Part 27

At the suggestion of his pastor, Dr. Alexander H. Vinton, of St. Paul's Church on Tremont Street, he went to a theological seminary at Alexandria, Va., in 1856. Here his piety seemed to deepen, as he gave himself to study and to mission work.

He preached his first sermon in a little hamlet called Sharon, two or three miles from the seminary, urged to go thither by a classmate. The people were mostly poor whites and negroes, who, being plain themselves, enjoyed the plain preaching. The schoolhouse was soon crowded, and more came than could be accommodated.

His classmate told, at his home in Philadelphia, of this good work. The Church of the Advent in that city needed a rector. A committee came to hear Brooks, of course without his knowledge, were delighted, and called him to their poor parish.

Fearful that he would not give satisfaction, young Brooks, now twenty-four years of age, consented to preach for three months, and at the end of that time accepted the call for a year, at a salary of one thousand dollars.

"The dissatisfaction with his work," says Dr. Arthur Brooks, "and the eagerness to press on to something better and more complete, while all the time men were praising what he had done, was always a recognized feature of his power."

Fortunately for young Brooks, Dr. Vinton had moved to Philadelphia, and had become rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, in a wealthy part of the city.

Not forgetting his former parishioner, he invited the young preacher to occupy his pulpit Sunday afternoons. Both here and at the Advent, Phillips Brooks soon won a place in the hearts and lives of his hearers.

Dr. Vinton was called to St. Mark 's Church, in New York, and Phillips Brooks was asked to take his place at the Holy Trinity. He did not accept till invited the third time, and finally became rector Jan. 1, 1862, when he was twenty-seven.

During Phillips Brooks's ten years in Philadelphia, he took a fearless stand for the colored people, and in all that related to the Civil War.

When the three months' men were called out to defend Philadelphia from a feared attack of the Confederates, young Brooks, with a shovel on his shoulder, was in the van to help throw up earthworks.

In his Thanksgiving sermon, Nov. 26, 1863, he thanked God "that the institution of African slavery in our beloved land is one big year nearer to its inevitable death than it was last Thanksgiving Day."

When Abraham Lincoln lay dead at Independence Hall, in the journey from Washington to Springfield, Ill., Phillips Brooks preached a noble sermon, April 23, 1865. Many have recalled these words, which might be written of himself, now that he has gone from us.

"In him," said Phillips Brooks, "was vindicated the greatness of real goodness and the goodness of real greatness.... How many ears will never lose the thrill of some kind word he spoke--he who could speak so kindly to promise a kindness that always matched his word. How often he surprised the land with a clemency which made even those who questioned his policy love him the more for what they called his weakness; seeing the man in whom God had most embodied the discipline of freedom not only could not be a slave, but could not be a tyrant....

"The gentlest, kindest, most indulgent man that ever ruled a state!... The shepherd of the people!... What ruler ever wore it like this dead President of ours? He fed us faithfully and truly. He fed us with counsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we sometimes faltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, clear, trustful cheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark. He spread before the whole land feasts of great duty and devotion and patriotism, on which the land grew strong. He fed us with solemn, solid truths....

"He showed us how to love truth, and yet be charitable--how to hate wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure one personal injury or insult. He fed _all_ his people, from the highest to the lowest, from the most privileged to the most enslaved. Best of all, he fed us with a reverent and genuine religion."

When Harvard celebrated the close of the war, and Lowell gave his immortal "Commemoration Ode," Phillips Brooks offered the prayer, as only one with his great heart and eloquent lips could pray. Nobody ever forgot that prayer. Harvard from that day forward knew and honored her son.

A few years later, May 30, 1873, Phillips Brooks spoke at the dedication of Memorial Hall in Andover. He said, "They saw that their country was like a precious vase of rarest porcelain, priceless while it was whole, valueless if it was broken into fragments. What they died to keep whole may we in our several places live to keep holy!"

In 1869 Phillips Brooks was called to Trinity Church, Boston. He loved his native city, "the home of new ideas," as he called it, and accepted. At that time the church edifice of Quincy granite was on Summer Street. It was burned in the great fire of 1872, whereupon the wealthy congregation, idolizing their pastor, built on the Back Bay, at Copley Square, the present Trinity Church edifice, costing about one million dollars, one of the handsomest and most complete church buildings on this continent. It was designed by the famous architect, Mr. H. H. Richardson. It is in the form of a Latin Cross.

"The style of the church," says Mr. Richardson, "may be characterized as a free rendering of the French Romanesque, inclining particularly to the school that flourished in the eleventh century in Central France,--the ancient Aquitaine."

Four thousand five hundred piles were driven to support the building, the tower of which, resting on four piers, weighs nearly nineteen million pounds. Mr. John La Farge decorated the building with great skill and beauty. Dr. Vinton, the venerable pastor of Phillips Brooks's boyhood, preached the consecration sermon in the new church, Feb. 9, 1877.

Phillips Brooks did not wish that this grand church should be for the people of Trinity only. The galleries were made free, and the rented pews could be occupied by strangers after a stated hour. He said, "Such a church as this has no right to exist, or to think that it exists, for any limited company who own its pews. It would not be a Christian parish if it harbored such a thought. No, let the world come in. Let all men hear, if they will, the truths we love. Let no soul go unsaved through any selfishness of ours."

This year Mr. Brooks was made a Doctor of Divinity by Harvard University. He had already been one of her overseers for several years. In 1881 the beloved Dr. Andrew P. Peabody resigned his office as preacher at Harvard, and the President and Fellows naturally turned to Phillips Brooks as the one of all others who could win and hold the students to a higher spiritual life. He was chosen preacher to the university, and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.

Dr. Brooks loved his Alma Mater, and hated to refuse, but Trinity Church and Boston could not spare him. When he gave his answer, President Eliot says, "He was very pale and grave, and he spoke like a man who had seen a beatific vision which he could not pursue."

More and more, however, Phillips Brooks became a part of the higher life of Harvard. The religious work at the college is divided among six preachers. In each half-year, for two or three weeks, a minister conducts morning prayers, preaches Sunday evenings, and each forenoon is at Wadsworth House, to talk with any students who may choose to come.

These were precious seasons to Phillips Brooks: for he loved young men, and they loved him. The Rev. Julius Ward tells of a letter written by Dr. Brooks to the father of a freshman, in which the warm heart of the preacher exclaims. "What dear, beautiful creatures these boys are!"

For twenty-two years Phillips Brooks did his grand work in Trinity Church, and, indeed, in the whole city and the whole land. He said, "No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him He gives him for mankind."

When the Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon of Boston remarked to Dr. Brooks, after hearing his twentieth anniversary sermon, that he had also heard him preach his ninth, he replied, "Twenty years is a long time in a man's life, and I cannot expect more than another twenty;" and then with a serious but eager look, added, "And then I hope something better will come."

He preached to overflowing congregations at Trinity, at the Young Men's Christian Union, the Moody Tabernacle, Appleton Chapel at Harvard, and elsewhere. He did not seem to realize that men crowded the house to hear _him_. To a brother minister in a Boston suburb, where he frequently preached, and where every inch of standing-room was utilized when he came, he remarked, "Grey, what a splendid congregation you have!"

He was extremely modest. When invited to furnish some data for his college class record, he wrote, "I have had no wife, no children, no particular honors, no serious misfortune, and no adventures worth speaking of. It is shameful at such times as these not to have a history, but I have not got one, and must come without."

Phillips Brooks was as great in pastoral work as in preaching. He said in his "Lectures on Preaching," delivered at the Yale Divinity School, in January and February, 1877, "The preacher needs to be pastor, that he may preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher who is not a pastor grows remote. The pastor who is not a preacher grows petty.... Be both; for you cannot really be one unless you also are the other."

He visited his people, both poor and rich. Two young men had attended Trinity Church for a time, and then ceased going. They roomed at the top of a high building in a plain quarter of the city. One day, answering a rap at their door, they beheld the majestic figure of Phillips Brooks. "Well, boys," he said, grasping them cordially by the hand, "you did not expect to see _me_ here, did you?"

Indeed, they did not, for they supposed that the rector did not know them even by sight. They went regularly to Trinity after that friendly visit.

A physician tells this story, which has appeared in the press. He said to a poor woman whom he had visited, "You don't need any more medicine. What you need now is nourishment and fresh air. You need to get out."

"But I have nobody to leave with the children," was the reply.

"Well, you must manage to get out somehow," was the response.

The doctor dropped in a day or two later to see how the poor woman had "managed." She had told her troubles to the man who bore many burdens cheerfully, Phillips Brooks; and he was there caring for the children while the poor mother took the air.

Dr. Brooks loved mission work. Like Charles Kingsley, he was always very close in heart with the poor and the laborers. He said, "It is not wealth simply in itself,--it is the pride of wealth, the indifference of wealth, the cruelty of wealth, the vulgarity of wealth, in one great word, the selfishness of wealth, which really makes the poor man's heart ache and the poor man's blood boil, and constitutes the danger of a community where poor men and rich men live side by side." He was especially interested in St. Andrew's Church on Chambers Street, which was under the care of Trinity. Here one of the first, if not the first, girls' clubs in the country was organized, to which Dr. Brooks delighted to speak of his travels abroad. The Vincent Hospital, the Guild Hall of St. Andrew's, hung with pictures, gifts from him, the Kindergarten for the Blind,--all were dear to his heart.

Phillips Brooks was a generous man, with both money and time. He helped many a boy through college. On one occasion he received a check for one hundred dollars from a parish where he had preached, and immediately sent it to a poor clergyman. To a chapel in a suburban town he gave five hundred dollars towards paying its debt.

He did not like to have his photograph taken and sold; but when informed by those who were holding a fair for St. Andrew's Mission that they would probably make fifty dollars through such sale, he immediately sent a check for that amount.

He was finally prevailed upon to sit for his picture in 1887. In the following eight months more than three thousand photographs were sold. Four years later an arrangement was made whereby a royalty was paid on each picture, and the proceeds used in mission work.

A lady desired some instruments for a medical missionary about to start for Japan. She applied to Phillips Brooks, with the thought that some of his wealthy parishioners might provide them. "A good set will cost one hundred dollars," she said; "but an inferior one can be bought for fifty dollars."

"Would you send your son to the war with an old-fashioned musket," he said, "instead of a rifle? The man who goes to fight Satan in his strongholds must have the best appliances that can be obtained." And Dr. Brooks paid the money from his own pocket.

A printer, the husband of a woman attending Dr. Brooks's church, became ill, and the men in the office raised money to send their fellow-workman to California. The preacher heard of it, and called at the building. The cashier spoke through the tube to the foreman in the composing-room, saying that a gentleman wished to see him. "Send him up," was the reply. And up four flights walked Phillips Brooks, and quietly slipped twenty dollars into the foreman's hands, though refusing to allow his name to be put on the subscription paper.

He gave his time generously. When his private secretary, the Rev. William Henry Brooks, DD., said to him that in using so much time for others he had none left for himself, he replied, "I have plenty of time." Being asked "Where?" he answered, "In the railroad cars."

Soon after Phillips Brooks became bishop he was urged to have office hours, but refused. He said, writes his secretary, in a sketch of the great leader, "A clergyman may come from a distance to see me, and be compelled to return very soon. Not knowing my office hours (should there be such), he might fail of the accomplishment of his errand, and so have his journey to no purpose. Or a layman, leaving his business to consult with me, not knowing of the observance of office hours, might find his time wasted, and be disappointed of the desired interview. No, I am not willing to have office hours. If people wish to see me I ought to and will see them."

When some one expressed fear that these numberless calls would wear him out, he said, "God save the day when they won't come to me."

When I had occasion myself two or three times to consult him, he never seemed in a hurry, never cold or indifferent, never ostentatious,--only small souls are that,--and never exclusive. He had so mastered himself as not to be annoyed; and such mastery over self gives mastery over others.

He answered letters by the thousands; indeed, none ever went unanswered. He was like Longfellow in this respect,--a true gentleman.

He received letters from all countries, and upon all subjects. A lady wrote from the South, wishing a position in the house of one of the diocesan institutions, with her two children, and if that were not possible, asked that he would recommend a boarding-place. Phillips Brooks was abroad, but sent the letter to his secretary, asking that he send her the desired information. "Be sure," wrote Dr. Brooks, "and tell her that the answer was not delayed any longer than was absolutely necessary. Explain to her that I am in Europe."

A widow in Minnesota, whose husband, a Massachusetts man, had been killed in the war, could not prove that he was her husband, as she had lost her marriage certificate, and therefore could not obtain a pension. She knew the name of the minister who married her, but he was dead. Phillips Brooks took time to find evidence of her marriage, and she received her pension.

A letter came from New York City, asking that a list of all the papers and periodicals published by the several parishes in Dr. Brooks's diocese be sent. It was a work of many hours, but it was done.

The _Girls' Friendly Magazine_ tells this incident. Phillips Brooks said to a friend in his study, "Who is this man who writes this letter? You ought to be able to tell me, for he comes from your town. He wants to know if I think it is right to play chess."

"That man," said the friend, "is a poor old crank. There is nothing for you to do but to throw his letter in the waste-basket."

"That I will not do," was the answer of Phillips Brooks. "He has written me a courteous letter, and I am going to return him a courteous answer, like a gentleman."

Phillips Brooks was extremely fond of children, as one may see from his letters to his nieces, published in the August, 1893, _Century Magazine_, or from the beautiful picture in "The Child and the Bishop," where, in 1890, Dr. Brooks holds, as he says, "'Beautiful Blessing' in my happy arms."

In 1882-83 he spent over a year in Europe, sailing in the Servia about the middle of June, 1882, with his friend, the Rev. Dr. McVickar of Philadelphia, with other friends. Dr. Brooks visited England, France, Italy, India, and Spain.

From Venice he writes to his niece Gertie, the daughter of William Gray Brooks, in a Boston bank, "Do go into my house, when you get there, and see if the doll and her baby are well and happy, but do not carry them off; and make the music-box play a tune, and remember your affectionate uncle,

PHILLIPS."

The people of Trinity Church had built for their pastor a beautiful home on Clarendon Street. In one of the closets were kept dolls for his nieces. This home was the scene of many merry-makings for the children of his brothers, and for other children.

From Jeypoor he writes to Gertie about the monkeys of India, and the nose-jewels of the women, and tells her he has got a nose-jewel for her. He rides on a great elephant, "almost as big as Jumbo."

To Josephine, the little daughter of the Rev. John Cotton Brooks, his brother, in Springfield, Mass., be sends an amusing poem of his own composition. From England he writes that he wished the strawberries grew on trees, as it was difficult for him to pick them, as one might imagine from his great size,--six feet four inches tall, and large frame in proportion.

At Badgastein he takes a bath for Gertie, who has rheumatism, back in America; and from Chamouni, he writes her that she must get well and strong, "to play with me."

He writes to his brother William interesting accounts of India. Bombay, with its great hospital for sick and wounded animals, where "they cure them if they can, or keep them till they die," is very curious. It is to be hoped that we, with our boasted civilization, will some time be as kind to animals as they are in India.

He preaches at Delhi. He is extremely interested in Benares, with its five thousand Hindoo temples, the "very Back Bay of Asia." He sees thousands of pilgrims bathing in the sacred Ganges to wash their sins away, or burn their dead upon its banks.

Phillips Brooks preached during his absence at St. Botolph's Church, Boston, Lincolnshire, England; at the Chapel Royal, Savoy, London; at St. Paul's Cathedral, the Temple Church, St. Margaret's, at Westminster Abbey, at Lincoln Cathedral, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and elsewhere, always to the great delight of his hearers. He met such men as Browning and Tennyson. He was the warm friend of the lamented Dean Stanley.

Of Browning he writes, in "Letters of Travel," "He was one of the men whom I wanted most to see here; a pleasant gentleman, full of talk about London and London people, with not a bit of the poet about him externally."

Again he writes, "I dined with Mr. Forster and Mr. Bright, and had our great English friend pretty much to myself for two hours. He is a great talker, especially when he gets onto America; and he knows what he is talking about. Both he and Forster are friends worth having. Bright, personally, wins you in a minute by his frankness and cordialness and manliness of his greeting."

He attended one of Mrs. Gladstone's receptions; met Mr. Gladstone at dinner at Mr. Bryce's; breakfasted with Matthew Arnold, "and liked him very much;" met Jean Ingelow, Mrs. Ritchie (Thackeray's daughter), Hughes, and many others.

Dr. Brooks returned to Boston Sept. 22, and the people received him with open arms.

Dr. Brooks was a Broad Churchman, and broad in every sense of the word. His secretary tells of a conversation he had with the rector, when, after differing in opinion, he said to Phillips Brooks, "I am very sorry that I have said what I have just said."

"Why?" was asked.

"Because it is not pleasant to me to differ with you in opinions," was the reply of the secretary. Dr. Brooks answered with much earnestness, "This is a free country, and every man has the right to express his own opinions."

Phillips Brooks was one of the most tolerant of men. In two lectures on "Tolerance," delivered before the students of several divinity schools of the Episcopal Church, he said, "Tolerance is the willing consent that other men should hold and express opinions with which we disagree, until they are convinced by reason that those opinions are untrue.

"I know some ministers," he said, "who want all their parishioners to think after their fashion, and are troubled when any of their people show signs of thinking for themselves, and holding ideas which the minister does not hold. Thank God, the human nature is too vital, especially when it is inspired with such a vital force as Christian faith, to yield itself to such unworthy slavery....

"Bidden to believe that souls would be punished for wrong-thinking, people have come to doubt whether souls would be punished for anything at all. The only possibility of any light upon the darkness, any order in the confusion, must lie in the clear and unqualified assertion that such as God is can punish such as men are for nothing except wickedness, and that honestly mistaken opinions are not wicked....

"The only ground for us to take is simply the broad ground that error is not punishable at all. Error is not guilt. The guilt of error is the fallacy and fiction which has haunted good men's minds."

Again he said, "Insincerity (whether it profess to hold what we think is false or what we think is true), cant, selfishness, deception of one's self or of other people, cruelty, prejudice,--these are the things with which the Church ought to be a great deal more angry than she is. The anger which she is ready to expend upon the misbeliever ought to be poured out on these."

"The noblest utterance of hopeful tolerance in all that noble century," said Dr. Brooks of the Pilgrims, "was in the famous speech in which John Robinson, their minister, bade loving farewell to his departing flock at Leyden, in which occur those memorable words, 'I am verily persuaded, I am very confident, that the Lord has more truth to break out of His holy word.'"

"At the consecration of Trinity Church," says the Rev. Julius H. Ward, "he invited prominent Unitarian clergymen, and at least one layman, to receive the communion." And yet Phillips Brooks's one gospel message, in which he believed and spoke, was the power of Christ unto salvation.

"Of the Episcopal Church," he said, "there are some of her children who love to call her in exclusive phrase The American Church. She is not that; and to call her that would be to give her a name to which she has no right. The American Church is the great total body of Christianity in America, in many divisions, under many names ... as a whole bearing perpetual testimony to the people of America of the authority and love of God, of the redemption of Christ, and of the sacred possibilities of man....