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PHILLIPS BROOKS

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)—a splendid man, six feet four inches tall, broad-shouldered, weight about two hundred pounds, head of classic mold silhouetted against the subdued

colors of a church chancel, a face of wondrous beauty and kindness, with thoughtful, deep-set eyes and expressive mouth responsive to the lofty emotions that welled up from a pure heart, an expression that caught the glow of the softened. sunlight as it shook down from the dome above, adding splendor to a radiant countenance- such was the picture seen by a student who claimed a seat every Sunday afternoon for a year in the east gallery of Trinity Church, Boston. But when

this wondrous man opened his lips to speak, the deep tones of his voice filled the vaulted nave and transepts while the currents of his spirit flowed so naturally into the soul of the student that the physical form of Phillips Brooks was obscured in the irresistible eloquence that permeated his audience and inspired them to loftier ideals of life. Such was Phillips Brooks at fifty-six years of age, at the height

of his power and influence, as a leader of men and the peerless preacher of his time.

But what can be found in the study of this man's life to help the aspiring student of oratory on the highway to success? In the first place, Phillips Brooks was well-born - the fruitage of nine generations of Puritan stock that had already produced a Wendell Phillips and the founders of Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover academies, and Andover Theological Seminary. Throughout his tender formative years and well into mature life he had the guidance of a wise father and the tender solicitude of an unusually inspiring mother. A tutor, Miss Chapin, prepared him for the grammar school, and at eleven years of age he entered the Boston Latin School and prepared for college. Here he acquired a taste for the classics. It is said that he cared but little for boyish sports, but was eager for books and a knowledge of men and things. To this may be traced his maturer love for city life. and his fondness for a metropolitan parish. In the fall of 1851, at the age of sixteen, he entered Harvard College where he won distinction in scholarship and was one of the editors of the Harvard Monthly. It is interesting to note that he was a product of old Harvard, which laid stress upon the classics and the inspirational side of education. He was a follower of the prescribed curriculum, but claimed his full share of elective privileges so far as they contributed to literary culture. He cared but little for the mechanical arts and sciences, and had an aversion to formal philosophy and metaphysical dogmas, but he reveled in the study of the classical dramatists and the Greek interpretation of life. He was a rapid worker and so found time for outside reading-to forage in libraries and study the lives of great men like Luther, Cromwell, and Mohammed. He was graduated in 1855, not quite twenty years of age, with no plan for the

future; he had attained scholarship and a taste for literary work, but there was no call to a business or professional life. Then came a transitional year which he gave to the consideration of a calling in life, and as a temporary expedient he taught in the Boston Latin School. He made a failure of teaching, but reached a clear decision to enter the ministry as his life work.

At the age of twenty-one he entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia, and was graduated three years later. He was then offered an assistant pastorate in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia by the Reverend Alexander Vinton, D. D., who had watched the progress of the young theologue and was much pleased with his first sermon ; but Phillips Brooks here made a wise choice at a turning point in his career and accepted a call to the Church of the Advent in the same city. The value of this decision can never be fully estimated. At this period of his life, when his habits of public speech were forming, it cannot be stated how far he might have imitated the methods of the chief pastor of Trinity; but certain it is that he was now thrown upon his own resources and required to work out his own methods. He grew steadily as a preacher, and became so favorably known to the public that calls came to him from the large churches of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Harrisburg, Providence, Newport, and even San Francisco.

In 1861 Dr. Vinton resigned the pastorate of Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, and Mr. Brooks accepted a unanimous call to that church. Here was his great opportunity, and here he rose to great prominence as a molder of public thought and the expounder of the gospel of peace, in the midst of a fratricidal war. The dramatic scenes that surrounded him, no less than the calling of his high mission, spurred him to his best endeavor at all times, and he became a tower of strength in Church and State.

At the close of the war he was offered a professorship of ecclesiastical history in the Philadelphia Divinity School,—a call which sorely tempted him, but the trustees of Trinity and the clergy at large pointed out that his greatest field for usefulness was the pulpit, and he was prevailed upon to remain in his church. But the question raised revealed the fact that the young preacher felt the need of more time for study and preparation, and his congregation not only relieved him of some of his pastoral work, but gave him his first trip abroad. This opened up a new field of study and furnished food for thought which enlarged his mind and yielded an abundant return to his congregation.

In 1869 Dr. Brooks accepted a call to Trinity Church, Boston, to which he gave twenty-two years of his life. From this "throne of power" he preached to the world and was recognized as the most potent theological force of his time. His profound mastery of the great principles of human life, his study of man and nature, his knowledge of current theological aggression that was battling against the rising tides of skepticism, together with his rich experience and complete control of his own powers, now swept him into that productive period which has enriched the moral world with volume after volume of his speeches. Four large volumes of his sermons and a volume of essays and addresses were given to the reading world. In 1877 his Yale lectures on preaching appeared, giving the natural functions and method of the sermon, which proved at once a guide and teacher for the ministerial student. In 1879 a volume of lectures on the influence of Jesus on the moral, social, emotional, and intellectual life of man appeared. "Sermons preached in English Churches" were thrown together in one volume, and numerous special sermons, essays, and addresses — the very names of which would fill our allotted space in this

book

found a reading audience in pamphlet, magazine, and the daily press.

In 1881 Dr. Brooks was called a second time to take the chair of Christian ethics in Harvard University and to build a great school of modern theological thought in this influential center of learning, and he was again tempted to doff the surplice for the professorial gown, but after deep consideration he decided to remain a preacher of the gospel. He consented, however, to become one of the Harvard preachers, and he delivered many noted sermons before the students on special occasions. He also accepted more calls for occasional sermons outside of Trinity Church.

In 1891 Dr. Brooks was made bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Massachusetts. On Sunday, October II, of that year came the wonderful farewell sermon which marked the close of his pastorate at Trinity Church. His sermon on that occasion plainly reveals the fact that, while answering a call of duty, he was not happy in this change to a new field of service; his words were brave and uplifting, but his heart was heavy, nor did he become fully reconciled to the duties. of the episcopacy in the remaining two years of his life.

In studying the oratorical powers of Phillips Brooks it may be said that there were three distinct periods in his preaching : first, as a young man in Philadelphia, when he wrote with the utmost care his most beautiful sermons bearing the magic touch of his æsthetic nature, full of the poetry of life and abounding with the divine allegory of human history, and yet at times bearing the dramatic stamp of the tragedy of civil war. The second period came soon after his removal to Boston when the conflict between science and religion was rife, when he helped to stem the current of agnosticism and stood a tower of strength against the forces that were trying to undermine the gospel of faith. The third period dates from