Samuel Brengle is still known across the world as one of the much-loved officers of the Salvation army. Born in 1860, he was blessed with godly parents. They were ardent Methodists and on fire for the Lord. Brengle found Christ as Saviour in the Methodist Church after seeking God again and again, before the light broke through and he experienced overwhelming joy and the assurance of salvation. God would use tragedy and trials in his upbringing to form him into the instrument for God’s service that he became! Thousands would find God through his ministry and his book ‘Helps to Holiness’ would bring countless souls into a deeper walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. His father had fought in the civil war when Brengle was but 2 years old, only to return after 9 months in ill health to die 3 months later! The whole family were plunged into poverty. His mother married again 3 years later, but it seemed Brengle was never able to form a close bond with his step-father and was deeply traumatized and isolated by his mother’s death when he was 15 years old. Later, Brengle was to realize that nothing in his life had been an accident and that all the sorrow as submitted to what God had allowed would enable him to a different man to what he would have been without it. Many of Brengle’s written works draw Christians to surrender themselves totally to the Lord and seek to live holy lives. We are privileged to still be able to access them today.