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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 about the insufficiency of earthly treasures like the ocean and mountains to satisfy our deepest needs, emphasizing that true wisdom and fulfillment can only be found in Christ, who is our eternal friendship and love. Just as an eagle cannot be detained in the forest but soars to its ancestral halls, the soul of man can only find rest in the Rock of Ages and the attributes of God in Heaven. Through Christ, we find our true Home in God, where we are sheltered, cared for, and surrounded by His presence, making us dead to everything but Him.
Nothing Satisfies
"It is not in me" (Job 28:14). I remember a summer in which I said, "It is the ocean I need," and I went to the ocean; but it seemed to say, "It is not in me!" The ocean did not do for me what I thought it would. Then I said, "The mountains will rest me," and I went to the mountains, and when I awoke in the morning there stood the grand mountain that I had wanted so much to see; but it said, "It is not in me!" It did not satisfy. Ah! I needed the ocean of His love, and the high mountains of His truth within. It was wisdom that the "depths" said they did not contain, and that could not be compared with jewels or gold or precious stones. Christ is wisdom and our deepest need. Our restlessness within can only be met by the revelation of His eternal friendship and love for us.--Margaret Bottome "My heart is there! 'Where, on eternal hills, my loved one dwells Among the lilies and asphodels; Clad in the brightness of the Great White Throne, Glad in the smile of Him who sits thereon, The glory gilding all His wealth of hair And making His immortal face more fair THERE IS MY TREASURE and my heart is there. "My heart is there! 'With Him who made all earthly life so sweet, So fit to live, and yet to die so meet; So mild, so grand, so gentle and so brave, So ready to forgive, so strong to save. His fair, pure Spirit makes the Heavens more fair, And thither rises all my longing prayer THERE IS MY TREASURE and my heart is there." --Favorite poem of the late Chas. E. Cowman You cannot detain the eagle in the forest. You may gather around him a chorus of the choicest birds; you may give him a perch on the goodliest pine; you may charge winged messengers to bring him choicest dainties; but he will spurn them all. Spreading his lofty wings, and with his eye on the Alpine cliff, he will soar away to his own ancestral halls amid the munition of rocks and the wild music of tempest and waterfall. The soul of man, in its eagle soarings, will rest with nothing short of the Rock of Ages. Its ancestral halls are the halls of Heaven. Its munitions of rocks are the attributes of God. The sweep of its majestic flight is Eternity! "Lord, THOU hast been our dwelling place in all generations."--Macduff. "My Home is God Himself"; Christ brought me there. I laid me down within His mighty arms; He took me up, and safe from all alarms He bore me "where no foot but His hath trod," Within the holiest at Home with God, And bade me dwell in Him, rejoicing there. O Holy Place! O Home divinely fair! And we, God's little ones, abiding there. "My Home is God Himself"; it was not so! A long, long road I traveled night and day, And sought to find within myself some way, Aught I could do, or feel to bring me near; Self effort failed, and I was filled with fear, And then I found Christ was the only way, That I must come to Him and in Him stay, And God had told me so. And now "my Home is God," and sheltered there, God meets the trials of my earthly life, God compasses me round from storm and strife, God takes the burden of my daily care. O Wondrous Place! O Home divinely fair! And I, God's little one, safe hidden there. Lord, as I dwell in Thee and Thou in me, So make me dead to everything but Thee; That as I rest within my Home most fair, My soul may evermore and only see My God in everything and everywhere; My Home is God. --Author Unknown
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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.