just as really as the sun is in the center of the heavens, or like the great dynamo in the center of the power-house of my three-fold being. He is in the midst, at the center of my physical being. He is in the midst of my brain. He is in the midst of my nerve centers. For twenty-one years it has been not only a living reality to me, but a reality growing deeper and richer, until now at the age of seventy years, I am in every sense a younger, fresher man than I was at thirty. At this present time I am in the strength of God, doing full twice as much work, mental and physical, as I have ever done in the best days of the past, and this observe, with less than half the effort then necessary. My life, physical, mental and spiritual, is like an artesian well--always full, overflowing. To speak, teach, travel by night and day in all weather and through all the sudden and violent changes of our variable climate, is no more effort to me than it is for the mill-wheel to turn when the stream is full or for the pipe to let the water run through. My body, soul and spirit thus redeemed, Sanctified and healed I give, O Lord, to Thee, A consecrated offering Thine ever more to be. That all my powers with all their might In Thy sole glory may unite.--Hallelujah! --Dr. Henry Wilson
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Charles Elmer Cowman (1868 - 1924). American missionary and co-founder of the Oriental Missionary Society (now One Mission Society), born in Toulon, Illinois. Raised Methodist, he worked as a telegraph operator from age 15, rising to a high-paying role in Chicago by 19. Converted in 1894 after hearing A.B. Simpson at Moody Church, he married childhood friend Lettie Burd in 1889. In 1901, they moved to Japan, co-founding the society with Juji Nakada and Ernest Kilbourne, establishing Bible training institutes in Tokyo by 1903. Cowman led the Great Village Campaign (1913-1918), distributing Gospels to 10 million Japanese homes across 161,000 square miles. Known for holiness preaching and organizational zeal, he authored no books but inspired Streams in the Desert by Lettie. They had no children. Health issues forced his return to Los Angeles in 1917, where he continued guiding the mission. His work sparked revivals and trained thousands of native evangelists.