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LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
PHILLIPS BROOKS
BY
ALEXANDER V. G. ALLEN
Professor in the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge
Wt& portraits ano ^Illustration*
VOLUME II
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
ALEXANDER V. G. ALLEN
WILLIAM G. BROOKS, ELIZABETH W. BROOKS, JOHN C. BROOKS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
pao:',
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
18G9-1872.
Trinity Church. The Reception in Boston. Contempo-
raneous Comments on Phillips Brooks's Preaching.
Record of Work in the First Three Years 1
CHAPTER II.
18G9-1872.
Extracts from Correspondence and from Note-Books.
Social Life. The Summer Abroad. Formation of the
Clericus Club. Destruction of Trinity Church in the
Boston Fire 35
CHAPTER III.
1873-1874.
Ecclesiastical Controversies. Relation to the Evangeli-
cal School. Extracts from Correspondence. The Sum-
mer Abroad. Death of Frederick Brooks 72
CHAPTER IV.
1873-1877.
Services in Huntington Hall. Extracts from Note-
Books. Method of preparing Sermons. Essay on Cour-
age. Contemporaneous Accounts of Phillips Brooks as
a Preacher. Testimony of Principal Tulloch .... 101
CHAPTER V.
1873-1877.
The Building of the New Trinity Church. The Motives
in its Construction. The Consecration Services . . . 12-4
CHAPTER VI.
1877-1879.
Extracts from Correspondence. Invitation to preach
for Mr. Moody. Summer Abroad. Sermon at West-
vi CONTENTS
minster Abbey. Harvard University confers the
Degree of Doctor of Divinity. Comments on the Gen-
eral Convention. Visit of Dean Stanley to America.
Illness and Death of William Gray Brooks 146
CHAPTER VII.
1877-1878.
Lectures on Preaching. First Volume of Sermons. The
Teaching of Religion. The Pulpit and Popular Skepti-
cism 174
CHAPTER VIII.
1879.
The Bohlen Lectures on the Influence of Jesus .... 209
CHAPTER IX.
1879-1880.
Visit to Philadelphia. Convention Sermon. Correspond-
ence. Death of his Mother. Sermon before the
Queen of England. Westminster Abbey. The New
Rectory 241
CHAPTER X.
1881.
The Call to Harvard University as Preacher and Profes-
sor of Christian Ethics. Extracts from Correspondence 276
CHAPTER XL
1881-1882.
Memorial Sermon on Dr. Vinton. Death of Dean Stanley.
Speeches at Church Congress. Second Volume of
Sermons. The Stanley Memorial. Death of Dr. Stone.
Request for Leave of Absence for a Year 305
CHAPTER XII.
1882.
Plans for the Year Abroad. Germany. Correspondence.
Religious Convictions. Extracts from Note-Book and
from Journal of Travel 329
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER XIII.
December, 1882-March, 1883.
India. Letters and Extracts from Journal 383
CHAPTER XIV.
May-July, 1883.
The Journey from India. The Visit to Spain. Reception
in England. Visit to Tennyson. Letters. Extracts
from Journal 417
CHAPTER XV.
September-December, 1883.
The Return to Boston. Extracts from Sermons. Address
on Luther. Correspondence. Extracts from Journal 441
CHAPTER XVI.
1869-1892.
Theology. Tendencies of the Age. Freedom of Inquiry.
Authority and Conscience. Orthodoxy. Freedom
through Dogma. Progress. Tolerance. The New
Theology. Dangers of Freedom. The Bible. The
Prayer Book. Creeds. Anglicanism. The Incarna-
tion. The Trinity. The New Theism. Pantheism.
Miracles. Sin. Endless Punishment. The Atone-
ment. Emphasis on the Will. Supernatural Exist-
ences. Mysticism. Morality 481
CHAPTER XVII.
1884-1885.
Extracts from Letters. Visit to Washington. The Old
House at North Andover. Theatre-Going The New-
ton Controversy. Missions. Latin School Address.
Degree of D. D. conferred by Oxford University.
Sermon at Cambridge University. Extracts from Note-
Book 54G
CHAPTER XVIII.
1886.
Portraits of Phillips Brooks at the Age of Fifty. Mis-
apprehensions of his Position. Essay on Biography.
viii CONTENTS
Election as Assistant Bishop of Pennsylvania. Visit to
California. Abolition of Compulsory Attendance on
Religious Services at Harvard. North Andover.
Chautauqua Address on Literature and Life. Death
of Richardson. Fourth Volume of Sermons. Protest
against changing the Name of the Episcopal Church . . 591
CHAPTER XIX.
1887.
Incidents in Parish Life. Invitation to deliver the
Bampton Lectures. Extracts from Note-Books. Ser-
mons at Faneuil Hall. St. Andrew's Mission Church.
Tenth Anniversary of the Consecration of Trinity
Church. Sermon at Andover. Summer in Europe.
Illness. Correspondence 644
CHAPTER XX.
1888.
Railway Accident in Philadelphia. Incidents of Parish
Life. Lenten Services. Correspondence. Sentiment
and Sentimentality. Comments on " Robert Elsmere."
Thanksgiving Sermon 670
CHAPTER XXL
1889.
Watch Night. Occasional Addresses. Lenten Services
at Trinity Church. Illness. Summer in Japan.
Extracts from Note-Books. The General Convention.
Social and Political Reforms. The Evangelical Alli-
ance. Correspondence 699
CHAPTER XXII.
1890.
Speech at the Chamber of Commerce. Lenten Addresses
in Trinity Church, New York. Change in Manner of
Preaching. Correspondence. Address at the Church
Congress. Thanksgiving Sermon 729
CHAPTER XXIII.
1859-1893.
Characteristics. Reminiscences. Anecdotes. Parish
Ministry. Estimates 762
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER XXIV.
1891.
Lent at Trinity Church. Noon Lectures at St. Paul's.
Election to the Episcopate. The Controversy follow-
ing the Election. Extracts from Correspondence . . 817
CHAPTER XXV.
1891-1892.
Consecration as Bishop. The Church Congress at Wash-
ington. Administrative Capacity. Illness. Lenten
Addresses. Union Service on Good Friday. Conven-
tion Address. Correspondence. Summer Abroad.
English Volume of Sermons. Return to Boston. St.
Andrew's Brotherhood. The General Convention in
Baltimore. Death of Tennyson. Correspondence . . 873
1893.
Conclusion 930
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Phillip9 Brook8 at the Age of Fifty, from a photograph by
H. G. Smith. Photogravure Frontispiece
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Thirty-nine, from a photo-
graph by F. Gutekunst. Photogravure 72
Facsimile of the Plan of a Sermon 114
Trinity Church Exterior from the North 144
Trinity Church Interior 204
Rectory of Trinity Church, 233 Clarendon St., Boston . 274
Facsimile of a Letter to Charles H. Parker, Esq. . . . 298
Trinity Church Exterior from the West 33G
Trinity Church Exterior from the East 438
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Forty-nine, from a photo-
graph by the Notman Photograph Co. Photogravure .... 500
House at North Andover, Exterior 552
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Fifty, from a photograph by
H. G. Smith. Photogravure 596
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Fifty, from the portrait by
Mrs. Henry Whitman. Photogravure 664
Rev. Arthur Brooks 726
Rectory of Trinity Church : The Study 794
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Fifty, photographed by H. G.
Smith. Photogravure 848
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Fifty-five, from a photo-
graph by Pach Brothers. Photogravure 886
Phillips Brooks at the Age of Fifty-six, from a photograph
by Elliott & Fry. Photogravure 936
THE LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
PHILLIPS BROOKS
CHAPTER I
1869-1872
TRINITY CHURCH. THE RECEPTION IN BOSTON. CONTEMPO-
RANEOUS COMMENTS ON PHILLIPS BROOKS 's PREACHING.
RECORD OF WORK IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS
Phillips Brooks began his ministry in Trinity Church,
Boston, on Sunday, October 31, preaching in the morning
from the text, St. John ix. 4, 5 : "I must work the works
of him that sent me, while it is day : the night cometh, when
no man can work; " and in the afternoon from St. John iv.
34: "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to
finish his work." From this moment began the long period
of twenty-two years until he resigned his rectorship. During
these years he knew himself and thought of himself primarily
and almost solely as the rector of Trinity Church. He con-
centrated his energies in making the church united and
strong. He lavished upon it the wealth of his affection.
He believed strongly in the corporate life of a parish, an
organism of which he himself was a vital part. Trinity
Church he believed had a great future before it, as it had
also a great past behind it. To help it to realize its pos-
sibilities was the single task to which he devoted his powers.
A few words about its situation and its history will make
more clear the picture of the work he was to do.
The church edifice then stood on Summer Street, near
vol. n
i PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Washington Street, one of the relics of an earlier Boston when
Summer Street and the adjacent territory was the scene of
fine residences with their ample gardens. The church had
been built in 1829, and though robbed somewhat of its im-
pressiveness by the change in its surroundings, it still pos-
sessed an air of distinction and solid majesty. It belonged
to a style of architecture which has since passed away. It
was built of granite with a massive battlemented tower, and
at the time of its erection was regarded as one of the finest
churches in the city. Mr. Brooks has thus described it
in his historical sermon on Trinity Church, published in
1877:
It was a noble building in its day. It was one of the first of
the Gothic buildings of this country, which were built after
church architecture had begun to waken and aspire, and few that
followed it equalled its dignity and calm impressiveness. The
lighter and more fantastic styles of building sprang up in the
city. The timber spires that made believe they were stone
leaped up with unnatural levity into the sky; the cheap stone
sculpture covered and deformed great, feeble fronts ; the reign of
imitation came; and in the midst of all of them Trinity stood,
in its exterior, at least, strong, genuine, solid, with its great
rough stones, its broad bold bands of sculpture, its battlemented
tower, like a great castle of truth, grim, no doubt, and profoundly
serious, but yet able to win from those who worshipped there for
years an affectionate confidence and even tender yearning for
love.
Trinity Church in Boston resembles to some extent Trinity
Church in New York, as being the centre and home of Epis-
copal traditions and prestige. Its organization went back to
the year 1729. Like the old North Church on Salem
Street, it was an offshoot from King's Chapel, which was
the first Episcopal Church in Boston, and had been founded
in 1689. But King's Chapel had ceased to be an Episcopal
Church, and the neighborhood of old Christ Church had
changed until it had lost its ancient influence, so that Trinity
Church was left as the stronghold of Episcopacy in Boston.
During the trying days of the Revolution it had remained
open to its worshippers when most of the Episcopal churches
Jet- 33"3 6 1 TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 3
were closed. When the alternatives had been presented of
closing its doors or of omitting the petition, in the Litany, for
King George and all the royal family, it had chosen the latter
with the hope that it would be "more for the interest and
cause of Episcopacy, and the least evil of the two, to omit a
part of the Litany than to shut up the church." It shows the
tenacity of the corporate life of the church, that many of its
worshippers were the descendants of the families who first
constituted it. They were conservative, holding by the tradi-
tions, cherishing the names of past rectors, among whom
Dr. Parker, afterwards Bishop of Massachusetts, and Dr.
Gardiner were men prominent in the social and civic life of
Boston.
It seemed to many incongruous that Phillips Brooks, the
heir of a long line of Puritan ministers going back to the
settlement of the colony, and of eminent Puritan laymen
honored for their devotion to the "Standing Order," should
be the rector of Trinity Church, with its reversal of these
traditions, representing what seemed in New England an
alien church, indifferent to the highest ideal of Christian
truth. But that question had been settled for him when his
mother made the transition from Puritanism to Episcopacy
while he was an infant, a migration which caused her
many searchings of heart, but which she never lived to
regret. As for Phillips Brooks, he did not feel the situation
to be incongruous. He had been brought up on the Church
Catechism; he knew no other church; he was loyal to it
while yet admiring and applauding the history of his ances-
tors. He studied the records of Trinity Church, making
himself familiar with American history in the eighteenth
century and with the process of its religious thought, in
order to connect himself more closely with the life of the
church of which he was the minister.
Trinity Church had again shown its loyalty and devotion
to the cause of Episcopacy when, in 1842, Dr. Manton East-
burn had been elected bishop of the diocese of Massachusetts.
The diocese being unable to provide a salary for the bishop,
it had called him to be its rector, and thus relieved the situa-
4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
tion. The endowment known as the Greene Foundation sup-
ported from this time an assistant minister, who divided with
the bishop the burden of preaching and other parochial min-
istrations', always officiating in the bishop's absence on his
episcopal ministrations. Among these assistant ministers
had been the Rev. Thomas M. Clark, now the Bishop of
Khode Island, the late Kev. John Cotton Smith, and Dr.
Henry C. Potter, the present Bishop of New York. But this
arrangement had not worked well. It was a case of divided
responsibility. The assistant ministers were not free to carry
out any projects of church extension, while the bishop was
also hampered by the double burden he was carrying. When
in 1869 the bishop resigned the rectorship, it was felt by
all that a new era had dawned in the history of Trinity
Church.
The new rector brought with him to Boston the ways he
had learned from Dr. Vinton, and which he had put into
successful practice in Philadelphia, the Wednesday even-
ing lecture, the Saturday evening Bible class, and the com-
municants' meeting in preparation for the Lord's Supper.
These were the methods of the Evangelical school in the
church. Things were beginning to change at this time, new
modes of parish activity were becoming popular, and a com-
plicated machinery of what was called "church work" was
coming into vogue. Much of it was adopted by Mr. Brooks,
though without display or ostentation. He was equal to any
one in appropriating methods of activity and in administer-
ing them wisely. But he preferred the Wednesday evening
lecture to the observance of Saints' Days, as being a fixed
occasion in the week, while the latter came irregularly and
were in danger of being neglected. Thus Wednesday even-
ing became a sacred occasion. One of the first fruits of
his ministry in Boston was to find the chapel of Trinity
Church too small for the purpose, and calling for an imme-
diate enlargement. But this did not meet the need, and the
service was transferred to the church, where every seat was
occupied.
Among the arrangements he projected at once for increas-
jet. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 5
ing the activity of the parish and creating a sense of respon-
sibility for those without was a mission on West Cedar Street,
where a Sunday-school was gathered, under the charge of a
theological student from the Cambridge seminary. There
was at this time an Episcopal Church, St. Mark's, on West
Newton Street, which, having fallen into weakness on account
of the changing population, was no longer able to maintain a
rector. lie proposed that this church edifice should be pur-
chased and become a dependency of Trinity Church, and that
the income of the Greene Foundation be devoted to the sup-
port of its minister. This project was carried out after some
delay, and the Rev. Charles C. Tiffany, now Archdeacon of
New York, was called in 1871 to be its rector, and assist-
ant minister of Trinity Church on the Greene Foundation.
These things are mentioned as showing the energy of the new
rector, and the large spirit of religious enterprise with which
he began his parish ministry in Boston. But these yield in
importance to another scheme, which he broached to the par-
ish during the first year of his incumbency, 1870, that the
church should be removed to another part of the city, where
it could do a greater work and better meet the needs of its
parishioners. There was some opposition to the scheme, even
among his warmest friends and supporters, for it meant a
violent uprooting of sacred associations. In the vaults be-
neath the church lay the remains of relatives and friends.
There were other difficulties to be overcome. But Mr. Brooks
continued to urge the removal as an indispensable condition
of progress, until the plan was approved by the wardens and
vestry. To overcome opposition, to create sympathy and
agreement, and even enthusiasm, to recommend himself to
the confidence of men of affairs in so important an undertak-
ing, is an illustration of the many-sided capacity of the new
rector.
It took time to carry out this large plan. All through
the years 1870 and 1871 it was the one foremost purpose in
Mr. Brooks's mind, on which he concentrated his energies
and his interests. He was studying the city of Boston and
the possible directions of its growth, in order to the most
6 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
available site. Before any other steps could be taken, it
was necessary to gain the permission of the legislature to
sell the old edifice. On December 3, 1870, the first meeting
of the Proprietors of Trinity Church was held to consider the
question of removal. Early in the next year Mr. Brooks
appeared before a committee of the legislature and stated
the reasons why the removal of the church was desired :
I think there is necessity for a removal of Trinity Church for
the best interests of the parish, and a necessity which is more
and more strong constantly. There has been a growing convic-
tion with me ever since I have been rector of the parish that it
would be necessary to move. The reasons are simply these: the
entire change of the population in Boston which has removed all
the residences from Trinity Church, leaving literally no residences
within that region round the church which is usually considered
the parochial line. All our congregation are therefore obliged to
come from a great distance, which looks badly for us in two
ways; in the first place by rendering their attendance unstable
and preventing the church from accumulating any permanent
parish ; for a family coming from a great distance is loosely at-
tached, and unless it is in some way geographically connected with
the parish it cannot be counted upon to sustain the church. The
instability and lack of adhesion and difficulty in conducting any
of the educational and charitable work of the parish, arising from
teachers and taught residing at very great distance, is one reason
that has forced itself upon me. These difficulties are increasing
every day. Every removal that has taken place I may say
almost every removal since I have been in the parish has been
a removal to a greater distance from the church. Therefore look-
ing forward a few years, we can see how much the present diffi-
culties are likely to be increased. Then there are difficulties that
attach to the location of the church, the nearness of a busi-
ness street, and the extreme noisiness during the Lent services.
These have been much greater this season than last season. Then
in addition to these two reasons there are the very serious ones
attaching to the accommodations of Trinity Church, which are
entirely incapable of remedy in our present location. The
church originally was simply a structure for the church proper
and since then there has been added a Sunday-school or lecture
room, and this is the only room we have at present. We have
no rooms for class instruction and for carrying on the work of the
parish. Our lecture room is inadequate for our lecture-room pur-
jet. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 7
poses. For this reason I think almost any one who is associated
with the work of the church, who is engaged in the actual chari-
table and educational work of the church, feels the necessity of
a change of location ; and without knowing personally the opinion
of each one of those who are so engaged, I should say that with
three or four exceptions they all favor the removal.
The permission to sell having been granted by the legisla-
ture, it was accepted by the Proprietors of Trinity Church.
The question of the new site was not an easy one, and delib-
erations proceeded slowly. Not until the end of the year
1871 was the lot purchased on which the present Trinity
Church now stands. Mr. Brooks was at first strongly at-
tracted by the lot on the corner of Beacon and Charles streets
facing the Common. But the wisdom of the final choice
needs no justification. On March 6, 1872, the building
committee was created, consisting of George M. Dexter,
Charles Henry Parker, Robert C. Winthrop, Martin Brim-
mer, Charles R. Codman, John C. Ropes, John G. Cushing,
Charles G. Morrill, Robert Treat Paine, Jr., Stephen G.
Deblois, and William P. Blake. The committee voted at
once to notify Mr. Brooks of all meetings and their readi-
ness to receive any suggestions from him. Six competitors
were invited to furnish plans, and in June the late H. H.
Richardson, of the firm of Gambrill & Richardson, was
chosen as the architect. "The building committee were at
once impressed," writes Mr. Robert Treat Paine, in his final
report, "with the importance of purchasing the triangle of
land which now forms the whole Huntington Avenue front
of our estate. An appeal was made to the parish for gifts
of money, and a generous response enabled the committee to
make the purchase." The additional amount thus called for
was $75,000, but the contribution reached -$100,000. "The
church," continues Mr. Paine, "thus completed its title to
the whole domain of over an acre, enclosed by four public
streets, and making the church visible in all directions. So
far as the committee know, this is the only site of the Back
Bay where these advantages could have been secured."
Plans for the new church had already been drawn by Mr.
8 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Eichardson, when the enlargement of the estate by the pur-
chase of the triangle called for their entire remodelling.
It was while the building committee were engaged in this
study for a new design that the great Boston fire, on Novem-
ber 10, 1872, swept away the old Trinity Church on Sum-
mer Street. Whatever indifference or opposition there had
been to the removal of the church could now exist no longer.
A new interest and enthusiasm united the parish in the
determination to make the new edifice a grander one than
the old had been. The building committee appointed an
executive committee out of its numbers, Messrs. Eobert
Treat Paine, C. H. Parker, and C. W. Galloupe, "with
full powers to prosecute with all despatch the erection of
the new church." Mr. Richardson encouraged them to
think that in two years the new edifice would be completed.
In this hope and expectation the large hall in the Institute
of Technology on Boylston Street was hired for the Sunday
services. The expectation was not fulfilled; it was more
than twice two years before they saw the consummation of
their desires. But meantime in this secular hall, with no
accessories or associations of sacred worship, Mr. Brooks
entered upon a still more powerful phase of his ministry,
under the influence of which Trinity Church not only re-
mained united, but received large additions to its member-
ship.
When Phillips Brooks came to Boston it was his study to
be the rector of Trinity Church, to carry out the ideal of a
parish minister as he conceived it in all its scope and in all
the detail of its relationships. To give himself up to the
work of preaching the gospel of Christ to the congregation
over whom he was set to minister was his single purpose. To
this end he sought to know the people to whom he preached,
to study their needs, to share their joys and sorrows, to lead
them into larger conceptions of the mission of a parish to
the church and to the world. No one could have written the
"Lectures on Preaching" who was not first and foremost
and always the parish minister, devoted to his people, giving
them of his best, and in the relationship of mutual love and
*t. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 9
service finding his satisfaction and reward. He does not
indeed record any vow of exclusive faithfulness to this special
purpose, but that it was his purpose, his single aim, is writ-
ten on all his work after coming to Boston, and finds expres-
sion in unmistakable manner. During the year before he
came to Boston, while the call was under his consideration,
he must have been solemnly deliberating with himself and
reaching a determination as to his line and method of work.
We must therefore note at this point a significant change
and epoch in his ministry. In Philadelphia he had appeared
almost as a reformer and agitator, with a work to do outside
the pulpit, which rivalled in importance and popular interest
his work as a preacher. He had thrown himself into the
cause of the abolition of slavery with an intensity and rare
eloquence which was not surpassed by any one. He had
espoused the cause of the emancipated slaves, pleading in
most impassioned manner for their right to suffrage in order
to their complete manhood. In the interest of the Freed-
men's Aid Society he had made stirring platform addresses
in the greater cities of Pennsylvania and in New York.
He was more prominently identified than any other citizen in
Philadelphia with the local issue whether the negroes should
be allowed to ride in the street cars. From his activity in
these moral causes he had become as widely known as by his
eloquence in the pulpit.
But from the time when he came to Boston he ceased to
be identified with any special reform. There were others,
who, as soon as the war was over, had addressed themselves to
the cause of the working people, seeking the redress of social
evils, enlightening the popular mind, and securing the needed
legislation for the amelioration of social burdens. Phillips
Brooks might easily have followed in the same direction. It
was in him to have become a reformer, and to have used the
pulpit and the platform as his levers of influence. But he
did not take this role. He gave himself to his parish, and
exclusively to the preacher's task, and for seven years he
was supremely interested in the work of building the new
Trinity Church as if that should be the crown of his labors.
io PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
We have seen that his father was dismayed when his son
devoted his strength to what seemed like preaching politics;
how he earnestly dissuaded him from carrying politics into
the pulpit. The advice may not have been without its in-
fluence. But apart from this a man like Phillips Brooks could
not have had his Philadelphia experience without studying
its bearing upon his work as a preacher. As he studied it,
he saw that the two functions were incompatible, and that
of the two the mission of the preacher of the gospel of Christ
was the higher, the more important, the more far reaching
and fundamental in its influence, the primary condition of
all successful enduring reforms. It must not be supposed for
a moment that he was not interested in every social or moral
issue which aimed at the improvement of man. His interest
was recognized and presupposed. He never failed when he
was called upon to advocate any good cause. He sympa-
thized with those who devoted their lives to such ends. On
occasions in his own pulpit, and especially on Thanksgiving
Day, he uttered himself freely on the questions of the hour.
But he did not identify himself exclusively with any of them,
nor work for them in direct manner, but always indirectly
through the power of Christian truth, brought home to the
heart by the preaching of the gospel. Of all the cities in the
land, Boston, more than any other, was associated with ideal
issues and moral reforms. It might be almost called the
home of reformers since the days when the preparation began
for the American Revolution. It puzzled Boston people,
therefore, when Phillips Brooks came among them and began
at once to exert his magic influence. They found it impos-
sible to label or classify him. He was neither a moral, a
social, nor a religious reformer. It is amusing now to look
back at the efforts made to define his position by critical
analysis, or by comparison with other men. Boston at last
accepted him for himself without attempt at analysis or
criticism. But in the earlier years it was not so.
One cannot think of Boston without thinking of Unita-
rianism. When the schism took place, in the first part of
the nineteenth century, which divided the Congregational
-*t. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 11
churches into Orthodox and Liberal, the latter body carried
with it the social prestige, the wealth, the intellectual culture
of Boston. It was represented by Harvard College also, and
by a line of men eminent in literature, Emerson and Haw-
thorne, Longfellow and Holmes and Lowell, and many others.
It had given birth to two great preachers and reformers,
Channing and Theodore Parker, who had added to the fame
of Boston by their eloquence, their high character, and their
large influence. Phillips Brooks had now come to take his
position by divine right among the greatest and best of her
children. Her literary men recognized him at once as enti-
tled to an equal place. There could be no doubt of his great-
ness, but what was he, and how should he be described ?
At first there was an inclination on the part of the Uni-
tarians to claim him as their own. Such power, such genius,
marked him as of necessity one who, though he might not be
conscious of it, must be at heart a Unitarian. They were un-
familiar with the breadth of the national Church of England ;
they were indifferent to Maurice and Stanley and Arnold,
Kingsley, F. W. Robertson, Thirlwall and Tait and Temple,
who represented liberal theology in the English Church, with
whom Phillips Brooks was affiliated in spirit, and at whose
feet he had sat as a pupil. Archbishop Tillotson and the
liberal theologians of the English Church in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries they had long since forgotten.
They could not believe that such things were indigenous in
the Anglican Church, having their roots in the Reformation
and in the Book of Common Prayer. However it was, the
Unitarians flocked to the new preacher, the man with a
message to which they responded as divine. Against this
disposition on the part of Unitarians to "attend the earnest
and attractive ministry of Phillips Brooks," the "Liberal
Christian," a Unitarian organ in Boston, gave a most em-
phatic protest :
We hold the earnestness and sincerity of those Unitarians who
desert their own worship and their own laborious pastors to swell
the tide of hearers of Orthodox Liberals at a very cheap value.
There is a certain meanness, and time-serving, and cowardly
12 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
spirit, and a carelessness about intellectual and moral distinctions
which is discouraging and deserves strong rebuke. (1870.)
The "Liberal Christian " was indeed very much in earnest
in its protest, refusing to admit a communication in reply,
which extenuated the fault of the culprits.
The editor of the "Christian Register" (Unitarian) went
with the crowd to listen and to know for himself what these
things meant. He was inclined to be severe and prepared to
notice flaws, yet he was also determined to be fair and to get
at the truth. "While he admired the noble presence of the
preacher, he found defects in the voice, and thought the
rapidity with which he read the service somewhat irreverent.
He was on the watch for any "omissions " in the service, but
could not detect them. This was his report to his readers :
The text of the sermon was "She hath done what she could."
The first half of the sermon was satisfactory and impressive, that
human responsibility was limited by human power and oppor-
tunity. Every man, however weak and humble, has some thing
especially appointed for him to do, and the harmony of the uni-
verse is incomplete so long as he neglects his task. . . .
All this was exceedingly impressive. He spoke with such
fervor and unaffected earnestness that we felt quickened and up-
lifted by his appeals in behalf of our doing our best, and making
the most of our chances in life. Then came the only unsatisfac-
tory passage of the discourse. It seemed to be assumed that as
sinners we must not only repent, but rely upon Christ's atoning
blood. No particular theory of the atonement was insisted upon,
but in some way we must feel that we are ransomed and bought
with a price.
The room was growing darker, and we became less and less
sure that we understood Mr. Brooks perfectly. But we were
quite convinced that while he was only mildly "Evangelical " and
used, mainly, Scriptural expressions that admit of a Unitarian
interpretation, he left the plain path in which he had been walk-
ing for the devious ways of theological subtleties. Still the
general effect of the sermon was excellent, and we came away
deeply grateful for the most that we had heard, with a new un-
derstanding of Mr. Brooks's deserved popularity; and fully
believing that he is as rational and independent as an honest man
can possibly be while remaining within the Episcopal Church.
The whole atmosphere about him was far superior in simplicity
*"". 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 13
and manliness to anything that we had ever known in his
denomination.
"If the Rev. Mr. Phillips Brooks," remarked the "Con-
gregationalist," an Orthodox paper, commenting on this
report, "has trembled and felt weakened as to the security
of his position in this city, he must now take heart and dis-
miss his fears. The editor of the ' Christian Register ' hav-
ing been to hear him has come away ' fully believing that he is
as rational and independent as an honest man can possibly
be while remaining within the Episcopal Church.' These
things are not recovered from the forgotten years for the
purpose of illustrating the amenities of religious controversy,
but in order to reproduce the moment when Phillips Brooks
came to Boston. It recalls the picture of Boston, or of any
Massachusetts town, in the colonial days, when a stranger
entered its precincts. Before he could be accepted, he must
be questioned and made to give an account of himself. The
inquiring looks now directed upon the new preacher, the
sharp criticism to which he was subjected, were simply the
inevitable Boston greeting. It was Boston's way, that
was all. Philadelphia had a different way. It had not the
suspicion of the stranger as such. It knew a good thing
when it saw it, and did not spoil its enjoyment by overanx-
ious questioning. It was not perhaps so easy a thing for
Boston to bow before Phillips Brooks as it had been for
Philadelphia. Boston is a city with peculiarities of its own,
and they are marked and strong. But on this point let
another speak, one whom Boston loved and revered :
Shall I say [writes Dr. Channing] a word of evil of this good
city of Boston? Among all its virtues it does not abound in a
tolerant spirit. The yoke of opinion is a heavy one, often crush-
ing individuality of judgment and action. A censorship, un-
friendly to free exertion, is exercised over the pulpit as well as
over concerns. No city in the world is governed so little by a
police, and no city so much by mutual inspection and what is
called public sentiment. We stand more in awe of one another
than most people. Opinion is less individual or runs more into
masses, and often rules with a rod of iron. 1
1 Works, vol. ii. p. 265, ed. 1845.
i 4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
It was not only the Unitarians that had questions to ask.
The Orthodox or Trinitarian Congregationalists were puzzled.
The Unitarians watched him to see whether he were Ortho-
dox, and the Orthodox were curious to see whether he were
a Unitarian in disguise. At this time the antagonism be-
tween these two parties was strenuous and even bitter, for
the painful associations of the schism which Channing had
led were still fresh in the memory of many then living. The
influence of Theodore Parker had only intensified these reli-
gious antipathies. Parker had divided the Unitarians into
two wings, the conservative and the progressive ; but he had
also aggravated the prejudices of the Orthodox against the
whole body of Unitarians by his denial of miracles and the
supernatural, by his criticism of Scripture and rejection of
its external authority. But his was on the whole the grow-
ing tendency in Boston. He was a transcendentalist, build-
ing on the authority of an inner light, finding God and im-
mortality and religion in the natural instinct of the human
soul, and needing no external authority, whether of Scrip-
ture or prophet or person of Christ, as the sanction of reli-
gious truth. But there was also something better in Parker
which would be apparent when the storm of controversy had
died away. It was then with dark suspicions in their minds
that Orthodox critics approached the new preacher. They,
too, were not quite satisfied. The trouble with both these
classes of critics was that they went to their inquiry with
formal tests of doctrines or dogmas uppermost in their minds,
while the preacher was in another atmosphere, thinking not
of doctrines but of life.
The Episcopalians [says the Boston correspondent of the Chris-
tian Intelligencer] have a new light and popular preacher, Rev.
Phillips Brooks, late of Philadelphia. Before coming here he
had achieved a high reputation in the pulpit, and as a liberal in
doctrine and churchly rites. However true it may be we know
not, but he is said to occupy about the same theological position
as Robertson of England. We heard him on Sunday evening,
and he did what too many Orthodox ministers do in this region,
threw out a "sop " to the Unitarians. His sermon was unex-
ceptionable in almost every particular. It was, in fact, the best
MT . 33-36} TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 15
sermon on the whole we have heard here for some time. It was
practical, written in a clear and forcible style, with passages of
wonderful beauty and eloquence. It was delivered with that
impetuous earnestness that distinguishes certain nervous natures.
No one could listen to it without being moved to live for God.
But a fly was in the ointment, needlessly there. He went out of
his way to say, "I don't believe in total depravity," and then
added that he believed there was something good in all men,
giving the impression to those who did not know better that the
doctrine known as "total depravity " embraced the view that
every man is as bad as lie can be, or is utterly destitute of what is
good. But still he intimated that there is no recuperative ele-
ment in the soul, an important feature, however, of the discarded
doctrine. Of course all liberals delight in such statements or
caricatures, and then quote them as proof of the effect of their
liberalism in modifying evangelical doctrines. Mr. Brooks ought
to know just what total depravity as a theological doctrine
involves, and while the term is confessedly objectionable as now
interpreted, yet, like many legal and medical terms, can be
explained.
The popular verdict on the preaching of Phillips Brooks
was more important than the judgment of the critics. There
had been no similar event in the history of Boston which
created such excitement, such widespread interest, such a
veritable sensation. He stepped at once into the same rela-
tive position as he held in Philadelphia. Trinity Church on
Summer Street was crowded with eager hearers. It was
almost unseemly the way in which the people claimed him
for their own, regardless of the privileges of those whose
special minister he was. They came from every direction,
feeling that they must be there. Precedents and vested
rights, distinctions of pewholders, the authority of the sex-
ton, these seemed like an impertinence when Phillips Brooks
was to preach. The true gospel of Christ, the word of life,
must in the nature of the case be offered alike to all, without
distinction. It was a trying situation for the stately, deco-
rous parishioners, who had associated worship with calmness
and dignity, and with ample accommodation in the high-
backed, luxurious pews. It was no slight inconvenience and
annoyance when they sought access to their pews to find them
1 6 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
occupied by strangers, whose apologies did not relieve but
only magnified the grievance. Mr. Dillon, the sexton, to
whom it fell to manage these things, strove to rise to the
occasion and struggled to meet an emergency so wholly
unlike anything he had hitherto known in his long adminis-
tration. He tried to sort the people who presented themselves
for admission, sending some to the galleries, and allowing
others, whom he judged more fit, to occupy the waste spaces
in the pews on the floor, but his expedients were futile. 1
There were too many seeking to be admitted, that was
the simple difficulty. There was room perhaps for a thou-
sand people, and the demands were for more than double the
accommodation. The people became indignant and vented
their anger on Mr. Dillon, "the grim and truculent sexton,
who acted as if he owned the church." Complaints found
their way to the newspapers, with accounts of the "most
disgraceful scenes ever enacted within the walls of a Protest-
ant church." Many who came were unfamiliar with the
ways of the Episcopal Church; they regarded the morning
and evening prayer as something to be tolerated, " intro-
ductory exercises " before the sermon could be reached. They
rejoiced at least that "Mr. Brooks ran it off so rapidly."
Mr. Brooks did what he could to facilitate matters. The
pews in the galleries were declared free, and after pew-
holders had taken their seats the church was thrown open to
all. But this was no temporary evil to be cured by any
expedient. It lasted as long as Phillips Brooks remained
the rector of Trinity Church. Bishop Eastburn continued
for a while to attend the services at Trinity. But he was
not accustomed to such excitement, or to see people flocking
in crowds to the proclamation of the gospel. He was not
altogether sure that the new preacher could be "sound in his
views." He betook himself to the roomier spaces of St.
Paul's.
1 In Mr. Dillon' s view of the situation, the end to he aimed at was to reduce
the numbers who sought admittance to the church. " He once came to me in
the vestry room," said Mr. Brooks, " to tell me of a method he had devised for
this purpose, ' When a young man and a young woman come together, I sepa-
rate them ; ' and he expected me to approve the fiendish plan."
*t. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 17
Many of those who went to hear Mr. Brooks for the first
time were so impressed that they must needs give utterance,
in newspaper articles, to the emotions which stirred them.
Some went prepared to watch closely and see vividly in order
to get the material for a striking literary report. There are
in these early years at Trinity many of these pen-and-ink
sketches of the preacher and the wonderful effect of his
preaching, descriptions of the church and the congregations,
and the accessories which made the scene impressive. All
agree in being compelled to describe the preacher himself as
though that were a part of the message.
The door of the anteroom opens, and Mr. Brooks appears in
his white flowing robes. There is something almost boyish, yet
beautifully sweet and earnest as well, in his face and manner.
He is emphatically a manly man, with no sentimental, morbid,
sickly notions of life. He is a "muscular Christian " and believes
in work and stout-hearted endeavor. And he walks through the
earthly and tangible as beholding the things that are invisible and
heavenly. All this and more we find in his strong spiritual
countenance.
The old building [according to another report] seems the fit-
ting place of worship for the solid men of Boston. There is an
air of ancient respectability about it. . . . The deep roomy pews,
and thoughtfully padded, seem adjusted for sleeping, and though
seven can sit comfortably in them, if you humbly ask for the fifth
seat in some of them, beware of the lofty look and high-bred
scorn which seems to say, Are not the galleries free for negroes,
servants, and strangers ? . . . I shall have to let you in, I sup-
pose. Take that Prayer Book, and keep quiet; service has begun.
Don't you see Mr. Brooks?
Yes, we do see the Rev. Phillips Brooks, a tall, stout, power-
fully built man, with a smooth boyish face, and very near-sighted
eyes, which nevertheless, by the help of glasses, seem to search you
out in whatever dark corner you may be hidden. He is reading
the service with a thin voice and rapid, breathless, almost stutter-
ing delivery, and yet with a certain impulsive and pleading ear-
nestness that carries even Congregationalists on their knees and
takes them with him to the throne of grace.
To reproduce here the many comments upon Phillips
Brooks when he first made his appearance in Boston would
vol. n
1 8 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
be impossible, and yet to neglect them altogether would be
a loss to his biography. The time never came when people
tired of portraying him or of writing their impressions.
Those who wrote were not more eager to rehearse than were
the thousands, who had not heard or seen for themselves,
eager to read what was written. It is part of the story of his
life to give him in his relations with the great body of people
who heard him gladly, who were sure that something unknown
before in the history of the pulpit was now enacting, and that
it behooved them to catch and preserve each slightest accent,
as an almost sacred responsibility. Thus they loved to de-
scribe his appearance as though in this case the symmetry of
form and beauty of countenance were in some mysterious way
the counterpart of the spirit within, and nature had for once
succeeded in making the body the transparent revelation, the
harmonious accompaniment, of the immortal soul. Such was
the opinion of the many, but others dissented :
He is exceedingly portly and also very tall ; in bearing one of
the most commanding men of his day. He has a fine, well-pro-
portioned head, covered with a short growth of thick dark hair,
which he wears easily without careless indifference and also with-
out dainty niceness. ... A certain throwing of his head up and
a little to one side is his most prominent gesture ; and it is all the
more effective that it is not strictly elegant. There is nothing in
his voice, bearing, or look which can explain his almost unexampled
popularity. For popular he is almost beyond precedent.
He stands in the pulpit [says another writer] smooth-faced,
full-voiced, as self-reliant a man as ever occupied such a station.
He indulges in few gestures; he has no mannerisms. If, under
any circumstances, he might realize the popular conception of an
orator, he does not betray the possibilities here. He provokes
no attention to predominant spirituality by inferior vitality.
There is a splendid harmony of strength, bodily and mental,
which prevents the measurement of either. It is only when he is
out of his desk and level with his audience that you realize his
stature. In the lecture room or crowded street he stands like
Saul among the people. The well-balanced head and strong
shoulders draw your eyes at once. He dresses well, lives well,
and holds his own decidedly in social circles. . . . His power
^33-3^ TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 19
is not limited to his church ministrations, nor is he making him-
self known by some brilliant special development. It is the
whole man mentally, morally, and spiritually, leader, helper,
friend which is attaining such preeminence. But when he
preaches, you are carried away to the need of men and of your
own shortcomings, and have no present consciousness of the per-
sonality of the speaker. A transparent medium is the purest.
You do not think of Phillips Brooks till Phillips Brooks gets
through with his subject.
His manner of entering the church [says another observer] was
quite peculiar. He hurried in, sweeping his left arm in long
circuits and glancing quickly about and abruptly kneeling at the
altar. In selecting his places in the Prayer Book he continued
to glance nervously about. . . . And yet there was something
even then that interested one in him and gave assurances of his
sincerity. His complexion is dark, his forehead low, his face
full, and his figure and motions those of an overgrown lad ; and
yet in spite of all and through all there is a struggling for good-
ness and culture. . . . The sermon was a model, rapidly de-
livered and yet effectively, when the preacher had advanced far
enough to lose himself in it, and thrilling the hearer by every
word. . . . There was apparently as little aim at effect in the
preparation as in the pronouncing of the discourse, but it was
exquisitely written and every sentence was a blade, though wreathed
in flowers. The hearer was both transported and cut down,
delighted with the rhetoric that saluted his ear and regaled his
taste, and penetrated and solemnized by the truth with which he
was addressed.
Another listener goes to hear him at St. Mark's, West
Newton Street, one Sunday evening in midsummer, allowing
an ample half hour before the appointed time, only to find
the edifice already nearly filled, and the silent, steady stream
of worshippers appropriating every available spot with an
earnestness noticeable to the merest stranger, and this al-
though the heat is intense and the atmosphere almost stifling.
A stranger [he continues] cannot be long in doubt of the just-
ness of his popularity, as he enters in that unpretending manner
and goes instantly to his work, without a seeming thought of any-
thing but his duty as a worshipper. Look at the man ! Would
you not look at him twice in any surroundings ? All our previous
ideas of a pale, formal stereotyped Episcopal minister . . . are
so PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
put to flight at once and forever, as we are instantly magnetized
with the man's polished energy and the spirit he infuses into
every part of the service. With a physique the embodiment of
perfect health, you look in vain for any symptom of the spirit-
ualized consumptive symptoms that old-time people were wont to
regard as a sure advance towards saintship. A round, full,
smooth face, shadowed with massive eyebrows and lighted with
eyes of richest black, not flashing but deep, his whole expression
so free from guile and affectation, and every movement so full of
inexhaustible vitality, that he seems to retain all the wealth of a
pure, boyish nature, crystallized into perfect manhood.
Here are a few more descriptions of Phillips Brooks in the
pulpit and of his manner of preaching :
At last the order of evening prayer is concluded and the
preacher mounts the turret-like pulpit. He is clad in the plain
black gown, with a collar, vest, and necktie such as ordinary
mortals may wear; and carries a manuscript which his eyes,
intently following, scarcely leave from the smoothing out of the
first page to the turning of the last. While the choir are singing
the final verse of the preliminary hymn, he somewhat nervouslv
adjusts the tablet before him to his height and the lights at his
side to his eyes, and then stands motionless, gazing forth for a
moment with a pleasant and rather inquiring cast of countenance
over the congregation. . . . His sermon to-night is from Romans
vii. 22: "For I delight in the law of God after the inward
man." . . . The sermon is scarcely over thirty minutes long,
but is preached with so rapid an utterance that from the lips of
another it might take a third longer. It is founded upon an
exegesis which is novel, but its proposition commands assent, its
argument is strong, its tone is exhilarating, and one goes from it
pondering the oft-repeated question, What is the secret of Phillips
Brooks's preaching? Where is the hiding of his power?
When he reaches his sermon [says another observer] and
plunges into his subject, as if it were a message from heaven,
delivered for the first time to mortals, so fresh and earnest it is,
then the real height of the man's power is reached. . . . He
avoids all the old, worn grooves of reasoning, and leads you by his
own routine of thought into the clearest and simplest comprehen-
sion of life's duties and God's demands. And as he is lifted by
his theme into a rarefied atmosphere, and with a marvellous faith
catches a glimpse of still higher summits to be reached, like a
mountain climber, scaling from crag to crag, you are rapidly
mt.33-3^ TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 21
borne along with him, till the worries of earth look very trifling
from the crest where he pauses.
After this [according to another report] he entered the pulpit in
a black gown and announced his text, Hebrews ix. 22: "Wherein
was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron's rod that budded,
and the table of the covenant." . . . This meagre outline can
convey no idea of the richness of the sermon. . . . His style
was simplicity itself. Illustration and imagery are not profuse
but perfect. His power, however, is what no one less gifted than
he can describe to another who has not felt it. It seems to come
from a deep, personal experience which gives his message author-
ity. . . . He has a certain great-heartedness, and a passionate,
irrepressible desire to bring others to the Saviour whom he finds
so precious, that people of all shades of belief, and no belief, are
carried along, for the time at least, by the same enthusiasm that
seems to possess him. Out of twenty or more of his sermons
which we have heard, there has not been one which would have
been unsuitable for a revival meeting. Whatever the subject, the
central thought is always the cross of Christ the goodness of
the gospel to a sinful soul.
A stranger's earliest impressions on listening for the first time
to the young preacher, whose name is already famous far beyond
the limits of his own denomination, is doubtless amazement at the
rapidity with which words and sentences follow each other from
his lips. Utterly devoid of those pulpit mannerisms and affecta-
tions of which the world is weary, his first utterance seems to
fling him body and soul into his subject. . . . It is the earnest
wrestling of a brilliant intellect with great and yet simple truths,
evolving new and startling conceptions, or clothing familiar
thoughts with rare and subtle beauty. No written words can do
justice to the varied powers of this great pulpit orator. He has
the keenest analytic skill, the most charming purity of style, a
wonderful grasp of glowing imagery, the most evident sincerity,
the most touching pathos, and the broadest catholicity. . . .
There are none of our so-called popular preachers who at all
resemble Mr. Brooks, either in manner and style of delivery or
in peculiarities of thought.
We have seen that Mr. Brooks puzzled the inquiring minds
bent on detecting his theological bias. But according to the
majority of the best opinion, his teaching was in the strict
sense Evangelical. An Old School Presbyterian says :
12 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Writing from an " Orthodox " standpoint, your correspondent
may be pardoned for expressing the joy he felt that Puritan truth
is the doctrine of the preacher now most admired and sought
after in degenerate Boston. It was most refreshing and hope-
inspiring to hear him.
It is this compound [says another writer] of Broad Church lib-
erality and absolute fixedness and certainty as to points of belief
and faith that accounts for Mr. Brooks's wide influence in the
community.
Here and there [says a writer in the Congregationalist] you
will find one who thinks that the Unitarians get a little more
comfort out of his preaching than he ought to give them. But
there is reason for the remark that such suspicions are mostly
confined to those who seldom hear his sermons, if in some
instances they are not unaccompanied with what is very near akin
to a professional jealousy. I have never heard but one opinion
from those qualified by knowledge and impartiality to judge, and
that is that the current of his preaching is strongly and warmly
Evangelical.
One other testimony to his power as a preacher comes
from New York, when he preached at Grace Church in the
year 1870. The occasion rose at once to dignity and signi-
ficance, calling for description and comment which found
expression in the "Evening Post:"
The preacher was a man of mark in every sense, and the
moment you set eye upon him you asked who he was, if you did
not know him before. . . . There was no look or tone of assump-
tion in him, and in fact, until he warmed in his sermon, there
was nothing in his manner to impress you with remarkable power.
. . . His subject was positive religion, viewed especially in its
superiority over merely negative or repressive religion. It was a
strong and telling and glowing argument for the brave virtue that
follows the " Spirit " above the petulant asceticism that is always
fighting with the "flesh." The preacher held his congregation
fixed on his words for forty minutes. We listened to him with
the more attention from the fact that he is a memorable sign of
the times. He seems to be run after more by young people,
especially of the more cultivated class, than any other preacher,
and he is the most conspicuous man now in the pulpit of Boston,
that city so renowned for its theologians. ... It is not
-* T - 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 23
difficult to discover the secret of his power, although he has not
all of the conditions which have heen regarded as essentials of
success among his associates. He has no remarkable qualities of
voice, or elocution, or gesture. He speaks and reads very rapidly
and has no dramatic touches of pathos or humor. He does not
abound in original metaphors or epigrammatic points, in rare
classic allusions or profound philosophic distinctions. He has
none of the tragedian's startling tones and attitudes, and nothing
of the buffoon's grimace and merriment, which are now not un-
known in the pulpit. But the power of the man lies in the ful-
ness of his nature, his thought, his affections, his purpose, and his
speech. There is a great deal of him, and he lets himself out
without reserve, without affectation, without conceit, without
meanness. His sermon flows from its large fountain head in full,
continuous course, now in easy talk, and now in swelling volume,
and now in dashing force, until it pours into the open sea under
the eternal heaven, and carries you on its grand tide to its glorious
vision. ... It is a significant fact that Harvard, which has
been so eminent for the cautious accuracy, careful elegance, and
dainty reserve of its orators, should have sent such an unusual
representative into the pulpit, and that her representative preacher
now is this stalwart Broad Churchman, who preaches the human-
ity of Channing with the creed of Jeremy Taylor, and strikes at
the shirks and shams of our day with the dashing pluck and the
full blood of Martin Luther.
Space must be found for another calm, intelligent estimate
of Phillips Brooks as a preacher. It was written by a
Bostonian, as the extract just given was from the pen of a
New Yorker, by a Unitarian who abandoned his fold to listen
to him. No better statement than this was ever made :
One word remains to be said in regard to the ministry which it
has been our privilege to attend during the last winter (1869-70),
listening to those impressive utterances :
Where all is calm and deep and grave,
With a full soul's mature sedateness ;
where the overflow of vital power, and wealth of poetic imagina-
tion, and the nameless enchantment of genius are all made tribu-
tary to an awful earnestness of soul, a solemn and tender sense of
responsibility in preacher and hearer, which sends the latter away
with very different emotions from those awakened by the rhe-
torical brilliancy, or dazzling oratory, or mere theatrical perform-
24 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
ance of whatever kind. Of three points which make this ministry
especially attractive we notice, first, an extraordinary mental
clearness and precision, which make every word aid in guiding
the hearer straight to the point intended; which admits no re-
dundance in its beautiful and finished expression, and, in its most
glowing imagery and felicitous illustration, never gives the idea of
external ornamentation, but rather deepens the impression of the
truth to be conveyed as by the exposition of a purely natural
analogy or preexisting correspondence between things divine and
human. And secondly, we are impressed by its rare persuasive-
ness, a power of taking for granted assent, which almost com-
pels it, an emphasis laid on points of agreement, rather than on
those of difference, so that we find ourselves addressed from
the broad ground of a common humanity rather than from the
narrow platform of doctrinal distinctions, and are led to recognize
the central truths which underlie and comprehend all our diversi-
ties of opinion. But once more and including all the rest, we
find in this preaching a depth of thought and purpose, a scorch-
ing analysis of character and motive, that cuts clean through the
crust of conventionalism (whether of worldliness or religion), and
takes us to those depths (shall we say?) or lifts us to those
heights where we are set face to face with eternal realities, in
whose sight the poor routine of our daily life is transfigured with
new hope, made quick with grateful impulse and weighty with
sacred meaning.
These testimonies all belong to the first years of Phillips
Brooks's ministry in Old Trinity on Summer Street, while
he was making the conquest of Boston. They may suffice to
show how the city was moved at his coming. There were
those of course who doubted whether it was more than a
passing fashion, some of whom went to analyze or criticise
but for the most part remained to pray. Those were wisest
who accepted the situation as inevitable, recognizing that
some strange phenomenal power was in evidence ; that this
was no case of the ordinary sensational preacher, but some-
thing that was real and abiding, and as deep and mysterious
as the mystery of life in this world. If it may have been
hard at first for the Boston clergy to bend before such royal
presence in the pulpit, they did not show it ; they demon-
strated their own greatness by admitting that a greater had
come among them. Still, it was a disturbing experience in
-*t. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 25
all the churches. It was a source of further disquiet that it
was impossible to classify the preacher according- to received
canons of criticism. Those who listened in order to sit in
judgment sometimes thought they had discovered the secret
of his strength and again frankly admitted their failure.
"His power consists in his simplicity," said one, "in his
earnestness and strength, exhibited in the expression of a
theology free from the narrowness and technicalities of those
dogmatic schemes which make religion ridiculous and weigh
it down." Another said, "Of course he has a fine intellect,
but it is the warm, earnest heart guiding the intellect that
gives him such influence over his hearers." Still another:
"He knows what is in us all. He speaks out of the common
experience and comes right to the heart of men." And
again thought another :
His secret does not lie in his thought or his style ; not in his
utterance, which is rapid almost to incoherency, and marred by an
awkward habit of misreading his writing, a delivery unrelieved by
the charm of a musical or even a pleasant voice ; but in his evi-
dent honesty of conviction, sincerity of purpose, and earnestness
of desire, he does not think of himself or of the impression he is
making; also, in that he approaches men on the side of their
hopefulness. He is a man of exceptionally intellectual abilities,
but the moral qualities are so obvious and forceful as to make
the other seem secondary.
Those who made no attempt to penetrate the secret were
on the safer side. The preacher had the "vision and the
faculty divine," beyond which it was impossible to go; of
which Plotinus had said, as quoted by Coleridge: "It is not
lawful to inquire from whence it sprang, as if it were a thing
subject to place and motion, for it neither appears hither nor
again departs from hence to another place; but it either
appears to us or it does not appear. So that we ought not
to pursue it with a view to detecting its secret source, but to
watch in quiet till it suddenly shines upon us; preparing
ourselves for the blessed spectacle as the eye waits patiently
for the rising sun." Somewhat in this mood he was waited
upon by the people. And the people in this case were
26 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
worthy of study, as was the preacher to whom they listened
with rapt attention and in a wonderful stillness. They, too,
have been described in these reports from which extracts
have been made. It seemed to some as though the congre-
gations were made up mostly of young men, to others as if
young ladies under thirty predominated.
The packed congregations of old Trinity [says one] represent
the best intellect, the most cultivated minds, as well as the rich-
est families in Boston.
It is pleasant [says another] to see Phillips Brooks's audience
and to analyze it. I had expected that it was exclusively of the
more educated classes, but it is not ; from the place where I sat
last Sunday evening I could pick out easily enough the sewing
girls, the Boston clerks, the men of leisure and of study, the poor
old women with their worn and pinched and faded, but thoughtful,
earnest faces; and it was a dear sight, all those classes and con-
ditions of men riveted to the countenance of Phillips Brooks and
hanging on his lips.
It was not long before the popular verdict was rendered :
"Phillips Brooks's reputation is not to be church or city
limited. So thoroughly genial, strong-brained, and strong-
hearted a man will of necessity find a wider arena than can
be shut in by any lines which local whim or habit may
draw."
Somehow [says one observer] there is a feeling that he belongs
to the Church and not to the Episcopal Church; that he is too
large a man for the enclosure of any denomination; and that
a sketch of him in the " Congregationalist " is just as pertinent
as in the "Churchman."
And another writer sums up the situation with an air of
finality :
It is easy to see that Phillips Brooks has found his true sphere
in Boston, and those fond souls that dream of his return to Phila-
delphia, disappointed with his success here, may safely put away
that delusive hope. He has not been long in Boston, but Boston
knows how to improve her own advantages, and Phillips Brooks is
already a household deity in her complacent pantheon. Harvard
has taken him under her wing, and he is already one of her mag-
nates. Boston, secular Boston, quotes him familiarly and scarcely
iET. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 27
remembers that he ever lived out of sight of Bunker Hill. Phila-
delphia appreciated and valued him. Boston appropriates and
canonizes him with all the unapproachable honors of the "Cam-
bridge set, " and there is only one thing that Boston will never do
with him, and that is to spoil him as an honest, earnest, fearless
minister and man.
From Boston and the city churches the influence of
Phillips Brooks went forth at once into the suburban towns.
It soon became evident that he must belong to all the people
and occupy an interdenominational position, so far as was
consistent with his duties as the rector of Trinity Church.
Thus during the first years of his ministry in Boston we
find him preaching in Tremont Temple (Baptist), in the
Hollis Street Church (Unitarian), in Music Hall before the
Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Men's
Christian Union, in the Shawmut Church (Congregational) ;
also in the large Methodist Church in Charlestown, in the
Congregational Church in Salem, in the Harvard Church
(Congregational), Brookline, and in the Baptist Church in
Old Cambridge. But we find him also in Episcopal churches
in every suburb of Boston. Three times on every Sunday
he now preached as a rule, and as there were not Sundays
enough to go around he preached on week-day evenings, and
whenever he preached it was the event of the moment. All
this was not the manifestation only of ecclesiastical courtesy,
it was a personal tribute to the preacher. No other Epis-
copal clergyman was ever given a similar opportunity.
Among the manifestations of his larger ministry, a special
place must be given to the St. John's Memorial Chapel in
Cambridge. It had been one of the inducements held out to
him as a reason for coming to Boston, that this new and
beautiful chapel, built by the munificence of the late Robert
Means Mason of Boston, for the use of the Episcopal The-
ological School and for Harvard students, would be put at
his disposal. It had also been urged upon him by Dr.
Stone, its dean, and by Dr. Francis Wharton, one of its
professors, that he should have some official connection with
the school; but this proposition he does not appear to
28 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
have considered. On the third Sunday evening in January,
1870, he preached for the first time in St. John's Chapel,
a memorable occasion to the residents of Cambridge, for it
was the beginning of a practice to be continued full seven
years before it came to an end. On the third Sunday even-
ing in every month, during all this time, he was to be found
in the pulpit of the chapel, till his regular appearance
became a prominent feature of Cambridge life. From the
first Sunday that he preached till the last the chapel was
densely packed, and with such an audience as Old Cambridge
can furnish. The seating capacity was estimated at about
four hundred, but a hundred camp stools were provided in
the aisles and vacant spaces; the congregation, regardless
of ecclesiastical etiquette, accommodated themselves in the
spaces allotted to the clergy, around and beneath the pulpit,
and during the sermon the doorways were thronged with
eager hearers. Long before the service began people were
to be seen rapidly wending their way toward Brattle Street,
and were willing and glad to wait an hour in the church
in order to secure their seats. It was not an Episcopal con-
gregation, rather it was composed of those who profess and
call themselves Christians and of those who do not. Profes-
sors and students of Harvard College availed themselves of
the opportunity in large and increasing numbers. The spec-
tacle was an inspiring one at Trinity Church in Boston, but
hardly more inspiring or significant than that which the seat
of Harvard University afforded. If Cambridge had any
intellectual prestige or superiority to other academic centres,
it was represented fully in those audiences, who during these
years came to hear Phillips Brooks in the chapel of the
Episcopal Theological School.
This was the first approach of Phillips Brooks to the stu-
dents of Harvard College. He did not preach in Appleton
Chapel until 1873. In the meantime, from 1870, he took a
Bible class in the college, composed mostly of members of
the St. Paul's Society. Among his pupils who hold this
early relationship in grateful remembrance were William
Lawrence, now Bishop of Massachusetts, F. W. Tompkins,
mt. 33-36] TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 29
rector of Holy Trinity Church, Philadelphia, and the young-
est brother, John Cotton Brooks, rector of Christ Church,
Springfield.
Quite as striking as this extension of his influence in
ecclesiastical or religious ways was his recognition in secular
Boston. He rose quickly to the place of a foremost citizen
of his native town, whose presence at every civic solemnity
or function seemed indispensable to its completeness. On
such occasions he took his part with dignity and gravity, yet
never without the sense of amusing incongruity in the formal
association with great men and distinguished citizens to whom
as a boy in Boston he had been accustomed to look up with
reverence. The child in him was perpetuated in the con-
sciousness of manhood's obligations. Thus in February,
1871, he was present at a meeting in Music Hall whose aim
was to awaken public interest in a scheme for the erection of
a museum of fine arts, "when a distinguished array of lead-
ing citizens occupied seats upon the platform." Among the
speakers were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edward Everett
Hale.
Mr. Brooks in his remarks maintained that this was a thing of
the people and for the people. He pictured clearly the state of
the popular mind with regard to an art museum. There was a
certain hardness and want of development in American character
on its aesthetic side; an art museum would awaken those large
ideas of life and nature which nothing but the art feeling can
awake, a boundless good, the new feeling of unworldliness, and
the artistic sense it would create. The passion of our people to
go abroad, when we have so much natural beauty at home, was
not strange; man needs man's as well as nature's work, and hence
Americans flock to the galleries of the Old World. He spoke of
what he gained as a Boston boy in the Latin School out of the old
room which contained the wonderful casts of Laocoon and Apollo.
He thought that an art museum would help every minister in
Boston in the effort to lift the people crushed by the dead weight
of worldliness to higher things. He spoke [says the reporter]
with more than his usual earnestness and eloquence, and was
frequently applauded.
He was present as chaplain at the third reunion of the
3 o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Army of the Potomac in 1871, an occasion which brought
together Generals Meade, Hooker, Fairchild, Burnside,
Logan, Sheridan, and Pleasanton. In introducing Mr.
Brooks, General Meade spoke of the eminent services he had
rendered during the war, not only by his eloquence in the
pulpit, but by his ministrations in the hospitals to the sick
and dying. He attended a large meeting at Music Hall in
commemoration of Italian unity, and spoke, together with
Dr. Hedge and Mr. E. P. Whipple. He was the chaplain
of the Bunker Hill Monument Association at its meeting on
June 17, 1871, and in the fall of this year he officiated in
the same capacity, making the prayer at the laying of the
corner stone of Memorial Hall of Harvard University.
When the Grand Duke Alexis visited Boston in 1872, the
festivities were concluded with a banquet at the Revere
House, at which Hon. Robert C. Winthrop presided, and
speeches were made by the governor and mayor, by Presi-
dent Eliot, and by Messrs. Lowell, Dana, and Hillard. Mr.
Winthrop, who introduced Mr. Brooks, spoke of him as
already a power in the community, as welcome to social and
public occasions as he is valued as a pastor. Mr. Brooks,
in his remarks, dwelt on this feature in Russian history, how
all Russian life and government were everywhere pervaded
with religion, a religion different from ours, which had
yet a great work to do in the world. He described the
growth of the Grseco -Russian Church, claiming that the great
work it had done for civilization should be recognized.
America and Russia were the two young nations of the world
with none of the taint or stain of age. "The youth of the
guest was the fit expression of the hopefulness, the large
mysterious future which was before his country and his
dynasty."
In 1872 he preached the sermon before the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company at its two hundred and thirty-
fourth anniversary. The sermon, afterwards published, was
a notable one, from the text in Revelation xii. 7: "And there
was war in heaven." It was characteristic of Mr. Brooks
that though he hated war as an evil, and denounced its cru-
^ T - 33-361 TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 31
elty and inhumanity, yet when it came to representative
occasions, he took a different view and subordinated personal
feeling
B
Force has a divine mission. It was not to be invoked save
for divine tasks, never for the mere brutalities of selfishness, or
ambition, or jealousy, or worldly rage, or for tbe mere punctilios
of national dignity. So far as war bad justification in a princi-
ple it was this, that what men think and what men feel should
incorporate itself in action. Tbe late civil war was not tbe man-
ifestation of tbe military passion, but the passion of civil life,
the passion of home, tbe passion of education, the passion of reli-
gion. It was not war but peace that fought, strange as the para-
dox may seem. This was the claim by which our republic may,
with no unreasonable pride, boast to stand among nations as
Washington among men, First in war, first in peace ; first in war
because first in peace.
One other remarkable occasion at which he officiated was
known as the Peace Jubilee, when Boston commemorated in
1872 the reign of universal peace by erecting a vast tem-
porary edifice known as the Coliseum. Although the music
to be furnished by a choir consisting of several thousands of
voices, with a correspondingly large orchestra, was the prin-
cipal attraction, yet it was thought becoming at the formal
opening to have a religious service, and Phillips Brooks was
invited to make the prayer.
There were opportunities, however, to take part in civic
solemnities which he declined. Such was the invitation by
the city of Boston to deliver the oration on the Fourth of
July in 1871. He drew a distinction between the pulpit and
the rostrum, between the sermon and the oration or lecture,
invariably declining to lecture, in spite of the inducements
pressing and attractive which were offered him. The familiar
New England Lyceum still existed, and Mr. Redpath, its once
famous manager, knew well the value of Phillips Brooks.
There had been a time when Mr. Brooks would have welcomed
such an opportunity. It was one of his boyhood's ideals. That
he had come to some resolution to abide by the limitations of
the pulpit, if limitations they were, is most evident; in this
he was wise, and here lay also one source of his power, that
32 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
he confined and concentrated his energies in one direction.
For the ministry is the most jealous of all professions, and
the pulpit tolerates no rival. It would have been very easy
at this moment for him to have been distracted from his
profession, drawn off into lines of literary activity where
he must have excelled, because he had for them a native
aptitude. Thus he was received into literary circles in
Boston as a peer among men who had won world distinc-
tion. But when he was urged to domesticate himself in
Boston as a man of literature, as by the editor of " The Atlan-
tic Monthly," the invitation was declined and the temptation
put behind him. Whatever he did must have its close rela-
tion to preaching; it was the preacher who was speaking at
the civil functions which have been described; he could not
talk or write without preaching.
The services of Mr. Brooks were immediately demanded
in behalf of philanthropic institutions and charitable occa-
sions. Every movement for reform requested his assistance.
Without identifying himself with any special cause he gave
his support to every effort which aimed to secure the greatest
good of humanity. The list is a long one of organizations to
which he lent his presence and sympathy in these earlier
years, the Boston Fatherless and Widows' Society, the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Bos-
ton Humane Society, the Children's Friend Society, the Bald-
win Place Home for Little Wanderers, the Society for Dis-
charged Female Prisoners, the Idiots' School Corporation,
the Consumptives' Home, General Armstrong's Hampton
School in the South for the education of negroes. At reli-
gious anniversaries he was wanted, even the Free Eeligious
Society feeling that his presence would not be amiss in their
gatherings. Equally on special occasions in his own church
was he called to speak, before the Margaret Coffin Prayer
Book Society, the Episcopal Church Association, the Ameri-
can Church Missionary Society. It was with a peculiar f elici-
tousness and distinctive freshness and power that he met
these situations, as shown in the reports of his remarks which
invariably followed in the press.
^ T - 33-361 TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON 33
Amidst these many appeals to his sympathy the cause of
children and of young people was most near his heart, or
seemed to be. The two organizations of the Young Men's
Christian Union and the Young Men's Christian Association
possessed him as if he were exclusively their own. And these
are included in the great scheme of educational institutions
with which from the first, and through all his later years, he
allowed himself to be identified as he did with no other cause,
his relations with schools and colleges and theological semi-
naries constantly increasing, and growing always more influen-
tial, tender, and intimate. One might think that this was a
compensation to him for his own exclusion from the work of
a teacher, which in his early life he had chosen for a profes-
sion. There was something extraordinary in the way in
which schools and seminaries and colleges looked to him as
the one man to give the fitting word for both scholars and
teachers. He knew how to address them from within their
own sphere. This could not have been unless he had shown
some special enthusiasm for the cause of education or in-
sight into its methods, and above all a sacred reverence for
the work it was doing. In great measure it was his by in-
heritance and by no effort of his own. But so it was that
from the time he came to Boston he proved the teachers'
ally and friend, and there was a spontaneity in the action of
educational institutions and agencies who sought his aid as
by infallible instinct. Thus in 1870 he was elected an over-
seer of Harvard College. In 1871 he was appointed on the
State Board of Education, in which capacity he visited annu-
ally the normal schools of Massachusetts. He went to Vassar
College where he made an address; to Andover where he
spoke to the pupils of the Abbott Academy on "Methods
of Instruction Human and Divine," "and the address was
like the author, noble, affectionate, and winning;" he was
chosen to make the address at the dedication of the new
building of the Bradford Academy, and his subject was "The
Personal Character of Force and Truth." He gave another
address at Mr. Gannett's School in Boston at its closing
exercises. As an overseer at Harvard, he was one of the
vol. n
34 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Board of Visitors at the Harvard Divinity School, and he
soon came into close relations with the Episcopal Theological
School in Cambridge. He still retained his position as a
trustee of the Philadelphia Divinity School, giving to it his
most loyal affection and support. In 1870 he went to Phila-
delphia to preach before its alumni. To these many ad-
dresses he brought the same careful and elaborate prepara-
tion. He was maturing his distinctive principle, which was
afterwards to appear in books in more impressive and final
form. He could not visit school or college, or come in con-
tact with the educational process in any of its stages, without
asking himself the fundamental question of his own youthful
preparation, How is the power of ideas to be brought to
bear upon the will? The question of education was only in
another form the problem of the pulpit. Thus in one of his
note-books he gives hints of the thoughts passing through his
mind :
The whole educational idea needs revision and is getting it.
All these years there have been a few influences called education,
but others have been doing a large part of the work. The man
at thirty, what has made him what he is? Now these are
things claiming recognition. The question is how far they can
be brought into the methods of a school, and how far a general
basis can be found common to all trades. There is hope of this
to some extent.
CHAPTER II
1869-1872
EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE AND FROM NOTE-BOOKS.
SOCIAL LIFE. THE SUMMER ABROAD. FORMATION OF
THE CLERICUS CLUB. DESTRUCTION OF TRINITY CHURCH
IN THE BOSTON FIRE
We have seen how Phillips Brooks was received in Boston,
what impression was made by his preaching, and how diver-
sified was his activity during the first three years of his min-
istry at Trinity Church. We now turn to the more personal
side of his life, to the impression Boston made upon him.
What hints may be gathered about the man himself, who,
while he threw a flood of light upon the souls of others, still
always remained in and with himself alone, guarding, as it
seemed, the shrine of his personality from the gaze of those
who fain would know him in conventional ways.
His manner at this time was marked by the signs of ex-
uberant vitality ; he appeared to have a larger degree of life
and of health than other men possess, and a boundless hope-
fulness. He went up and down on his missions or in his
social relations with a certain power of arousing or of excit-
ing all with whom he came in contact. His capacity for
trifling, his talent for nonsense, had not diminished by the
change from Philadelphia to Boston. In the photograph
which best represents him at this period there is a look of
profound inward peace and contentment, but withal an
amused smile, as the commentary on what he was observing.
It is the eye of one who, reading others and studying the
secrets of their hearts, does not impart the secret of his own
life in casual conversation. In this respect he could be
almost exasperating. Those who felt disposed to hold
36 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
serious discourse with him, such as they deemed becoming
to his office, were disappointed when a question called for
an answer revealing the inner life. He met them frankly
and with the utmost kindness, with so great charm of manner
that they felt drawn to him by an irresistible impulse; but
when they undertook to sound him upon opinions which
would betray his inward nature, he was like a young colt
watching for the first sign of harness or halter; in a moment
he had vanished in quick flight to the remotest corner of the
field, and to follow him, to come near him again, was impos-
sible. The passion for freedom, the refusal to be entangled
or betrayed until he knew his ground and was sure of abso-
lute sincerity, was his marked characteristic. But if one
would be content with an hilarity which played upon life and
shook together its various elements as in the pictures of a
kaleidoscope, then he would meet him upon more than equal
terms. His bearing seemed to indicate a man who had
never known sorrow or disappointment in cherished hopes,
to whom life appeared as enchanted ground, who wore the
crown of the victor, and possessed some subtle power of
transforming all situations into victories. And yet it had
been no slight experience which had transplanted him from
Philadelphia to Boston. Though he loved Boston with all his
heart, and had done so from his childhood, yet it was like
the love of a child for its home, to whom other homes may
appear more attractive, richer in the fascinations of life. It
took him several years before he ceased to hunger for Phila-
delphia. Intensely tenacious as he was of old friendships,
and slow in forming new ones, there was something almost
unnatural in severing the sacred ties which bound him to a
hundred homes in the city he had left behind. It looked
almost like disloyalty or treachery to the hearts which loved
him and sorrowed for his departure that he should begin at
once to create new ties in Boston homes, in a perfunctory,
ministerial manner. It was long before he entirely outlived
this feeling. Indeed he never quite outgrew it. Phila-
delphia remained the city of joy and beauty ; it stood for the
romance of life, the home of his immortal youth.
^ T - 33-3 6 ] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 37
Thus hardly had he reached Boston in the fall of 18G9,
when he returned to Philadelphia for a flying visit, lie
writes to Miss Mitchell, November 7, 18G9:
I am afraid I shall be dreadfully jealous of any one who steps
into my place at Holy Trinity in spite of my great desire to see
it filled, which is veiy unreasonable and womanly in me of course,
but natural. I am seeing my people and like them very much
indeed. There are many more young people among them than I
had supposed. I do not feel as much as I expected the embarrass-
ment of old associations.
Before Christmas he made a brief visit to Philadelphia,
and on his return he writes to Miss Mitchell, December 24,
1869:
My visit was very bright and pleasant. I cannot tell you how
pleasant it is to sink out of the strain and tension of this new
life into the long-tried friendship of my few kind friends. Two
weeks from to-night I shall be at your board again. Till then I
am impatient. We have had a Christmas Tree at Trinity this
afternoon, which went off very nicely. Christmas has been as
pleasant as strangers could make it.
To his brother Arthur, who asked him as the year 1869
was closing whether he was satisfied that he had done right
in coming to Boston, he answered that he would prefer to
wait and tell him at the end of another year.
His correspondence with Miss Mitchell, which runs through
the first five years after his coming to Boston, enables us to
trace the external events of his life with the advantage of
his own comment. But he rarely goes much beneath the
surface of things, and the extracts from this correspondence
which follow need to be supplemented from other soui'ces, in
order to a completer knowledge of the man.
Oh, that they would get a rector ! The sight of the parish the
other day convinced me how much they needed one to step in just
now and take the loose reins. All is ready to run as steadily and
vigorously as ever, but Avith a little longer delay there will be
degeneracy and dropping to pieces, which will be hard to repair.
McVickar cannot come, and they will not settle on him; why
can't they call Willie Huntington? (December 31, 1869.)
38 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Trinity is doing beautifully, the church is full, the lecture on
Wednesday evenings is crowded, we are just starting a mission,
our collections have doubled what they were, the people have a
mind to work. There is no opposition worth speaking of to the
idea of a new church, and we shall get it very soon. If anybody
says that I am disappointed in Boston, tell them from me it is
not so. I knew just what to expect, and I have found just what
I expected. Last Sunday evening I preached for the first time at
Cambridge at the new chapel. It was crowded mostly with stu-
dents, and all went off very well. I am to go there once a month.
(January 20, 1870.)
The thing that dissatisfies me most this winter is the way I
have had to live and work. I have read nothing for three months,
and though I have had a very pleasant time indeed, yet three
months is a big slice to take clean out of one's life and give away.
But things will be better in this respect by and by, and mean-
while I am getting a whole shelf full of books that I mean to read
in that golden day which is always just ahead when I have leisure
enough. (January 24, 1870.)
The dreadful certainty of some people grows terrible to me, and
the more sure I grow of what we ought to do and of what we are
in the world for, the more dreadful it seems to have dropped
anchor in the midstream and fancy we are at our journey's end.
As to "where they will bring up " I 'm sure I don't know, but I
fancy somebody does. . . . " I see my way as birds their trackless
way. I shall arrive. What time, what circuit first, I ask not.
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive. He guides me and
the bird. In His good time." (January 27, 1870.)
I have been dining at Mr. Charles Perkins's. Mr. and Mrs.
Brimmer, Longfellow, and Tom Appleton were there. It was
pleasant and easy. The Perkinses have endless pictures and art
things of all sorts. Mr. Appleton I like exceedingly, for he is
not merely bright, but generous and kind and simple. (February
10, 1870.)
I find my winter's record runs into a dreadful statement of
whom I have seen, not what I have read or what I have done.
It has been a winter of acquaintance-making. I know some five
hundred people that I did n't know in October, and that is all.
Except as a very general sort of basis for future work it is not
very satisfactory. Lent is just upon us, and while it is a time
that one would like to spend with a people that I know better
than I yet know these Trinity folks, yet I shall enjoy it with
mt. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 39
them. We are to have our usual services, just as we used to at
Holy Trinity, and besides, I have undertaken what I expect to
be very much interested in, a Bible class for Lent in college at
Cambridge, where there are a good many young men who desire
it, and who came and asked me for it. ... I can't tell you
how much I am depending on my next visit to Philadelphia. . . .
I am writing on Monday morning, when I am giving myself a
little indulgence after a hard day yesterday. (February 28,
1870.)
Have you read Emerson's new volume [Letters and Social
Aims]? How delightful it is! I speak not from the point of
a Bostonian, but with the mouth of absolute humanity. Is n't
it delightful to have a creature so far outside of all our ordinary
toss and tumble, describing life as if it were a smooth, intelligi-
ble, well-oiled machine, running along without noise on the
planet Jupiter, and seen by him with a special telescope and then
described to us, instead of being this jarring, jolting, rattling old
coach, which almost drives us crazy with its din, and won't be
greased into silence? It 's a capital calm book to read at night
before you go to bed, but I don't think it would go in the morn-
ing right after breakfast, with the day's work before you.
(March 9, 1870.)
This is Tuesday. Do you remember the old Tuesdays ? For
five years I think we hardly missed once, when we were all in
town, of going to Race Street, and eating our dinner together,
with a long talk afterwards. How completely that is over now.
Mrs. Cooper gone, and Cooper in Palestine; and Strong and
Richards, who were part of us for a while, in Kenyon and Provi-
dence; and I here. You hold the field alone. Now and then of
a Tuesday it all comes over me with a little swash of blue.
(March 22, 1870.)
Last night I had my Cambridge class again. There were fifty
young men there. I am intensely interested in it. It is the
most inspiring and satisfactory teaching in the world. (March
29, 1870.)
Have you read Disraeli's new novel? I like it ever so much.
It is full of such swell people. One lives with dukes and
duchesses in a way that delights me with mild snobbishness.
(May 26, 1870.)
Have you read Kent Stone's story [The Invitation Heeded] of
his conversion? As an appeal it seems to me powerful, as an
argument weak. It may touch some people strongly. Poor fel-
40 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
low ! there is something dreadfully sad in a man telling himself
and the world over and over again that he is happy, as he does
for so many hundred pages. (June 8, 1870.)
On June 28 he sailed for Europe, where he had planned
to spend the summer in a pedestrian trip through Switzer-
land and the Tyrol. He landed at Cherbourg, and after a
few days at Paris went to Geneva, to be joined there by his
friend Cooper. They were disturbed by rumors of war be-
tween France and Germany, but were soon out of reach of
telegraph, and for some days knew nothing of the truth.
They first realized the existence of war by its interference
with the Miracle Play at Ober-Ammergau, which Brooks had
counted upon seeing, the one great human interest for which
he sighed in the midst of the wonders of nature. As to the
war, he regarded it as wicked and unnecessary. His sym-
pathies were with Germany, while France seemed to him in-
solent and arrogant beyond herself. After some four weeks
of tramping in Switzerland, face to face with Mont Blanc,
Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, he went down
into Italy and thence into the Tyrol, which was new to him.
Almost every day saw a good many miles of walking accom-
plished. He was a restless traveller, uneasy unless at work
and seeing something new. His interest and enthusiasm in
natural scenery were excited to the highest degree, but he
never failed to be touched by the contact of nature with
humanity. The scenery he describes as gorgeous, the towns
as picturesque. Ischl "is one of the most beautiful spots on
the face of the earth." "We drove through the valley of
Salza, till far up among the hills we came to the very beau-
tiful watering place of the Austrians, Bad Gastein. It is
lovely as a dream, just a deep mountain gorge, with a wild
cataract playing down through it and splendid mountains
towering above." Here stray rumors reached him of the
terrible war, with the unexpected defeat of the French, which
had thrown all Europe into confusion. Of Meran he writes
to his brother Frederick : " Cleveland is pretty, but this is
prettier. A lovely old valley with vineyards at its bottom,
and running up to the tops of the high hills that shut it in.
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 41
Old castles and modern chateaux looking down from every
side, and in the midst this queer old town, with peasants in
their picturesque Sunday clothes strolling back and forth
over the ridge that crosses the little Adige, and an Italian
sky and sunlight over everything." From Meran to Inns-
bruck, then over the Stelvio Pass, "the grandest in Europe,"
till they came to Bormio, "as pretty a little spot as there is
to be found anywhere."
One of the chief drawbacks he experienced in travelling
was the shortness of the beds. He writes to Frederick, "You
and I are too long; you will have an awful time with the
beds when you come into these parts." He speaks of having
escaped from bed at an untimely hour, "because I could not
stretch out straight or make the narrow bedclothes come
over me." He was in Paris on the 28th of August, having
met with no obstacles in getting there, though under constant
apprehension. The city was still gay, even when the Prus-
sians were believed to be only two or three days distant and
the memorable siege was impending. Again he was in Paris
on the 5th of September, "too busy and exciting a day to
write ; there was a bloodless revolution, and we went to bed
last night under a republic. I saw the whole thing, and
was much interested in seeing how they make a government
here."
Meran, Tyrol, August 14, 1870.
My dear "Weir, Cooper and I have been spending a week
among the Dolomite Mountains in the very heart of Tyrol, and
we have wished so often that you were with us that I have been
much put in mind of you all the week, and now that we have
climbed up into this nest of vineyards for Sunday, I am going to
do what I have meant to do ever since we got among the hills,
and write a report of myself. The hills have been too many for
me. They have piled in by the hundreds and buried my best
intentions of letter-writing, hills of all sorts, big and little,
Swiss and Tyrolean, grassy and snowy, with glaciers and without
glaciers, each sort always fiercer than the sort before it, and last
of all these wonderful Dolomites, perhaps the most wonderful
thing in the way of mountains that I have ever seen. They lie
in a vast group to the east of the Great Brenner road and to the
south of the Puster, that which runs through Tyrol from west to
42 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
east. The great Ampezzo road into Italy runs right through their
midst. They shoot up singly or in vast groups and ranges, sheer
masses of rock, black, red, or dazzling white, three, four, five thou-
sand feet into the sky, with tops indescribably broken into spires
and towers and castles, with great buttresses against their sides and
acres of snow upon their sloping roofs. Between the groups, right
from their very feet, start down the most exquisite steep, green
valleys overrunning with luxuriant cultivation, with picturesque
villages clinging to their sides, and wild brooks brawling along
their bottoms. From valley to valley you climb over steep mead-
owy passes standing between two of the giants at the top.
Everywhere grand views are opening of the great Marmolata,
which is the King of all these mountains with his miles of snow.
The constant contrast of wild, rugged majesty with the perfect
softness and beauty of the valleys is very fascinating. The moun-
tains get their name, oddly enough, from a certain M. Dolomieu.
He didn't make them, but some years ago he first discovered
what they were made of. I believe it is some peculiar prepara-
tion of magnesia. I wonder if some day a metaphysician, or, if
the materialist people are right, a physician, of the future finds out
at last what this human nature of ours is made of, whether the
whole race will be named over again for him and we shall all
have to be called by his name forever and ever. How the moun-
tains must have laughed, or frowned, at the poor little Frenchman
who said, "I have found out that you are magnesia, and so you
must be called Dolomites eternally."
These southern Tyroleans are very interesting people. There
is a pleasant mixture of German and Italian in their character,
as there is in their dress and language and look. They are very
cheerful and very industrious, the men handsome and many of the
young women pretty. Their beds are short and the bread is
awful, but they always give you your candle with a "May you
sleep well," and tell you that dinner is ready with a "May you
dine well, " that makes the footboard seem a little softer and the
bread not quite so musty. If you are unfortunate enough to
sneeze, the whole country takes off its hat and " God bless you "
resounds from every Dolomite in the land. Here on Sunday they
are sunning themselves in the pleasant gardens of the Meran,
looking as picturesque as possible with their tall hats and red
jackets and big green suspenders and great embroidered belts and
bare knees and black breeches. They are thoroughly hospitable,
and help a fellow out with his imperfect vocabulary by generally
knowing just what he wants, or at any rate what it is best for him
to have. If you could see the route that Cooper and I have come
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 43
over, you would know that a very little German can go a great
way in Tyrol.
Meanwhile this disheartening war goes on, and we hear of it at
intervals in the mountains. These Austrians hate hoth sides so
thoroughly that any news of hattle is welcome to them because
one side is beaten and some of their enemies are killed. The
great hattle of last week and the unexpected rout of the French
has changed the look of things. With Paris in his rear already
sizzling with revolution and the Prussian cavalry afront of Metz,
it does seem possible that this war may be the suicide of the
wretch who has brought it on with all its horrors so needlessly
and wickedly. It seems to me that nothing could make one so
despondent about human nature and the world who was inclined
that way as just such a war as this coming at this time of the
day in history.
Cooper sends you his love and wishes you had been with us
among these Dolomites. The poor fellow is groaning over a
letter in the next room. He and I are alone now. Newton was
with us for ten days, and I liked him exceedingly. We go hence
by Innsbruck, then by the Finstermunz and Stelvio passes into
Italy. Then through the Engadine north again, and I go to
Paris if I can get there. I sail on the 10th of September. I
hope to find at Innsbruck the letter you promised me from the
Pictured Rocks. I hope you have had a good summer. God
bless you always. 1 P. B.
The following extracts are from Mr. Brooks's letters to Miss
Mitchell after his return from Europe :
I got in New York Stanley's new volume of Essays, some of
which I have seen before, but all of which are interesting.
There is an essay on the "Religion of the Nineteenth Century"
which is the best statement I have seen of the characteristics and
prospects of what we call the "Broad Church " movement. Do
read it. His views about Church and State I can't agree with,
but it is the only strong ground on which an Englishman can put
the question, and for all Englishmen must have weight. What
capital English he always writes? I send you a number of the
Harvard boys' paper with an account of Mr. Hughes's visit to
them, which was very pleasantly done. I missed seeing him at
Mr. Fields's by my Pennsylvania visit. (October 17, 1870.)
1 Cf. Letters of Travel, by Phillips Brooks, for fuller details of this and other
journeys abroad.
44 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
I am reading Huxley's new "Lay Sermons." How clever it
is, how much the man knows, and how brilliantly he writes. But
it is like most Small Books on Great Subjects, most books for the
people that popularize science. It is patronizing and mince-
meaty, and he is particularly belligerent about the theologians in
a way that does not do credit to his discrimination or temper.
... It does not seem as if it could be only a year ago that I
preached my last sermon in Holy Trinity, and we all travelled
together to New York the next morning. It seems a half dozen
years at least. My first year here in Boston has been on the
whole successful. I have done as much with Trinity as I had any
right to expect to do, and we are on a footing now to do more.
But it has not been the pleasant life that the old one was, and
while there has been much to enjoy, there has been more anxiety
and worry than ever was of old. But I dare say I shall like
it better. Meanwhile don't think I am blue. (November 10,
1870.)
I don't feel theological this morning. It is too near Christ-
mas, which always upsets theology entirely. I have never been
able to write a Christmas sermon yet that was in the least a
theological satisfaction to me or anybody else. So we '11 put the
questions on the shelf till next week. I am so glad that Christ-
mas is coming, and yet I hardly know why. This is the only
day whose associations have much power over me. I don't care
a great deal about Anniversaries, but Christmas, with its whole
spirit, into which we all seem to slip so easily year after year, is
exceedingly beautiful to me, and, as I go about the streets, the
details in these few days beforehand, which are vulgar enough in
themselves, men mounting up spruce boughs in churches and
men carrying home turkeys by the legs, all give me ever so
much pleasure. And I like it more and more as I get older.
(December 23, 1870.)
The smallpox was prevailing in Philadelphia, and Mr.
Brooks writes to Miss Mitchell, inviting her to Boston :
"We will take good care of you in our cold-blooded sort of way,
and when the pestilence is over, you shall return to your home
with an increased measure of that respectable dislike with which
Bostonians are always gratified to think that the rest of the coun-
try regards them. Have you read Dickens's "Life," and isn't
he a disagreeable person and isn't it an ill- written book? (Jan-
uary 6, 1871.)
'jet. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 45
The Lecture (Wednesday evening) didn't go very well. The
night is stormy, and though I don't care much for a full audience
for the name of the thing, I need it for inspiration, and when I
see a small audience I lose the impersonalness of the thing. I
think of individuals and that always puts me out. I was talking
about the visit of Zebedee's children and their mother to Josus,
and am much interested in the subject. But it never is yet the
same thing talking in Trinity that it used to be in the old time
speaking from the dear old platform. (January 11, 1871.)
I have been quite stirred upon the subject of prophecy in writ-
ing a sermon for last Sunday on Cephas. I am quite convinced
that there were two Isaiahs. . . . Queer people come to consult
me here. To-day there was a man who had been to England and
got into some set of fanatics there and come home calling himself
a Christadelphian. To-morrow, like as not it will be a skeptic
of the widest incredulity. (January 18, 1871.)
One evening this week I had my Cambridge boys, the fifteen
senior members of the St. Paul's Society, in at my room to spend
the evening with me, a noble set of fellows, manly and true, and
helped instead of hurt by their religion. I take great pleasure in
them. (February 3, 1871.)
Aren't you glad that Paris is taken? I was reading last
night one of Robertson's Lectures on Poetry, with its extravagant
glorification of war, which is so amazing in a right-minded man
like him. It seems to have been the last remnant of brutality
in a nature which had been almost everywhere cultured and refined
far above it. But who can look at the last ten years on both
continents and not call war horrible? Let us trust this one is
over. Good must come of it, horrible as the process is. Who-
ever was to blame for it, we surely can't help being thankful that
Prussia and not France is to be the master in Europe. (February
13, 1871.)
This is one of the evenings when I wish myself in Philadelphia ;
not that anything particular is the matter with Boston, but I
have an evening to myself and I am tired of reading, and there is
nobody in particular that I can go and see without its being a visit,
which I don't feel up to. Nobody's house where I can go and
smoke and be pleasantly talked to, and answer or not, as I please.
I know one such house in another town where I don't live any
longer. But I am not there, and I must make the best of it.
(March 7, 1871.)
46 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
As to English Church matters, I am thoroughly content with
the Voysey decision, and I think the Convocation debate about
(Vance) Smith disgraceful. It is published in full in the " Guard-
ian." Bishop Wilberforce is worse in his way than any . . .
can be. The American bishops too, it seems, went with them.
(March 15,1871.)
I am having a very good time, with plenty of loose reading and
the days only half long enough for what I find to do. This even-
ing I have been reading Tyndale's new book of Alpine stories,
which is very charming, bringing back the fascination of that
wonderful country and exciting one as all such accounts of ven-
turesome climbing unaccountably do. The style is charming, and
the man, with his splendid health and enjoyment of nature and
his current of sentiment, is delightful. (July 25, 1871).
Are all Hutton's Essays like the one which I have just been
reading, republished by Dr. Osgood in New York ? It is on the
" Incarnation and the Laws of Evidence, " and shows a breadth
and purity and devoutness of mind which gives one great delight.
I would rather have a Unitarian read it than any book I know;
and if one thinks that Broad Churchmanship is necessarily hard
or indifferent of the Whately or the style, nothing could
better convince him otherwise than the warmth and earnestness
of this little book, which has so evidently come out of a man's
soul. (August 10, 1871.)
The summer of 1871 was spent in Boston. He seems to
have adopted the rule, though it was not invariable, of taking
the alternate summers abroad. Throughout the summer he
preached regularly at Trinity Church in the morning, and at
St. Mark's, West Newton Street, in the evening. Both
churches were free to strangers, and it is needless to say were
filled.
The summer still continues very beautiful, cool and pleasant,
and I have enjoyed the leisure of the town exceedingly. But I
am already looking forward and counting on my visit to you in
the fall. I shall enjoy it immensely, and you will be obliging
and talk to me as much as I want to know. From that I shall
take the fresh start into another winter which everybody needs,
and which is mainly what one loses by keeping at work all sum-
mer. "All life is tidal," as Tom Appleton said to me on the
street just now, and went on to tell me how the other creatures as
at. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 47
well as we needed ebb and flow and got it somebow at regular
periods of their life. So I shall be high tide about the last of
October. (August 13, 1871.)
I bave been reading Browning's new poem, and I couldn't help
feeling vaguely all the while that there was a sort of story in it
of the way that other men lose their wives nowadays, only not
always with the better fruit of widowhood. The poem seems to
me, by the way, very fine and beautiful, more tender and human,
than almost anything that Browning has ever given us before.
(August 22, 1871.)
Miss was staying at the Vintons' (at Pomfret), and when
I was coming up, as I had to do on Wednesday, to attend a funeral,
I had the privilege of her company all the way to town. She
was delightful, full of brightness and information and fun, not
in the least formidable to people of imperfect cultivation, with
all that is best and apparently nothing of what is worst in
women. . . .
On Thursday I had an hour with Mrs. , which was as good
as a walk in the Alps for freshness and healthfulness. There is
nothing like her in Boston, and remember we are to have an
evening there when I am with you in Philadelphia whatever else
may fail. (September 7, 1871.)
Have you read Joaquin Miller which is brilliant in color and
very picturesque sometimes, and not by any means our great poet
yet. (September 16, 1871.)
The old round of parish duties, which I have gone to afresh
every autumn for twelve years, has opened again, and I have been
rather surprised at myself to find that I take it up with just as
much interest as ever. I suppose that other men feel it of their
occupations, but I can hardly imagine that any other profession
can be as interesting as mine. I am more and more glad that I
am a parson.
I wonder if the autumn is as splendid with you as it is here.
I spent last night at Waltham (at the country house of Mr. R. T.
Paine), and this morning got an hour's walk before I came into
town. I never saw anything lovelier than the woods, just touched
with autumn color. The whole of September has been a perfect
month, and next month when the glory of it is beginning to fade
I shall get over it again with you in Philadelphia. (September
25, 1871.)
It is very good of you to think so kindly of my visit. It was
a very delightful time to me, and if you really enjoyed it all I am
48 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
truly glad. How delightfully lazy it was, and Boston seems so
driven and hurried. People here seem possessed to do something
without much care for what they do. The mere passion of rest-
lessness is in the Yankee blood and partly in the East winds.
(November 11, 1871.)
I have two of your letters to one of mine, which is a good deal
more than it was worth, but is very pleasant to me. I do not find
that people ever are troubled at getting more than their deserts.
It is my birthday and I am thirty- six years old. It seems a
little strange but not unpleasant, and although I have had a pretty
time indeed so far and would be glad to go back and do it all
over again, yet I am not miserable that I cannot, and I am still
rather absurdly hopeful about the future. To have passed out of
young manhood altogether and find myself a middle-aged man is
a little sobering, but I only hope that all the young fellows who
come after me will have as good a time as I have had. . . . We
have been seeing the Russian Grand Duke, who appears to be a
fine, manly, sensible fellow. (December 13, 1871.)
It is rather strange how freshly and delightfully the Christmas
feelings come back year after year. And yet it is ten years ago
the first Sunday in January, 1872, since I became your minister
at Holy Trinity. I have had an awfully uneventful life. Things
happen to other people, but not to me.
I am ashamed to look back over any day, though I was never
busier in my life. It seems made up of such wretched little
details, and yet I wouldn't be anything else but a parson for the
world. I wonder often that the work keeps up such a perpetual
freshness when the days are so monotonous.
I know nothing of the grace of sickness. It seems to me ter-
rible, the whole idea of suffering, but even more of weakness and
weariness. (January 16, 1872.)
Last Sunday I spent at New Haven, and enjoyed it exceed-
ingly. Stayed with Dr. Harwood, who is a fine, studious Broad
Churchman; preached for him in the morning, and in the evening
preached in his church for the Berkeley Association of Yale Col-
lege. The church was crowded, and Congregational professors
sat in the chancel. I had never seen Yale College before, and
was interested in its size and life. It is not equal to Cambridge,
but it is a great college still. . . . Have you read Lightfoot's
"Commentary on Philippians" ? Do get it and read the "Essay
on the Christian Ministry." It does seem to me to finish the
Apostolic Succession Theory completely. (January 19, 1872.)
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 49
The California plan is not settled yet, but I think I shall go.
. . . Though it would he folly to talk about being run down, I
am conscious of having been on the strain rather too long. I
have preached twice every Sunday, and generally three times, since
I got home from Europe, a year ago last September. I am preach-
ing badly, and the trip will do me more good now than at any
other time. (February 7, 1872.)
I don't think that parsons really are so bad. I suspect that
they are human, and I see but little evidence practically of Apos-
tolic Succession, but I think there are not many who would
refuse to see a smallpox patient, or who would give up parish
visiting because the smallpox was in town. . . . McVickar was
here on Sunday and preached a good hearty sort of sermon for me
in the afternoon. They are talking about him for St. Paul's
here. I went out on Sunday evening to preach the first of a
course of sermons for the St. Paul's Society at Cambridge.
Going there is one of the most interesting things I have to do.
(February 21, 1872.)
I get so tired of talking with tongue and pen that I don't feel
equal to hearing myself in one unnecessary word. To-day, for
instance, I have preached a Price Lecture, and attended two
funerals, and carried on a Mission meeting among our poor folk,
and had a regular Wednesday Evening meeting (lecture). I am
sure that I shall hear my own dreary voice reading the service in
my dreams. Do go and hear Miss Smith and tell me about her.
The old Methodist idea of perfection, which I fancy has always
more or less believers, is just now quite a favorite notion. There
are several meetings held here in its interest. I have just got a
note from Rev. Copley Greene, who wants me to dine to-morrow
with Rev. John Hubbard, who is a great believer in it ; and Mr.
Boardman of the " Higher Christian Life, " Bishop Eastburn, and
Dr. Vinton, and Willie Newton are to be there, a jolly dinner
party. ... I have been looking through Hawthorne's "Italian
Diary, " an interesting book that it would have been wicked to
publish, if it had not been the work of a man who took delight in
dissecting himself in public. (March 6, 1872.)
I am very busy. My Confirmation class is to be large, and
gives me much thought, but it is very interesting. Last Sunday
Dr. Harwood preached for me in the morning, and preached well.
He gave a noble sermon to the College boys at Cambridge in the
evening. (March 22, 1872.)
I have been reading a new book, which is a rare thing with me
VOL. II.
5 o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
nowadays. This one delights me exceedingly. It is Dr. Sears'
book on St. John (The Fourth Gospel, the Heart of Christ).
Do get it and enjoy it. It is so rich and true and wise. All
that he has written before is excellent, but this is best of all. I
have a copy of his "Regeneration, " which you gave me once. . . .
Have you read the " Life of Hookham Frere ? " It is very in-
teresting. Some of his translations are wonderfully well done.
(March 28, 1872.)
I have perfected my plans for Europe now. The 27th of June
is the day, and Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are the places,
with possibly a little of Scotland thrown in. Judge Gray goes
with me. We shall represent to Norwegians that we are insig-
nificant specimens of the American size, and I shall tell them that
they ought to see two giants we have at home, called and
, if they want to see the true grandeur of the American pul-
pit. (April 6, 1872.)
I was very much disappointed that Weir refused to go. I
had dared to hope that he might look favorably upon our plan.
... I suppose it is one of the small compensations that my
lonely life brings with it, that having nobody but myself to pro-
vide for, I can now and then get a chance like this. A few
of the folks of Trinity surprised and embarrassed me a little
the other day with a check for $3300 to go with. A week ago
my friend Edward Dalton died in California. Did you ever see
him? He married a cousin of Mary McBurney's. He was one
of the noblest and best and bravest men I have ever known, and
death has not often come nearer me than in his loss. His life
for the last three or four years has been one of the saddest things
I ever knew of. Wife, child, and health all went at once, and
it has been a mere fight for life, as brave and cheerful as possible,
ever since. (May 25, 1872.)
Somehow my visits to Philadelphia, delightful as they are,
always go off in such a rush and whirl and hurry that when I
come away I have a sort of feeling that with all the pleasant time
I haven't got exactly what I went for, the quiet, placid time I
used to have, especially of evenings when I dropped into your
house on my way home. I suppose it is necessary that one should
feel that his time is not limited before he can enjoy it thoroughly.
At least it is so with me. I hate to be hurried. That will be
one great advantage of heaven. . . . We shall have plenty of
time for all that our hands find to do. I sometimes have suspi-
cions that if I could live for five hundred years I might come to
something and do something here. All is going on beautifully
^ T - SS^ 6 ! EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 51
about the new church. Some of the people of their own notion
got up a subscription to buy an extra piece of land, and in a few
days raised $75,000, and are going on now to make it a hundred
thousand, so that the church will be really something very fine.
We shall have in all something pretty near half a million to put
into it. ... I am getting up a sermon for the Ancient and Honor-
able Artillery Company, one of the queer old Puritan organizations
before which every Boston minister preaches some time in his
career, and is not thoroughly initiated without. (May 30, 1872.)
It is a terrible week in Boston. The Jubilee is going on with
flash and bang all the time. ... It is wonderful what a row
this jubilee is making. There is not a corner to be had in any
hotel, and the Enormous Barn which I see from my window is
thronged all day with folks curious to see what the big noise is to
be. I like to see a crowd and expect to enjoy this very much,
but it is all very funny and sensational, and the primness and
classicism of Boston turns up its stiff nose at it. . . . We have
chosen Richardson of New York for our church architect, the
best of all competitors by all means. He will give us something
strong and good. (June 11, 1872.)
The summer of 1872 was spent abroad in northern
Europe. Mr. Robert Treat Paine accompanied him and
was with him for a month; after that he was alone, de-
pendent on acquaintances made in travelling. His brother
Frederick was in Europe at the time, but naturally preferred,
as he was making his first visit to the Old World, to see it in
his own way. They met in London, and then separated.
Mr. Brooks's summer included several weeks in Norway,
where he was enchanted with the scenery and impressed with
the broad daylight, which enabled him to read a letter on
the street at eleven o'clock at night. From Norway he
passed to Sweden, where he speaks of seeing Prince Oscar.
He was delighted with Stockholm ; he went to Upsala for its
university and cathedral, and to meditate upon Scandina-
vian mythology. From Sweden he went to Finland and
thence to St. Petersburg, Warsaw, and Moscow, recalling
historical associations, commenting on ways and customs,
drawing his own inferences, but especially interested in the
churches, which he made it a rule to attend on every possible
occasion. He returned from Russia to Berlin, stopped at
52 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
Copenhagen and Hamburg, then went to Paris, where he met
his brother, and together they sailed for home.
An incident occurred while Mr. Brooks was in Sweden,
to which he makes only the briefest allusion in his " Letters
of Travel," his meeting with Prince Oscar, brother of the
reigning king, and who soon after acceded to the throne as
King Oscar II. A fuller account of this meeting is given
by Rev. Percy Browne, from a conversation with Mr.
Brooks :
When Brooks was approaching Christiania he heard that Prince
Oscar was to come on board the steamer on which he was travel-
ling. As the ship anchored, the royal barge drew near amidst a
thunder of salutes from the forts. When the Prince reached the
deck he stood for a moment between the sailors drawn up on either
side of the gangway, and noticing Brooks, who modestly stood
behind the sailors, said in excellent English, waving his hand
toward the city, "Is it not a loyal people? " The Prince then
retired to the end of the ship roped off for his exclusive use.
At midnight, Brooks was smoking a last cigar before turning in,
sitting on a part of the deck far removed from the royal en-
closure, when a tall man wrapped in a cloak drew near. It was
the Prince. He said in English, "Will you oblige me with a
light ? " When he had lit his cigar he sat down and entered into
a long conversation, asking many intelligent questions about
America, especially about the Judiciary, the method of adminis-
tering justice in the Courts, etc. Brooks said he spoke like a
man conscious that he had come to a position of great responsi-
bility, and anxious to learn all that might be of use to him. The
next day the Prince disembarked. Before leaving the ship, as he
stood at the gangway, he reached over the line of sailors behind
which Brooks was standing, and shaking hands with him, said,
"Au revoir. The earth is round and we '11 meet again."
A few extracts from his note-book give us an idea of the
deeper moods of the traveller, in this summer of 1872 :
As we travel, it seems sometimes as if ninety-nine hundredths
of the people in this world had so hard a time, could find so little
in their lot to enjoy. The reassurance must come from consider-
ing that joy in mere life, often dumb, brutish, and unconscious,
but very real, which every creature has, the luxury of mere exist-
ence to which we cling, for which we slave, and which we really
do enjoy.
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON $3
As we travel, this impresses us much, I think, the uniform-
ity of nature under all the endlessly various changes of men and
their ways and customs, always the same sky and ground and
grass. It is a striking picture of the universality of the primary
and simple emotions and affections, beneath the changing aspects
of men's more complicated life, this sight everywhere of the
simplest signs of the simplest emotions. The child's smile,
curiosity, love, rage, give us the same idea.
This terrible longing to fasten and confine sacredness to local-
ity; this passion of holy places. We refine it and elevate it, but
it is to be feared that many of its worst effects are latent in the
most beautiful features of our Anglican religion. (Moscow,
August 18, 1872.)
After all, it is the deepest and not the superficial interest of life
in which men sympathize most and come together; in religion
above all other things, and as regards religion in those things
which are deepest, not in forms and ordinations, but in the sense
of sin, the sense of God, the hope of perfectness. I was struck
with it as I travelled in Norway, where those whom I had not
understood, who had lived a different life all the week, seemed as
I saw them in church on Sunday to be so perfectly intelligible.
The value of Sunday as thus the common day, the day of worship.
Out of these reflections was born a sermon on the text,
"Until I went into the sanctuary of God." He wrote down
the leading ideas of the sermon in the note-book, following
the extracts just given.
The Sanctuary of God the place of solved problems. The Holy
Place of God. His Presence. The contact of the soul with
His soul. How it shames our ordinary talk about churchgoing.
How it convicts most of our preaching. How it shows the unim-
paired fitness of the custom. The solution comes with the thought
of God and of the soul and of eternity and of redemption.
I think one cannot go into any temple which men have built to
worship God in, in however false a way, cannot enter a mosque
or the most superstitious of cathedrals in a right spirit, without
seeming to feel the influence of some such spiritual illumination
on the problems that he has left outside in the hot street. I dare
not despise the poor Russian crossing himself, etc.
I went yesterday into a bookstore to find something to read
on my journey hither, and the only legible thing that I could hit
on strange company for an orthodox travelling parson was a
54 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
cheap copy of Renan's "Les Apotres." I read it through yester-
day, and it was dreadful ; the studious putting of the supernatural
and the spiritual out of our knowledge, and almost out of our
existence, the making of life its own complete solution. I pitied
him for his flippant satisfaction, every page I read. What can
such an one do with death? (Copenhagen, August 28, 1872.)
The summer was a thoroughly successful one. So he
speaks of it in letters on his return. To his friend Mrs.
Lapsley of New York he writes :
I have had a superb journey, . . . that was quite unlike any-
thing I have ever had of Europe before and exceedingly interest-
ing. We went so far north as to get beyond the reach of dark-
ness, and lived in broad daylight all night long. The scenery of
Norway is wonderfully picturesque, especially the coast scenery,
and the people are the oddest, quaintest, poorest, honestest, dirt-
iest, ugliest folk in all the world. I found Russia, too, intensely
interesting, and altogether have had a rare summer. (October
13, 1872.)
It is important to chronicle these journeys of Phillips
Brooks because they constitute the breaks in a somewhat
monotonous round of triumph and honors, of numberless
engagements, of constantly recurring social functions where
his presence was indispensable. They were indeed his only
recreation, his only mode of escape from the burdens of the
life that now began to press ever more heavily upon him.
What strikes one forcibly in his way of living at this time
and afterwards is the absence of any form of exercise or
recreation. He has ceased riding horseback; his walking
is mainly confined to his round of parish visiting. Occa-
sionally he walks when he goes to Cambridge to preach.
Now and then he mentions bathing, fishing, and sailing, as
when he visits his parishioner, Mr. C. R. Codman, at Cotuit;
or goes on some yachting excursion along the coast. He
speaks sometimes of playing billiards at Mr. Morrill's, or of
bowling at Mr. Thayer's at Lancaster. He appeared so well,
however, so exceptionally vigorous, that one would hardly
suppose that he was the worse for neglect of exercise. Yet
even in this exceptional moment of apparently luxurious
vitality and abounding spirits there were hints which were
jet. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 55
suggestive of danger. In 1871 lie was hindered from work for
several days and confined to the house with a bad throat.
He wrote describing his illness to Dr. Mitchell of Phila-
delphia, admitting that he had been alarmed. Here was his
vulnerable point. He was putting a burden upon his voice
to which it was not equal. Those who were experts in the
use of the voice were convinced that he did not understand
the right use of the vocal organs. When he was fairly
launched in his sermon, in the storm and stress of his great
effort, one seemed to hear the voice creaking and groaning,
as if overstrained, and the result was sometimes harsh and
unmusical. There were fears that his voice might fail him,
fears in which he shared, and which sometimes depressed
him as he thought of the future. But the immediate danger
passed away, and the voice recovered from its ill usage,
though somewhat impaired.
This was the time when he should have married and
formed a home of his own. His friends introduced reminders
of the subject in their letters, but his reply was only that the
coming woman had not yet appeared. When he first came
to Boston he took rooms at 34 Mount Vernon Street, but
complained of the want of sunlight, and soon transferred
himself to the Hotel Kempton on Berkeley Street. Here he
was happy in his surroundings, exercising his rare gifts as a
host. If he suffered at all seriously in the separation from
Philadelphia, it was not evident. He gave the impression
of being the happiest of men, a happiness whose fountain
was deep and inexhaustible, as though he drank from sources
more rich and full than others, and to most men inaccessible.
He was now possessing or creating a rich new life in the
hosts of friends who gathered about him.
In the first place his father and mother were near him.
He made it a rule to dine with them every Sunday, after
morning service, as in Philadelphia he had dined with Mr.
Lemuel Coffin. That was a fixed engagement. At his
brother's house, he found another home. He was greatly
interested in the birth of his first niece as the starting of a
new generation in the Brooks family. His youngest brother,
56 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
John, he attended on his way through Harvard, as he had
done with Frederick and Arthur. John graduated in 1872,
and then the family succession closed at Harvard. " Since I
entered college," he writes, "in 1851, twenty years ago, we
have had one there all the time."
It was a family event of rare interest, such as few family
records can boast, when at the ordination of Arthur Brooks
to the deaconate, his two elder brothers in the ministry were
present, Frederick Brooks presenting the candidate, and
Phillips Brooks preaching the sermon. The event took
place in Trinity Church, June 25, 1870, Bishop Eastburn
officiating. A brilliant career opened at once to the younger
brother. He possessed the same family characteristics which
lent power to his older brothers ; he had dignity and gravity,
and effectiveness as a preacher, joined with soundness of
judgment which made him even while still young a valuable
counsellor. He had energy and administrative gifts, hal-
lowed by a spirit of consecration to his work. His first
parish was at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where in a short
time he witnessed as a result of his labors the erection of
a new church. In 1872 he accepted a call to the important
parish of St. James in Chicago. The following letter was
written to him by Phillips Brooks on the occasion of his
engagement to be married :
Boston. March 23, 1872.
Dear Arthur, I write at once to say how sincerely and
with all my heart I congratulate you upon your great happiness.
Of course you are very happy, and you have the best right to he,
for a life is a poor, imperfect sort of thing unless a man is mar-
ried, and engagement is about the same thing. I hope it won't be
a long engagement. Do be married and be wholly happy very
soon. Life is n't long enough to waste any of it. ... I can
rejoice with you not only on the abstract bliss of an engagement,
but on your own peculiar good fortune and special prospects of
being happy. A good many of my friends I have lost when they
got married, but I look forward to knowing and liking you better
than ever, and when it comes to the snug little cottage or the
gorgeous parsonage in Chicago, I speak to be your first visitor
and to have my place always in your home, as you shall always
have yours in my disconsolate and empty rooms.
mt. 33 -36'] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 57
So, Arthur, you are wise and good, as you always are, and may
God bless you and life be always only brighter and brighter than
it seems to-day.
I send by you my kindest regards to Miss "Willard, which I
shall hope to dispatch more directly very soon. We are counting
on your visit. Yours always, P.
None were quicker than his old college friends and class-
mates to discern and rejoice in the signs of his greatness,
many of them living in or near Boston, some of them his
parishioners at Trinity, Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Mr. John
C. Ropes, Col. Theodore Lyman. He felt at first some
embarrassment at the revelation of his new and greater self
to these associates of earlier years. Hardly had he become
fixed in Boston when it seemed as if he were transferring
to it his clerical friends of Philadelphia and rebuilding his
old environment. Dr. Stone had preceded him in coming
to the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge. In 1870
Dr. Vinton came to be the rector of Emmanuel Church.
Soon after followed Rev. William Wilberforce Newton to
be the rector of St. Paul's, Brookline, Rev. Percy Browne
to St. James's, Roxbury, and Rev. Treadwell "Walden to
St. Paul's, Boston. Rev. C. A. L. Richards was almost
within calling distance at Providence ; Rev. James P.
Franks, at one time his pupil and now his kinsman by
marriage, was called to the rectorship of Grace Church,
Salem. In 1870 these clerical friends were associated in a
club called the "Clericus," which met on the first Monday
evening in every month. To Mr. Newton belongs the
honor of being its founder, who organized it after the plan
of the Clericus in Philadelphia, already mentioned, if it
could be called an organization which had no constitution
or by-laws. It possessed a clerk in Mr. Newton, who notified
the members of the monthly meetings. In the course of
years it developed a president in the person of Phillips
Brooks, but no one ever knew exactly when or by what pro-
cess he assumed the office. His right to it, however, was
unquestioned. The meetings were held informally for a few
years in the houses of the members, until finally Mr. Brooks
58 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
insisted that they should meet regularly at his rooms. The
social element on the whole was the most prominent feature
of these evenings, though the inevitable essay was always
read. There were some who thought that the meetings
would be more profitable if the members were all required
to comment in turn on the essay, but to this arrangement
the president positively refused to listen. The talk should
be spontaneous or not at all. If a member had anything to
say let him wait his chance and then hold the floor if he
could get it against some one else more anxious to be heard.
It was practically Phillips Brooks's Club, and so it came to
be generally known. It formed a prominent feature in his
life, as it surely did in the lives of all its other members.
Those who had the privilege of meeting him there saw him
and heard him in familiar and yet impressive ways which will
never be forgotten. 1
It was characteristic, too, of Mr. Brooks that he seemed to
give himself exclusively to whatever occasion claimed his
interest. Thus he seemed almost to live for the Clericus;
he was seldom absent from its meetings ; he kept track of
absent members, and urged their attendance or reproved
them for neglect. But he was also giving himself in num-
berless other ways. The demands upon him were so great
even in these early years in Boston that one wondered how
he found time for reading or sermon-writing. Hospitality
in Boston was extended to him as freely as it had been
in Philadelphia. According to his diary there is rarely a
day when he does not mention some dinner engagement.
Breakfast was about the only meal that he took at his lodg-
ings. He never gave the impression, however, of one who
suffered from the burden of his duties, and certainly he never
complained, except in familiar letters, that his life was not
wholly to his mind. He attended concerts occasionally,
1 The founders and original members of the Club were Phillips Brooks,
Rufus W. Clark, C. A. L. Eichards, Arthur Lawrence, William W. Newton,
W. R. Huntington, A. V. G. Allen, James P. Franks, Charles H. Learoyd,
George L. Locke, Henry L. Jones, Charles C. Tiffany, Percy Browne, Edmund
Rowland, Leonard K. Storrs, Henry F. Allen, Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark,
Treadwell Walden, James H. Lee, C. G. Currie, E. D. Tompkins.
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 59
especially the Oratorios given in Music Hall. He kept late
hours, not generally retiring before twelve o'clock, but was
always an early riser, breakfasting at half past seven. He
had one standing engagement where there was no objection
to the lateness of the hour, his Sunday evenings at Dr.
Vinton's after his third service was over. If he found "the
doctor favorable for conversation " the occasion was a pro-
longed one.
Yet amid this multiplicity of engagements, he did secure
time for reading and study, and for the writing of sermons.
Despite the manifold distractions, his mind was preoccupied
and concentrated on his work; because he saw life in its
unity and as a whole, all things were contributing to his
purpose. From 1871 he was a member of the Examining
Committee of the Public Library in Boston, which served
to keep new literature before him. His own library, already
large, was rapidly growing. He continued to make it a
rule to read books as they appeared, which every one else
was reading, and so kept himself in contact with the literary
trend of the moment. In poetry at this time there was
Browning's "Ring and the Book," A. H. Clough's poems,
Morris's "Earthly Paradise," Robert Buchanan's poems,
George Eliot's "Spanish Gypsy," etc., and these he read.
He writes to Rev. Arthur Brooks :
I indulged myself in a little piece of medievalism in Rossetti's
Poems, and as I read over the "Blessed Damosel " last night I
thanked you for it. Have you ever read the Poems ? They are
Pre-Raphaelitism in verse, very curious and very lovely in their
way, but you need to go at them in the right mood, perfectly
dreamy, entirely untroubled with practical affairs. . . . Quick
would n't like them because they don't preach the Gospel a bit,
and Claxton would n't like them because there is not a word of
parish work in them, but they are very pretty, nevertheless, when
you are a trifle tired with parish work. (December 27, 1870.)
There was different and more substantial reading, as in
Hunt's "Religious Thought in England," which he greatly
admired, and which still remains the one best work for intro-
ducing a reader to the comprehensive character of the Angli-
60 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
can Church; or Tulloch's "Rational Theology" in the
Church of England. In other books which he was reading
we get the reflection of the hour: Lecky's "History of Ra-
tionalism," Darwin's "Descent of Man," the writings of
Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall, whose "Prayer
Gauge " suggested a sermon on prayer in which he main-
tained its objective as well as subjective effects; Matthew
Arnold's "Culture and Anarchy," Pater's "Renaissance,"
Proude's " History of England," Stanley's "Westminster
Abbey," and Parkman's "Jesuits in North America;" in
biography, the lives of Lacordaire and of Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, and the "Letters" of John Adams; in lighter
books or novels, "Realmah," Auerbach's "On the Heights,"
"Wilhelm Meister," and Lord Chesterfield's "Letters."
There was one period of history which he continued to study
with peculiar zest, the English civil war and the age of
the Commonwealth, as if he were invigorated by returning
to the native atmosphere which his first American ancestors
had breathed. He read Burnet, Clarendon, Hallam, and
Nugent's " Memorials of Hampden." Masson's "Life of
Milton " sent him to Milton himself, and especially to the
"Areopagitica." He read anew "Cromwell's Letters" by
Carlyle, taking notes as he read. There was another author
whom he valued and kept by him, Isaac Taylor, who has
furnished the seeds of thought, of sober and sane criticism
to many minds. Wordsworth must be mentioned and
Shakespeare particularly as writers to whom he was con-
stantly recurring.
There is evidence that he was carrying on some larger
purpose in his more directly religious reading. He was
studying the Fourth Gospel as the basis of Wednesday even-
ing lectures; he had also begun a systematic study of the
life of Christ, in order to the satisfaction of the deeper
questionings of his mind. Then, too, he was looking into
the history of preaching, and to this end was making out a
list of the great preachers in the church from the time of
Chrysostom. After the first six months of his rectorship at
Trinity, during which he was making the acquaintance of
^ T - 33-3^ EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 61
the parish and wrote only a few sermons, he began with
renewed zeal the task of sermon-writing, but under a some-
what different impulse from that which had inspired the
Philadelphia preaching. He was beginning to feel the influ-
ence of Boston. The religious situation was also changing;
the spirit of free inquiry was growing deeper; the difficulties
begotten by the scientific mind were to many overwhelming.
These influences he had not felt so strongly in Philadelphia.
There his task had been to arouse a living, fresher interest
in what men already believed. Now he was called upon to
meet the moods of those who were drifting away from the
historic Christian faith. The question was before him how
far it was possible to be true to one's reason, to be free to
accept new truth from whatever quarter, to be honest with
one's instincts and conviction, and yet to maintain the faith
of childhood as given in the Apostles' and the Nicene creeds.
Out of the many sermons which he wrote during the first
three years of his ministry in Boston, Mr. Brooks chose but
four for publication. Two of these have a distinct autobi-
ographical value. The sermon entitled "The Young and the
Old Christian" from Deut. xxxiii. 16, * "The goodwill of
him that dwelt in the bush," written in 1871, has the marks
of the earlier Philadelphia manner when he rejoiced in dis-
covering some unfamiliar passage of Scripture, whose mean-
ing was not at once obvious. The thought of the sermon
bears on the relation between the beginning and the end of
the Christian life ; on the unbroken process of growth in
which the personal Christ becomes clearer to us in the years
of mature manhood ; so that whatever the years may bring
in the accretions of knowledge or wisdom, we shall never
be called on to renounce as unreal the vision of youth by
the bush side when we first heard the voice of God in our
ears. The local mood of the moment when this sermon
was preached called for a protest against the narrowness and
illiberality which many identified with the Christian faith:
"Narrowness of view and sympathy is not unnatural in a
1 The sermon is published in the second volume of his sermons, Tlie
Candle of the Lord, and other Sermons, p. 39.
62 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
new believer. It is very unnatural in the maturer Christian
life. ... I do not say that it is best for the young Chris-
tian to be illiberal. Far better certainly if he could leap at
once to the full comprehension and the wide charity which
the older Christian gathers out of the experience of life."
We have here the germ of his later treatise on Tolerance:
It is too apt to be the case that only by experience does the
Christian reach this breadth of sympathy, which comes not from
indifference, but from the profoundest personal earnestness. It
is something wholly different from the loose toleration which men
praise, which is negative, which cares nothing about what is abso-
lutely true or false. . . . At present it seems to be assumed that
narrowness is essential to positive belief, and that toleration can
be reached only by general indifference. Not long ago I read this
sentence in what many hold to be our ablest and most thoughtful
journal: "It is a law which in the present condition of human
nature holds good, that strength of conviction is always in the
inverse ratio of the tolerant spirit."
Against such a view he raises his protest. He does not
believe that human nature is so depressed. If men can only
be filled with the spirit of God, we "may still see some
maturer type of Christianity, in which new ages of positive
faith may still be filled with the broadest sympathy, and men
tolerate their brethren without enfeebling themselves." Such
was the ground he assumed at the beginning of his Boston
ministry, in a city where religious differences were wider and
more sharply marked than elsewhere in the country, where
they threatened also to be more intense, until they should
endanger Christian charity. From this position Phillips
Brooks never retreated. But on the other hand, the com-
prehensiveness of the preacher is evident in his bold state-
ments in regard to dogma, which the liberal school of
thinkers might undervalue :
And for one thing I should say that as every Christian be-
comes more and more a Christian, there must be a larger and
larger absorption of truth or doctrine into life. We hear all
around us nowadays great impatience with the prominence of
dogma that is, of truth abstractly and definitely stated in
Christianity. And most of those who are thus impatient really
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 63
mean well. They feel that Christianity, being a thing of per-
sonal salvation, ought to show itself in characters and lives.
There they are right. But to decry dogma in the interest of
character is like despising food as if it interfered with health.
Food is not health. The human body is built just so as to turn
food into health and strength. And truth is not holiness. The
human soul is made to turn, by the subtle chemistry of its diges-
tive experience, truth into goodness. And this, I think, is just
what the Christian, as he goes on, finds himself doing under God's
grace. Before the young Christian lie the doctrines of his faith,
God's being, God's care, Christ's incarnation, Christ's atone-
ment, immortality. What has the old Christian with his long
experience done with them ? He holds them no longer crudely,
as things to be believed merely. He has transmuted them into
forms of life. . . . The young dogmatist boasts of his dogmas.
The old saint lives his life. Both are natural in their places and
times, as are the ripe and the unripened fruit. How soon you
can tell the men whose soils have tugged at the roots of their
doctrines and taken them in, and left them no longer lying on the
surface, but made them germinate into life.
At this time Mr. Brooks was encountering, whether as a
parish minister, or as a reader of the passing literature, these
divergent attitudes in regard to Christian faith : some were
tenacious and defiant in maintaining the traditional doc-
trines; others were calling for elimination, or modification,
or restatement; others still gloried in the rejection of creeds
altogether, or if there must be a creed, let it be made anew
each day or year to meet the changing moods of the soul or
the requirements of the passing hour. Under these circum-
stances he wrote his sermon on the words of St. Paul, "I
have kept the faith." 1 The history of the sermon is inter-
esting. During his summer in northern Europe in 1872,
when his mind was at leisure to review his work and the
existing situation, the words kept recurring to his mind,
"I have kept the faith." Months before the sermon was
preached he was taking notes in his journal as he prepared
himself to speak. He proposes to meet the popular fallacy
"that a man must change his views to show his freedom."
He had before him "the danger of making one's opinions
matters of faith." The question of training children brings
1 Sermons, vol. i. p. 57.
64 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
the issue to a test. Shall they be brought up in the tradi-
tional faith, or what is the result of the experiment which
leaves them without religious tenets, until they arrive at
maturer years? "What is the meaning of the Collect for
Trinity Sunday, which asks of God that He would keep us
in this faith ? Is it merely a prayer that pride and obstinacy
may be strengthened, or that He would show us a method of
keeping ideas fixed? Exactly what did St. Paul mean by
' the faith ' ? " It is evident that he meant, whatever else
may have been implied, "certain fixed belief," which he had
received and not originated. The conclusion is "the possi-
bility of counting some things settled and going on to de-
velop them into life; " and the method is through obedience.
No faith is kept except as it is obeyed. There is "a strange
mixture of the moral element " in all the passages of the
New Testament where "the faith" is mentioned. No faith
can be truly kept except by discovering in it relations to life.
So it must be with the doctrines of God, of the Incarnation,
of the Trinity, of the Atonement, of Immortality.
Such were the hints and fragments of the preparation he
made for his sermon in the fall of 1872. Some of them
were incorporated in it, but the sermon when it was born
throws this meagre outline into the shade. It was delivered
at a moment when people were wondering at his preaching,
unable to define his position to their satisfaction. But this
sermon gives the open secret. There is no bondage in hold-
ing to the historic faith as expressed in Christian doctrines,
but rather through them lies the way to perfect freedom.
The tendency of Christian doctrines is to expansion under
the vital process which reveals in them a relation to life.
As we follow the preacher in the years that are to be
studied, it is important to keep this sermon in view. From
the position here taken he never receded.
The impersonal character of entries in his note-book pre-
vents one from always discerning the immediate motive out
of which they spring. His fellow traveller in Norway was
abruptly summoned home by the death of a child. This is
his comment when left alone to his reflections :
*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 65
It seems as if a child's death and the keen, hitter pain it brings
us let us see much of the feehleness of the intellectual powers to
command our love, of the possibility of that in which the intel-
lectual was not at all developed holding us intensely.
A few more extracts from his note-books of these years
may be given without comment. They illustrate the current
of his thoughts, whether at home or abroad.
The positive and negative pictures of heaven, "no night,"
etc., and "river of water of life," etc. This world suggesting
the other by contrast and by anticipation. So the uses both of
Sorrow and Joy.
We have no descriptions of Jesus in the Gospels, only stories
of what He did. The perfection of Biography. Contrast with
novels.
In utter dark, in bitter pain,
I reached a vague hand out for strength,
It pressed a hand that pressed again,
And all my tumult calmed at length.
The darkness brightened slow around;
I looked to see what friendly hand
My need had grasped, and lo I found
My foe of foes in all the land.
One angry look of strange surprise,
Then, "Take we what the Master sends; "
He holds me to his heart and cries,
"Brother, the Lord hath made us friends."
The difference between suffering and pain. Pain is accidental,
suffering is essential. It is right and necessary that we should
undergo and accept as our lot whatever comes in our way of work
whether it is agreeable or disagreeable (and therefore note that
the old Latin and Greek corresponding words were used of "suf-
fering " or "experiencing" either pleasant or unpleasant things);
but that pain in the sense of discomfort should accompany the
acceptance is a mere accident, no more to be called absolutely
"right" or "necessary" by the ascetic than, on the other hand,
pleasure is by the voluptuary.
"I will walk at liberty because I keep Thy commandments."
The liberty of law, Eden ; the passage out of it, a passage into
VOL. 11
66 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
slavery. True liberty is harmony. The slavery of self-conscious-
ness that comes with sin. That is the tree of knowledge. David,
so free in his goodness, so cowardly in his sin. Sympathy with a
law well kept, that is the best freedom.
"We may not always be consciously thinking of God, only we
must think of all things through and in Him, as we do not always
look at the Sun and yet see all things we know only by the Sun's
shining.
The man was going somewhere else and sat down for a moment
on the lowest step of the Temple of Fame, which is work; and
Fame opened the door and called him in, to his surprise.
Men keep their brains strangely in abeyance, or they show you
and expect you to be satisfied with some certificate of deposit,
which shows that they have got them put away somewhere.
There is no doubt about the genuineness of the certificate and so
none about the real existence of their brains, but it is not the
same thing to you after all.
The danger, the terrible danger of false tests! I have been
told a hundred times that the Bible must stand or fall with
slavery; and John Wesley says, "Infidels know, whether Christians
know it or not, that the giving up of witchcraft is in effect giving
up the Bible."
As the Hebrew Psalmist prayed, "If I forget thee, Jeru-
salem, let my right hand forget her cunning, " so let us in the
same spirit pray that our powers may be of use to us, only while
we abide in the religion of the right and the true. Let us beg
that any power of reason, or imagination, or persuasion, or any
other that we have may abandon us when we forget righteousness
and God. Let us dread most of all to be builders for Satan with
those powers which the Father gave us to build with for Him.
"0 Lord and Sovereign of my life, take from me the spirit
of idleness, despair, love of power, and unprofitable speaking."
(Prayer of St. Ephraim of Syria, in the Russian Liturgy.)
To Miss Mitchell he writes November 7, 1872 :
I don't like to hear you talk as you have in your last two let-
ters about not living long. Not that I think death is dreadful
in the least for the one who goes ; he has the best of it ; but it
is dreadful to be left behind, and find how merely impossible to
make new friends that are at all like the old. I am sure, too,
-*t. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 67
that our friends must be more and not less to us in the other
world than they are here, and that this world only begins friend-
ships. Otherwise nothing could be more wretched. (hdy I
shudder when I think how one's friends who have believed in him
here will find him out there, and see what a humbug he was. I
don't believe it will alienate them, though, and no doubt even
there the humiliation will be good for him. Promise me that
however you find me out to have been a delusion and a sham you
won't give me up, for I forewarn you that you don't know me now,
and if you ever do the discovery will be a shock to you. Which
does n't mean that I ever murdered a parishioner or robbed a
house, but only that I know myself better than you know me. . . .
1 I am glad on the whole that Grant is elected, but wish it had
been a narrow thing instead of such a sweeping vote. He and
his party will hold that the whole administration has been tri-
umphantly endorsed, and that they are strong enough now to do
just what they please. There won't be any great despotism, but
there is no reason to look for reform or for a high-toned govern-
ment for the next four years.
Have you read Beecher's "Lectures on Preaching " ? It is very
rich and sensible and clever.
The most important circumstance in the latter part of
1872 was the destruction of Trinity Church in the great
Boston fire, to which reference has been made in the previous
chapter. His own account of it is given in this extract
from his correspondence with Miss Mitchell :
Hotel Kempton, Berkeley Street, Boston, November 12, 1872.
We have had terrible days. Last Saturday night and Sunday
were fearful. For a time it seemed as if the thing would never
stop so long as there was anything left to burn. Everybody has
suffered, almost everybody severely. Very many have lost all.
Scores of my parishioners have been burned out. But the courage
and cheerfulness of everybody is noble and delightful. It began
about eight o'clock Saturday evening, and hour after hour it went
on, growing worse and worse. Street after street went like paper.
There were sights so splendid and awful as I never dreamed
of, and now the desolation is bewildering. There was hard work
enough to do all night, and though much was lost, something was
saved. Old Trinity seemed safe all night, but towards morning
the fire swept into her rear, and there was no chance. She went
at four in the morning. I saw her well afire inside and out,
carried off some books and robes, and left her. She burnt majes-
68 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
tically, and her great tower stands now solid as ever, a most
picturesque and stately ruin. She died in dignity. I did not
know how much I liked the great gloomy old thing till I saw
her windows bursting and the flame running along the old high
pews. I feel that it was better for the church to go so than
to be torn down stone by stone. Of course our immediate incon-
venience is great, and we shall live in much discomfort for the
next two years. We have engaged the Lowell Institute, a Lecture
Hall that seats a thousand people, and shall begin service there
next Sunday.
But Trinity is only one little bit of the great catastrophe.
There is little immediate destitution, for there were hardly any
dwellings burnt, but thousands are thrown out of employment, and
it is pitiable to see the rich men who have been reduced to poverty
in a night. My poor friend Mr. , the gentlest and best of
men, is ruined in his old age. Every hour one hears of some new
sufferer, but the strength and brightness of every one is amazing.
My father was so happy as not to be touched in any of his little
property. I myself had none to lose. It is going to be a winter
of sadness and suffering, nobody can guess how much yet.
I can talk of nothing but the fire, and not of that coherently.
Some day I will tell you all I can about it, but the horribleness
of that night nobody can tell. . . .
To this account some other particulars may be added.
Mr. Brooks was sitting in one of the pews of Trinity Church,
with Mr. Dillon the sexton, resting after the fatigues of the
awful night, when the flames were seen stealing in at the roof
of the northeast corner. They waited there together, watch-
ing the progress of the flames until it became unsafe to
remain. As they were hurriedly leaving the building, Mr.
Dillon, in his excitement, threw open the great doors of the
tower and fastened them back, as had been his habit for many
years when the congregation was to disperse after service
was over, this last time, as it were, for the invisible crowd
of witnesses to take their final departure.
There is another incident connected with that fearful night
which is worth recalling. As Mr. Brooks came away from
Trinity Church he went into the large jewelry establishment
of Shreve, Crump & Low, then on the corner of Summer
and Washington streets, where they were expecting the fire
-ffiT. 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 69
to reach them at any moment. It added to the wild excite-
ment of the hour that thieves were known to be in the
neighborhood awaiting their opportunity, some of them ex-
perienced in their craft, having come from a distance; and
there were rumors of vessels lying at the wharf near the
foot of Summer Street, which were being laden with the
spoils of the burning district. Under these circumstances,
Mr. Brooks offered his aid, asking if there were anything
which he could do. Mr. Crump immediately responded by
emptying the safe which contained the most valuable property
of the firm pearls and diamonds and other precious stones
into two hand bags, and consigned them to Mr. Brooks
with directions to carry them to a house on Newbury Street,
a mile or more from the conflagration, taking no certificate
of deposit, and offering no bodyguard for protection on the
dangerous errand, for the distance was to be walked, and no
conveyances were to be had. Under these circumstances,
about the hour of two o'clock in the morning, Mr. Brooks
executed the commission entrusted to him.
In a letter to Rev. George A. Strong, Mr. Brooks describes
other aspects of the desolation which appealed to him :
November 12, 1872.
Run your eye over the map and think what there was between
Summer and State and Washington streets, and consider that all
swept away, and it is wretched to think about. None of us knew
how fond we were of the old town. The streets that are gone
are those that were most familiar to us when we were hoys.
They were then all residences, and I was horn in one, and grew
up in another, and went to school in another, and had walked
them until I knew all their cobblestones. I am glad to know that
you are very fond of Boston too. It is the best city of the con-
tinent anyhow. ... As for Old Trinity, it was sad to see it go,
and we shall he much inconvenienced by living in tabernacles for
the next two years, hut in the end it will not hurt us, and if the
parish keeps together, as I think it will, we shall find some com-
pensations in the freer and heartier worship of our hall. We
have got a beautiful hall as large as the old church, close by our
new place, and count ourselves very lucky.
To Miss Mitchell he writes :
70 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1869-72
My kind friend Mr. Dexter is dead. His funeral is to be this
morning. I do not know of anything more calamitous that could
have befallen the church, and personally I had become very fond
of him for his constant kindness and thoughtfulness and the
simple, bright, transparent character he always showed. I never
knew a more unselfish man. His own sorrows he had enough of,
and kept them perfectly to himself. He was born with every
instinct of a gentleman. He had never been successful in busi-
ness, for he was too good-natured and gentle. I hardly ever saw
a man who had been successful in business whom I did n't dis-
like. Mr. Dexter had been very busy since the fire removing the
last of the Trinity dead to Mount Auburn. He took a severe
cold and last Saturday was laid up, and Tuesday he died of con-
gestion of the lungs. I shall miss his friendship sadly, and to
the church his loss is simply irreparable. He was full of interest
in the new church, and meant to give now his whole time to it.
He had been warden of Trinity about fifty years, and yet was
young and fresh and progressive, while his long service gave him
that sort of fatherly authority in the Parish which, if it is wise, it
is a good thing for somebody to have. Poor Trinity! She seems
to get it pretty hard, but her people come up well, and I think
she will stand, though this blow is a hard one. Our new hall is
crowded, and the services there are full of such spirit as we never
could get in the old church.
Well, Thanksgiving Day is over, and there was a great deal to
be thankful for, and it was a bright and brilliant day, and so I am
glad it came, but there was a kind of sadness about it. That
great blotch [the burnt district] in the middle of Boston looks
more and more miserable as the smoke dies away, and there are so
many people who you know are suffering that your sympathies
are kept stretched all the time. (November 29, 1872.)
With the burning of Trinity Church, Mr. Dillon also dis-
appears from the scene of his labors. He was a man of great
dignity of manner, quite the equal in this respect of Bishop
Eastburn, whom in their long association he may have
unconsciously imitated. He was bewildered at the time of
the great fire, but it also illustrates his habit of watchfulness
over the property of the church, that when the fire brigade
asked for the coal in its cellars to feed the exhausted engines,
even though the conflagration was raging at its worst, he re-
fused the request. After his retirement to his farm in Ver-
mont, he would on occasions discourse, most edifyingly it was
mt- 33-36] EARLY YEARS IN BOSTON 71
said, to his friends and neighbors on important points in the-
ology, exhibiting with fine discrimination "sound views," and
warning against erroneous teaching. His neighbors listened
with deference, for they knew that he had had great oppor-
tunities.
CHAPTER III
1873-1874
ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSIES. RELATION TO THE EVAN-
GELICAL SCHOOL. EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE.
THE SUMMER ABROAD. DEATH OF FREDERICK
BROOKS
It does not appear that Mr. Brooks took any active part
in the controversies within the Episcopal Church which cul-
minated in the year 1873. He was an interested spectator,
watching the proceedings of conventions and the trend which
things were taking, but he did not feel called upon to enter
the arena as a combatant. Although he was regarded as an
Evangelical or Low Churchman, yet so early as 1870 he
found himself out of sympathy with the management of the
Evangelical Educational Society. What moved his indigna-
tion was the policy it had adopted of sending, to the young
men who wished to become its beneficiaries, a circular letter
containing a series of questions or tests which they were
required to answer, in order to show that they were in sympa-
thy with Evangelical tenets. This was made the condition on
which they were allowed to receive the Society's aid in their
preparation for the ministry. When Mr. Brooks became
aware that this policy was approved by the Board of Man-
agers, he wrote to the secretary of the society resigning his
position upon the Board.
Boston, November 14, 1870.
My dear Mr. Matlack, I beg you to believe that I did
not write my last letter, resigning my position as a Manager of
the Evangelical Education Society, without careful consideration.
I thank you most heartily for the kind urgency of your note
which I have just received, and am very sorry that I cannot with-
draw my note as you desire me to do. I do believe with you
'/,/
<*t. 37-38] CHURCH CONTROVERSIES 73
that these are times in which all men truly Evangelical ought to
stand firmly together, but I am sure that the way to bring that
to pass is not to narrow their standing ground. Do you seriously
mean to count no man Evangelical who is not able and willing to
answer satisfactorily to these questions of the Society? If so, it
will cast out many not merely among our students, but among the
clergy who have always counted themselves one with the great
Evangelical section of our church.
It is impossible to discuss the "questions " in a letter, nor is it
of any use to do so, but I cannot help calling your attention to
the strange effect which is produced upon one's mind when in one
question he is asked to give up all allegiance to human authority,
and fasten his faith on and define his creed by revelation, and two
questions later, finds himself called upon to rank himself under
the banner of two modern teachers as represented in two of their
books. Nor can I think that the qualifying phrase "in the main,"
to which you point me, helps the matter at all. The degree of
conformity will be left to the judgment of the candidate ; as
always in such cases the most worthy will be the most scrupulous
and wholly uncertain how near they must come ; the less conscien-
tious will content themselves with a very general sort of assent,
while the more faithful will demand of themselves an entire agree-
ment to the books, 1 to which, whatever be our respect and love for
their authors, I am sure there is not one of us who is able to give
his assent in every particular. Not one of us does not hesitate
at some statements in any treatise of theology as long as these
books. Their authors would be the last men to desire that we
should blindly agree with them in every word. And yet we cast
out students who cannot meet this test.
If this be no new policy, but only the old one declared, then I
have grievously mistaken my duty in the past. I have recom-
mended students to the Society often, and I have been on critical
committees to examine applicants. I never examined students
with questions such as these, nor have I heard others do it.
It is not so very long since we were students ourselves. I am
sure that if these questions had been laid as tests upon the Alex-
andria seminary when you and I were there they would have
excluded all the men who have been most useful in the ministry
since. I cannot doubt it, and yet I cannot at this moment think
of one man of our time who has turned out a High Churchman.
But I did not mean to argue the matter. I ought to have been
at the meeting if I had anything to say. Only I cannot stand
1 The books here referred to were Evangelical Religion, by Dr. May of
Virginia, and the Contrast, by Dr. J. S. Stone.
74 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
apparently asking, as essential to acceptance of a candidate for
education for the ministry, declarations which I do not hold to be
essential, and which I do not think the best men among the appli-
cants will be able or willing to make. There is no such condi-
tion, as these questions imply, to any money that comes from my
parish. I could hardly surprise my people more than by reading
them the questions next Sunday.
So I must resign, but I do it with great regret. I have had
more interest in this than in any Church Society. I have rejoiced
in the good work that it has done, and certainly I do not now
cease to be interested in its prosperity, though I must beg you to
present the resignation which I sent you.
Excuse this long letter, and believe me
Yours faithfully,
Phillips Bkooks.
After long delay and with much reluctance the resignation
was accepted. His attention having now been called to the
whole subject of assisting students with pecuniary aid in the
course of their preparation for the ministry, Mr. Brooks
took a further step, refusing any longer to ask for contribu-
tions from his parish to the treasury of the Educational
Society, or to allow its secretary to use his pulpit for the pur-
pose of soliciting funds. The following letter to his brother,
in Chicago, who felt the same difficulty, reveals his state of
mind :
Hotel Kempton, Berkeley Street, Boston, November 16, 1873.
Dear Arthur, I wish you'd ask me easier questions.
Here is this Theological Education question which I have been
puzzling over for years and see no light on yet, and your letter
just rubs it in a little more. For myself I have nothing to say.
Sometimes I have found a good student to whom I have made my
appropriation, but at present I know of none such; and I have
about $500 lying at interest which I do not know what to do
with. I cannot deliberately send to the Increase of the Ministry
Society, and the accounts which I have heard of the Evangelical
Anniversaries make me less inclined than ever to send to Mr. .
I am afraid that Washburn and Harwood have very little to do
with the Society to which they give their names. But not to
speak of myself I should think your case was easier. Your Parish
has been wholly used to one way of giving. It is presumable
that some of them know something about the Increase of the
jet. 37-38] CHURCH CONTROVERSIES 75
Ministry Society and prefer it. Why not let them specify their
contributions to either Society as they prefer, and then tell them
that the unappropriated balance is to be appropriated to the gen-
eral course of Theological Education at your discretion.
Mr. Brooks did not come forward as an advocate of any
reform in the matter at issue. lie continued to give occa-
sional aid to young men according to his individual judgment,
but in some cases experienced grievous disappointment with
the result. When his name was again placed in 1892 on the
list of Vice-Presidents of the Evangelical Educational Society
he wrote this letter to its secretary, the late Rev. K. C.
Matlack :
233 Clarendon Street, Boston, February 17, 1892.
My dear Mr. Matlack, I am very grateful to those who
have done me the honor of electing an Honorary Vice-President
of the Evangelical Educational Society. I do not think it best,
however, to accept the position which is thus offered me, because
I feel that it would lead to a misunderstanding of my position
with reference to the Society.
A good many years ago I came to feel that educational aid
societies were not desirable and therefore withdrew from your
society of which I had been a member and a manager. I have
not changed my feeling with regard to it, and while I am con-
vinced that a great deal of good is done by your organization,
under your effective management, I cannot, with my convictions,
feel it right to take a position as even associated in an honorary
way with its administration.
I am sure you will understand my position, and will know that
I do not in the least undervalue the kindness of those who have
invited me to give my name.
Yours most sincerely,
Phillips Brooks.
Despite this action of Mr. Brooks in separating himself
from the managers of the Evangelical cause, there was no
break in his cordial relations with individuals who represented
the Evangelical principles as he understood them. Thus to
Mr. Cooper he writes, with reference to the petition which
had been often sent to the General Convention, asking that
the word " regenerate " might be omitted from the Baptismal
office, or its use made optional :
76 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
Hotel Kempton, Berkeley Street, Boston, March 23, 1871. '
Dear Cooper, I got your note, and last night I read your
article aloud to Vinton and we talked it over. It is very strongly
put, and the motive that you allude to, their possible dread of
being swamped by Ritualism, is the one thing that might make
the High Churchmen tolerate and concede a little to the Low
Churchmen. But they don't dread Ritualism enough to make
them yield their dear principle of "no change in the Prayer
Book." That has become a bigotry with them. So I do not
believe this General Convention is going to yield on the Prayer
Book in the least. Still I believe in asking them to. Let the
responsibility be on them and not on us. Let them not say we
did not ask. So I hope you will put your memorial in form very
soon and frankly and fairly let us sign it, and tell the Swells what
we poor creatures want.
I shall be on after the 12th of April, and then we '11 talk about
it all. We '11 get it out in Antique Type. Many thanks for
the Protest. I am to exchange with Jaggar on the 19th and
preach there morning and afternoon.
Always yours, P. B.
When Bishop Eastburn died, in 1872, who for more than
twenty-five years had been the rector of Trinity Church, Mr.
Brooks paid a tribute to his memory from the pulpit, in which
he took occasion to speak of the Evangelical movement which
the Bishop had represented. These words may be taken as
his deliberate and final judgment; they have the apparent
tone of one speaking from the outside, but the tone also of
one who was still within the circle from which he did not seek
escape :
The Evangelical movement had its zealous men here and there
throughout the land. The peculiarities of that movement were
an earnest insistence upon doctrine, and upon personal, spiritual
experience, of neither of which had the previous generation made
very much. Man's fallen state, his utter hopelessness, the vica-
rious atonement, the supernatural conversion, the work of the
Holy Spirit, these were the truths which the men of those days,
who were what were called "Evangelical" men, urged with the
force of vehement belief upon their hearers. They were great
truths. There were crude, hard, and untrue statements of them
very often, but they went deep ; they laid hold upon the souls and
consciences of men. They created most profound experiences.
*t. 37-38] CHURCH CONTROVERSIES 77
They made many great ministers and noble Christians. It was
indeed the work of God. To those of you who were his parishioners
and friends, who heard him preach year after year, and knew what
lay nearest to his heart, I need not say how entirely Bishop East-
burn was a man of this movement. His whole life was full of it.
He had preached its Gospel in New York with wonderful success
and power. He bore his testimony to it to the last in Boston.
A faith that was very beautiful in its childlike reliance upon God ;
a sturdy courage which would have welcomed the martyrdom of
more violent days ; a complete, unquestioning, unchanging loyalty
to the ideas which he had once accepted ; a deep personal piety,
which, knowing the happiness of divine communion, desired that
blessedness for other souls ; a wide sympathy for all of every
name who were working for the ends which he loved and desired ;
these with his kindly heart and constancy in friendship made the
power of the long ministry of Bishop Eastburn. The teaching of
this parish through twenty-six years was most direct and simple.
There was a dread, even, of other forms in which the same awak-
ening of spiritual life was manifest. The High Churchman and
the Broad Churchman found no tolerance. But the preacher was
one whom all men honored, whose strong moral force impressed the
young and old, whose sturdy independence was like a strong east
wind, and who went to his reward crowned with the love of many
and the respect of all. It seems but yesterday that his familiar
figure passed away. His voice is still fresh in our ears. The
old Church comes back, and he stands there in its pulpit, as he
must always stand, among the most marked and vigorous figures
in our parish history. It would not be right to renew our Church
life without cordial remembrance of his strength and faithfulness. 1
One other point there was of sharp divergence between the
Low Church and the High Church parties. It was the custom
of the former in administering the Lord's Supper to invite
the members of other religious denominations to remain to
the communion. With this custom Mr. Brooks was in
sympathy. When his brother Arthur came into collision
with the Bishop of Illinois, the Rt. Rev. Henry J. White-
house, who assumed the right to forbid such notice to be
given and to enforce the principle of " close communion " in
1 From a manuscript sermon, preached at Trinity Church, September 29,
1872, from the text, St. Matt. xxv. 21 : " Well done, thou good and faithful
Bervant."
78 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
the Episcopal Church, Mr. Brooks wrote these letters in
which he touches upon the principle involved :
Hotel Kempton, Berkeley Street, Boston, May 23, 1873.
Dear Arthur, I suppose it was to be expected that you
and Whitehouse would collide sooner or later, and the matter of
which you wrote to me seems to be a pretty good point to meet
on. I do not understand why Mr. has never objected before
to your action in inviting others than Episcopalians to the Com-
munion. You have been in St. James's almost a year. Have you
given the invitation all that time, and has he heard it and only now
since the Bishop's visit entered his remonstrance? That would
seem to show that he was acting under the Bishop's suggestion,
which would be a piece of parochial interference of which your
Bishop perhaps may be capable, but certainly no other in the
land. I certainly would not yield the matter to Mr. alone.
I would go and see him and have a square, friendly talk about it.
If he stands alone in his remonstrance I would not sacrifice what
may be a very desirable practice to his narrow whim. If there
are a considerable number in the parish who object I should dis-
continue it, but certainly take great pains to say in a sermon at the
same time what my real ground was, to explain the perfectly clear
position of our Church on the subject, and not to seem to fall low
before the footstool of the Bishop at his first assumption of
authority.
The position of our Church is perfectly clear. The Archbishop
of Canterbury himself in the Vance Smith dispute distinctly said
that the Collect which touches the question applied only to our
own people. The more I think of it the more I hope you will
continue it unless it is very clearly desirable to drop it. I would
not give it up out of mere courtesy to any man. At the same
time it is not so absolutely a thing of principle that it might not
be omitted if its use would seriously wound many people and
injure the parish. You surely have done right so far.
Of course you can judge better than I. Excuse my venturing
all these remarks, but you asked for them. . . . What an un-
pleasant Christian Whitehouse must be. . . .
But with all my heart I sympathize with your dread of a con-
troversy and of the cheap notoriety and the disgusting partisan-
ship that comes with it.
June 2, 1873.
I have received the Papers. What a cheerful sheet the
"Times" seems to be. It is so good and gentlemanly. Do you
*t. 37-38] CHURCH CONTROVERSIES 79
have much of that sort of Journalism in your town. As to the
whole effect, I think the Church at large will only say, "There 's
Bishop Whitehouse at it again," and then let the matter drop.
The "Boston Journal " has a paragraph made up from the "Chicago
Trihune " article on Saturday, which Father discovered, and so they
knew all about it at home. Then I told them all I knew about it.
They are calm. There is only one suggestion I want to make.
I do not think the notice is to be in any way considered or to be
either attacked or defended as an addition or interpolation in the
Service. It is an address by the Minister to the Congregation.
It is of the nature of Sermon and not of Liturgy, and considera-
tions of Liturgical Integrity have nothing to do with it. If a
minister is to be found fault with for doing it, it must be as he would
be blamed for any other statement that was considered faulty in
his Sermon, on the ground of false doctrine not of rubrical impro-
priety. But I dare say the breeze has blown itself out before this
and all is forgotten. . . .
Always yours, Phillips.
It was evident in these years, the early seventies, that
things were rapidly tending toward a separatist movement in
the Episcopal Church. The schism was finally consummated
in 1873 when the Reformed Episcopal Church was organized
under the leadership of Bishop Cummins of Kentucky.
With this movement Mr. Brooks had no sympathy, nor did
the idea of leaving the Church present itself to him as a
practical issue or as really affording any relief from the
grievances which he felt in common with the Evangelical
party. Despite the restrictive legislation, whose object and
end he regarded as separating the Episcopal Church from
intercommunion with the other Protestant churches, he held
it his duty to remain and, in whatever way was open, mani-
fest his sympathy for the principle of open communion and
other modes of Christian fellowship. No canon that had
been enacted forbade his preaching in the churches of other
denominations. He had the advantage of his brethren in
this respect that such opportunities were constantly afforded
him. He became conspicuous, almost the only Evangelical
Churchman remaining, who was in a position where he
could represent the natural affinity of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church with other Protestant bodies. More and more
80 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
this was to become a distinctive feature of his attitude. To
these and other similar points he alludes in his correspond-
ence with Miss Mitchell :
I have been off for a day down to Ipswich where Dr. Cotton
Smith had a clerical powwow for the Dean of Canterbury who
has come over to attend the Evangelical Alliance. He is a solid,
stolid-looking Englishman, an ecclesiastic from the rosette on his
hat to the buckle on his shoes, but a man of learning, reading
hard Sanscrit as you and I read easy English, and healthy and
wholesome through and through. Several other interesting peo-
ple are here, especially a few famous Germans, Dorner, the
"Person of Christ " man, and many others. But I do not think the
whole occasion promises much, and I shan't go on, though I give
it my hearty blessing at this distance. (October 3, 1873.)
The sermon is just done which is a rare event for Friday. It
is about the Evangelical Alliance, which seems to me as it has
gone on to have assumed a much larger look than it had at first,
and to be really a great and noble thing. It is really so great
that it can carry off a great many small faults, speeches here and
there in bad taste, and an occasional piece of bad temper. I can-
not see how such a meeting can fail to make Christianity stronger
and broader. (October 9, 1873.)
What do you think of the Bishop of Madagascar turning up in
New York and writing a letter to Bishop Potter, complaining
that the Dean of Canterbury had insulted the Archbishop of Can-
terbury ? There is a roundabout confession and ingenious intri-
cacy about it all which is nuts to the ecclesiastical mind. One
may count upon no end of dreary controversy about whether Christ
is willing that Dean Payne Smith should eat the Lord's Supper
in an Episcopal Church, but not in Dr. Adams's Presbyterian
Meeting House. As if all the great questions of faith and morals
were settled, and that one minute squabble was the last thing left.
Surely not till then will it begin to be of consequence. (October
15, 1873.)
And what do you think about Cummins ? What a panic it must
make among the bishops to know that a stray parson is round with
a true bit of their genuine succession, perfectly and indisputably
the thing, which he can give to anybody that he pleases ! Nothing
like it since the powwow among the gods when Prometheus stole
the fire. Would n't it be queer if Cummins actually became a
*t. 37-38] CHURCH CONTROVERSIES 81
critical event by the discontented from to going off and
o-etting the consecration of a new church from him. (November
20, 1873.)
I don't know anything that makes one feel more genuinely old
than to see that great recognizable changes and advances of the
current of thought have been made in our time, so that while we
see the new we can remember the old as something different. It
used to seem as if such changes took a half century at least.
Only fourteen years ago when I entered the ministry there were
the two old-fashioned parties, the Lows and Highs, over against
each other in a quiet, intelligent, comfortable way. Now you can
hardly find a representative of either among the younger men
except , and the Broad Churchmen and Ritualists divide the
field. Let us be thankful that we belong to the party of the
future. (December 11, 1873.)
I hear that is dead : another of that fading school of Evan-
gelicals who are fast passing away. One of the best of them
(the Evangelicals) died the other day, my old professor and friend
at Alexandria, Dr. Sparrow, one of the ablest and best men I ever
knew, learned and broad, and as simple as a child. I had a let-
ter from the dear old man, dated only two days before he died,
in which I was delighted to hear him say, "I am disposed to re-
gard the prospects of our Church brighter now than they have
ever been in my day." All the old men are croaking and help-
less, and it was good to hear one of them sanguine. (January 22,
1874.)
In May, 1874, the first steps were taken toward the
establishment of the American Church Congress. The aim
of its founders was to bring men together who differed in
their convictions, to ventilate questions which were subjects
of controversy in free untrammelled speech in the hope that
it would lead to a mutual confidence and understanding.
Churchmen of all schools of opinion were present, and amid
much earnestness and enthusiasm the new institution was
organized. Mr. Brooks was placed upon its Central Com-
mittee whose task was to select topics for discussion and
appoint the speakers.
Next week we go to New Haven, all of us Broad Churchmen,
to see what can be done to keep or make the Church liberal and
vol. n
82 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
free. There is a curious sort of sensitiveness and expectancy
everywhere in the Church, a sort of fear and feeling that things
cannot remain forever just as they are now, and a general looking
to the General Convention of next Fall as the critical time. The
last impression may he wrong because General Conventions are
not apt to be critical, but the other feeling has its foundation, and
one wonders what is coming out of it all. Certainly some sort of
broad church. A meeting such as this I speak of could not have
been possible ten years ago. Then the men could not have been
found to go ; now men are asking to be invited. (May 12, 1874.)
The Convention of the diocese of Massachusetts which met
in May to elect a successor to Bishop Eastburn reflected the
stormy times which were passing over the Episcopal Church.
The High Church candidate was the Rev. James De Koven
of Wisconsin. Mr. Brooks wanted Dr. Vinton to be the
Low Church candidate, and when he declined, voted for his
friend Rev. Henry C. Potter of Grace Church, New York.
When it became evident that Dr. Potter could not be elected,
a compromise was effected by which the choice of the Con-
vention fell on the Rev. Benjamin H. Paddock of Brooklyn,
N. Y. The Convention was a memorable one for the inten-
sity of feeling which prevailed. Among the glowing speeches
which were made, none equalled that of Dr. Vinton as he
stood forth in all the majesty of his appearance delivering
his impassioned appeal for evangelical truth. There was an-
other moment, which will not be forgotten by those present,
when the Rev. William R. Huntington of Worcester pre-
sented the name of Phillips Brooks, as a man surpassing all
others who had been named for the vacant Episcopate. But
the time for Phillips Brooks had not yet come. To the bishop-
elect, he wrote this letter pledging him his support :
Hotel Kempton, Berkeley Street, Boston, May 21, 1873.
Rev. and dear Sir, I have doubted whether I have any
right to add another to the multitude of letters which I know you
must have received with reference to your election to our episco-
pate. But I feel so deeply anxious that you should consent to be
our Bishop that I venture to add my assurance of cordial welcome
and hearty cooperation to all the others which must have come to
jet. 37-38] CORRESPONDENCE 83
you. I think I know Massachusetts pretty well, and I am deeply
convinced that our Church has a great and good work to do here.
She will not do it easily, nor hy simply standing still in idle as-
sertion of herself, hut if she will work for the people, the people
will understand her readily enough. I am sure that all the cir-
cumstances connected with your election promise a cordial and
unpartisan support of all your plans and lahors hy both the Clergy
and the Laity of our diocese, and knowing this I have ventured
to express to you my own sincere and anxious hope that you may
be able to come to us.
I beg you not to trouble yourself to answer this note, but
believe me, with much regard,
Most sincerely yours, Phillips Brooks,
Rector of Trinity Church, Boston.
It would have been a significant event for Massachusetts,
as for himself, had Mr. Brooks become its bishop in 1873 ;
but he refused to allow his name to be used, nor would he
have accepted the office if he had been elected. He had
other work to do as the rector of Trinity Church, and to this
work we now turn, and to the incidents which befell him from
1873 to 1877. These years constitute a distinct group in his
life. It was the time when Trinity Church dwelt in taber-
nacles, awaiting the completion of its new temple. His
preaching during this period was marked by increasing
power as he exerted himself to meet the emergency of a
church without a home. But before we come to the one lead-
ing event which gives unity and connected interest to these
years, we may follow him in his familiar correspondence.
These extracts are from his letters to Miss Mitchell :
The worst thing that I see about getting old, or older, is that
you get further away from the young people who are the best
people in the world. I never see a lot of boys without wanting
to be among them, and wishing they would let me into their com-
pany and being sure that they won't. I hate to think that boys
of sixteen think of me as I used to think of men of thirty-seven
when I was their age. Most of the wisdom of old age is humbug.
I was struck dreadfully by what you said about the prevalent dis-
content with life that one hears so much of. It 's awful, and is
the most unchristian thing one has to deal with. I fancied it was
84 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
more the fashion here, hut I suppose I have forgotten how much of
the same thing I used to hear in Philadelphia, or perhaps it did
not impress me so much then. I pray God that I may die before
I get so tired of living. (January 29, 1873.)
I have just been going again through Hessey's Bampton Lec-
tures, which is satisfactory enough in all the theory of the matter ;
and I don't think there is nearly as much trouble about its prac-
tical aspects as there sometimes appears to be. At any rate a
good conscience is the best guide about keeping Sunday or enfor-
cing it in others. There is very little indeed in the way of positive
law to be made out about it. It seems to me there is a strange
lack of faith in the way that the strict Inspirationists and the
stricter Sabbatarians are always in a panic lest the Book or the
Day, which they above all others claim for God, should come to
grief.
I am having an off week, that is, I have no sermon to write
because I go to New Haven on Sunday to preach for the students.
I shall stay with Harwood, and if all goes as it went last year I
shall have a good time. It is the first Sunday that I have not
preached at home since I returned from Europe, except one Sunday
in November when my Church burned down ; and except once, when
Percy Browne preached for me, I have not had a single exchange
or supply all that time. (February 7, 1873.)
"Keil on the Kings " is a very good commentary as commenta-
ries go, a little overburdened with linguistics, but on the whole
telling you (I mean me) rather less of what I know already and
more of what I don't than most commentaries. But they are all
a poor set. Lange has a good deal that is interesting and valu-
able, but, bless me, who could n't have a few pennies if he swept
all the gutters in town and saved all the rubbish. (March 26,
1873.)
I am just come back from Andover where I went to lecture to
the Congregational Divinity Students about Preaching. It was
quite interesting to me if not to them. . . . They ask hard ques-
tions which you rather despair of answering, not because of the
difficulty of the question, but because it shows such a queer state
of mind in the questioner. I stayed with Professor Park, who is
charming, bright, witty, and genial. . . . Have you read a book
about Dissent by an English Bampton lecturer? (April 3, 1873.)
I am sorry to find on getting home there is some trouble, I
can't tell how serious yet, about the new church. The land
^ T - 37-38] CORRESPONDENCE 85
proves not so good as the average of the made land, and the piles
which we have driven in it will not probably hold a building of the
weight of ours. We don't want to go down any lower than we
are, and so some modification of the plan must probably be made.
I hope the change will not need to be great, and will improve
instead of injuring the building. (May 9, 1873.)
How interesting and beautiful Tom Hughes's little book is!
[Memoirs of a Brother.] I wonder whether the brother was as
good as he is described. What he (the brother) actually does in
the way of letters, etc., didn't strike me much. He is the first
man on record, I think, who ever dedicated his life to the health
of his Mother-in-law. I am homesick still when I remember my
pleasant visit. I shall live now on the hope of the Fall. (May
16, 1873.)
I am busy writing what is a sort of Biographical Oration for
what is after a fashion my native town, Andover. It is to be
delivered at the opening of their Memorial Hall next week. I
don't like the work. Sermons I like to write, the more the bet-
ter, as many as the deluded folk will sit and hear, but anything
else except this weekly letter comes hard. I have a pretty obsti-
nacy when I am asked to do anything right away, but when the
task is three months off, I am apt to be feeble and assent, and by
and by the day comes on like Fate. (May 22, 1873.)
I have been much interested in reading up about the old Puri-
tan town. What a curious set they were. So estimable and so
deadly dull, sober and serious to a degree that is frightful to think
of, but strong and tough as granite. The modern religion looks so
gentle beside them. I came across this sentence yesterday in that
most unpleasant book, Galton's "Hereditary Genius," which has
just a vexatious amount of truth in it, "A gently complaining and
tired spirit is that in which Evangelical Divines are apt to pass
their days." . . . X made a prayer at the new Hall to-day
in which he thanked the Lord for the workmen who had been
engaged upon the building, that "He had given his angels charge
over them that none of them should strike his foot against a
stone." What do you think of that for a reverent and beautiful
use of Scripture ? (May 30, 1873.)
After this month I am going to shut up the Hall, and use
Emmanuel Church which is ordinarily closed during the summer.
I shall be there every Sunday except when I occasionally get Mr.
86 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
Tiffany to take my place. One Sunday in July I mean to be in
Philadelphia, to preach for the Advent people. . . . Then I am
going to Newport for a few days and perhaps to Mount Desert,
and so I hope to worry through the summer comfortably. Next
year comes Europe again. . . . Mr. died the other day. . . .
One wouldn't like to stay quite as long as he has, but with the
world such as it is, there is great temptation to linger at the feast
a good while yet. (June 5, 1873.)
I am very much interested in the progress of my new Church.
The foundations are going up very fast, and the scene is a lively
and hopeful one. We hope to get all our foundations in before
winter stops our work. And what a splendid Autumn we are
having. Such days as these that keep coming one after another
are always a surprise. (October 15, 1873.)
I wonder what sort of knowledge we shall have of our friends
when we get to the other side, and what we shall do to keep up
our intimacy with one another. There will be one good thing
about it. I suppose we shall see right through one another to
begin with, and start off on quite a new basis of mutual under-
standing. It will be awful at first, but afterwards it must be
quite pleasant to feel that your friends know the worst of you and
not be continually in danger and in fear that they will find you
out. But then with all Eternity ahead there must be a constantly
oppressive fear that your friends will get tired of you. (October
23, 1873.)
I have been writing to-day an essay on " Heresy, " and have got
quite interested in the subject. I have been rather surprised to
find how clearly in the New Testament and all the way down in
the healthiest periods of Theology, as in Augustine and in the
English Reformation at its best, Heresy has meant obstinacy,
a fault of the Will, not a mistake of the Intellect. The worst
persecutors seem to me to have had some dim feeling of this when
they reconciled themselves to the burning of heretics. They
must have had some feeling of the moral character of heresy how-
ever woefully their prejudices have blinded them in imputing it
in special cases. (October 30, 1873.)
We Boston folk have been celebrating our Centennial Tea
Party. We got together in Faneuil Hall and drank tea and
listened to speeches yesterday afternoon. And we had old Mr.
Frailey and young Mr. Brown of Philadelphia, among a lot of
other people, to talk to us. . . .
-*t. 37-38] CORRESPONDENCE 87
Nobody can help feeling Agassiz's death. Apart from the scien-
tific greatness, he was such a delightful man, so fresh and joyous
and simple. It does surely seem as if he had gone at the right
time, falling without decay and setting without twilight. 'T is
strange to see how many people knew him here, and how many
others feel as if they had known him and mourn his death as a
personal loss. It was a good, cheerful, wholesome life.
Three weeks from to-night I hope to start for Philadelphia.
Fix which night you will for me to dine with you, and I will come
up to the trial without a flinch. Please let me know when it is
settled. . . . Sunday I shall give to my old Advent folk whom
I am proud to find caring for me after so many years. ... I
am glad that the Bible does n't say anything about the idle words
which people twite. (December 17, 1873.)
The clock has just struck, and I wish you a Happy New Year
with all my heart. "What a splendid night for the New Year to
come in on. The snow and moonlight are gorgeous and promise
glorious winter days. I wonder what will happen before the year
grows old! Certainly lots of pleasant things and probably some
that will be ugly enough. We have had a service this evening
which reminded me of the old-time watch-meeting at St. Philip's.
You and Cooper were not there, but sat on the front seat
without the blow in her bonnet, but with quite enough of the
old look to bring back the old days. And the first beauty of the
New Year is that I am coming on to see you all, and a week from
to-night shall be upon my way. You do not know how much I
depend upon it. The Saturday evening dinner will be the great
event, and I will stay and smoke as long as you please after it is
over. Dear me, how many things there are to enjoy in the old
year and the new. I think nobody ever had altogether a plea-
santer life than I have. Thalaba was nothing to me. (Janu-
ary 1, 1874. 12.03 a. m.)
I have come home from a Wednesday evening lecture, which I
always enjoy; the only indication that I have that the people
enjoy it is that they come in large numbers. Though they may
talk about it among themselves, I myself never get any idea
whether I hit them or not. Still I jog on and am very cheerful.
I don't care for applause, but I do like to have some idea whether
people are interested or not. (January 25, 1874.)
All yesterday was a hard pull at a sermon which is to be
preached this morning, and is n't good for much, I am afraid. It
seemed pretty good and important before I began to write it;
88 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
but somehow it did n't get on to paper as I wanted it to. I am
sure I have got better sermons in me somewhere than I have got
out yet, but probably fifteen years would have brought them.
(February 13, 1874.)
Charles Kingsley is here, and lectured to us on Monday evening.
It was good to see the author of " Hypatia " in the flesh, but the
Lecture wasn't much, and he is the Englishest of Englishmen.
Then his laudation of this country was overmuch, and we were
unnecessarily reminded of how he hated us and hoped good things
for the rebellion during our war.
Of course I don't read anything nowadays, but "The Princess of
Thule " shall be my next novel. I didn't make much out of
"Old Pendleton." The over-description worried me and I gave
it up, and have not tried it again, but I dare say I shall by and
by. I am reading Forster's "Life of Sir John Eliot," a book I
have long meant to get at, with much delight. Eight weeks from
to-day I '11 be in Philadelphia. (February 19, 1874.)
How sad this sudden news of Sumner's death, and how it makes
us realize the lack of great men among us. And certainly Sum-
ner was in many respects a great man. The time of his depar-
ture like Agassiz's seems to be just what one would wish for him.
Neither of them was a man whom one would like to see crawling
about in decrepitude. (March 11, 1874.)
Poor Sumner's funeral was a wonderful outburst of public feel-
ing about a man who had won it by sheer force of character and
principle. He was never popular . . . but true as steel and capa-
ble of ideas. We hope to have a good man in his place, probably
Judge Hoar or Mr. Adams. The country is not as bad as you
think it. Certainly no other land offers us anything to envy.
Surely England settling down on Disraeli, just to get rid of the
trouble and tumult of reform, is about as unpleasant a sight as one
can see.
Have you read the book of a Mr. Pater on the Renaissance ?
It is wonderfully fresh and full of its subject. Then I got a book
of Masson's the other day on Drummond of Hawthornden, of
which I have read a few pages that promise something charming.
(March 19, 1874.)
Certainly there is nothing to make us despair of our Govern-
ment in the present state of things. The arrogance of able and
corrupt men is something we could never have expected to escape,
t. 37-38] CORRESPONDENCE 89
and so far it has been less powerful among us than in the his-
tory of any other nation, and the present strongest sign of the
times is a violent outbreak and protest against it. (March 26,
1874.)
I am in the thick of Lent, with the usual enjoyment of its
spirit, and the usual misgiving about the way in which we try to
make it useful to our people. It is trying to see how, just as
soon as we attempt to give religion its fit expression, we are
instantly in danger of formalism and the mere piety of outside
habits. Yet still there is a great deal in changing habits which
mean sad things, for habits which mean good things, for a little
while, and some of the meaning does get into people's hearts. . . .
How hard it is to write an Easter sermon. The associations of
the day are so dependent that it is really difficult to bring it
close to people's lives. But it is remarkable how men like your
friend , who give up so much about Jesus, still cling to the
truth of the Resurrection. (March 31, 1874.)
We have had Principal Tulloch here. He was at our Church
last Sunday, and I spent the evening with him at Mr. Winthrop's.
I want you to see him when he comes to Philadelphia. He is a
splendid Scotchman. (April 30, 1874.)
I 'd like to talk with you some time about that matter of the
judging of people's characters before and after death. I don't
think we 'd much disagree. (May 8, 1874.)
Last Sunday we tried here to have a Hospital Sunday like the
English institution, and the result was very successful. The spirit
was good and the collections large, and it brought all classes and
denominations together. Trinity gave $3200. . . . Our new
Chapel begins to look beautifully, and by the time you are here
the walls will be almost done. ... So don't fail to come. My
love to Weir. (May 12, 1874.) l
There are two incidents mentioned in the above extracts
which call for some slight expansion. The first is treated in
a casual manner, but was full of significance, the address
afterwards published, which was delivered at the dedication
of the Memorial Hall in Andover. Apart from his associa-
1 Here closes the correspondence with Miss Mitchell. She died soon after
the letter was written, from which this extract is taken.
go PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
tion with the civil war which the hall commemorated, or his
fame as a pulpit orator, Phillip Brooks had been chosen as
spokesman for the occasion because he was the descendant
of those who were connected with the town from its earliest
history, and who, in later years, had done much to make it
famous. Thus he was recognized by Professor Park of An-
dover, in the impressive prayer which followed the address,
" It is of Thy goodness, O Lord, that we have been permit-
ted on this day of our solemnity to hear the voice of one
whose godly ancestors our fathers delighted to honor." It
is a suggestive coincidence that while he was looking into
the history of Andover in making preparation for his address,
he was also reading Galton on " Hereditary Genius," and the
picture was before him of the generations of the Andover
Phillipses. His address was beautiful, pervaded with a joy-
ous tone, with the conviction that he had a right to speak,
and that in speaking he represented what was uppermost in
the minds of his hearers :
If I wanted to give a foreigner some clear idea of what that
excellent institution, a New England town, really is, in its history
and its character, in its enterprise and its sobriety, in its godli-
ness and its manliness, I should be sure that I could do it if I
could make him perfectly familiar with the past and present of
Andover. Nor can one know the old town well and not feel, how-
ever, its scenery has the same typical sort of value which belongs
to all its life. All that is most characteristic in our New England
landscape finds its representation here. Its rugged granite breaks
with hard lines through the stubborn soil, its sweep of hill and
valley fills the eye with various beauty. Its lakes catch the
sunlight on their generous bosoms. Its rivers are New England
rivers ready for work and yet not destitute of beauty. If every-
where our New England scenery suggests to the imagination that
is sensitive to such impressions some true resemblance to the
nature of the people who grow up among its pictures, nowhere are
such suggestions clearer than in this town which is so thoroughly
part and parcel of New England.
Mr. Brooks went often to Andover at this time to visit his
youngest brother who was taking his first year of theological
study. The Rt. Rev. "William Lawrence, who was also in the
^t. 37-38] ANDOVER 91
seminary, has given his impressions of him, speaking of the
interest that he showed in the discussion of theological ques-
tions, how he always wished to hear what Professor Park had
been teaching on Original Sin and other topics, but was more
anxious to get at the truth of the matter, than talk over
opinions, or compare them with his own. Of his address on
Preaching, before the Andover students, Bishop Lawrence
says :
I have often wished that an exact report of that lecture had been
taken, for as I remember it, it followed exactly the lines of his
Yale Lectures, step by step. I mention it also to speak of the
impression which bis closing prayer made upon the students. He
finished bis address and then, quite naturally, and, as it seemed,
unexpectedly to himself, be felt moved to say, "Let us pray,"
and at the same desk from which we had heard extemporary pray-
ers from the professors he offered a prayer which, as compared
with theirs, was so beautiful that, as one of the fellows said
afterwards, he had to open his eyes to see how a man looked when
he prayed like that.
I wonder at the amount of time that he put into talks with us
when we were at college and at the seminary, but I have no doubt
that he welcomed us simply as representative of what a lot of
other fellows were thinking. For after a talk with him on a
week day, one could sometimes feel and even discover the results
of the talk in the next Sunday morning's sermon.
The other incident to which allusion is made in the cor-
respondence with Miss Mitchell deserves notice as a land-
mark in his theological growth. The essay on " Heresy,"
there mentioned, was read before the " Clericus Club " in
October, 1873. Though not written for publication, it has
been given a place in his " Essays and Addresses." Its sig-
nificance lies in his discernment that religious thought was
entering upon a new stage of development, whose motive was
to gain a deeper insight into the meaning of doctrines, and to
give them a fuller statement, intelligible to the modern world.
In this process it would become necessary to redefine the word
which in the history of the past had been affixed as a stigma
to every departure from received theological expressions. He
therefore inquired into the meaning of the word " heresy."
92 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
He found that in the New Testament it carried a moral sig-
nificance, the presupposition of a vicious will. In its appli-
cation in ecclesiastical history, where it stands for a diver-
gence from received opinions, there could still be detected
the earlier use, the assumption that any one diverging
from prevailing statements of doctrine must at heart be
bad. The essay raises the question of intellectual responsi-
bility, the existence of such a sin as the self-will of the
intellect.
Heretic is a word of personal guilt. It had that tone when
Paul used it, and it has kept it ever since. But I am sure that
we have all felt, and perhaps reproached ourselves for feeling,
how impossible it was for us in any real way to attach the notion
of personal guilt to those who were called heretics in the ordinary
uses of the word. We have been unable to feel any vehement
condemnation for the earnest and truth-seeking Errorist, or any
strong approbation for the flippant and partisan Orthodox. There
was no place for the first in the hell, nor for the second in the
heaven, which alone our consciences tell us that the God whom
we worship could establish. Speaking in the atmosphere of the
New Testament, we cannot call the first a heretic, nor the second
a saint, and our misgivings are perfectly right. The first is not
a heretic, the second is not a saint. . . . The first may be a
saint in his error, the second, to use Milton's fine phrase, may
be a "heretic in the truth."
Unless we hold to the authority of the infallible Church, the
ecclesiastical conception of the sin of heresy is impossible. Unless
we hold that all truth has been so perfectly revealed that no
honest mind can mistake it (and who can believe that ?), the
dogmatic conception of heresy fails. But if we can believe in the
conscience, and God's willingness to enlighten it, and man's duty
to obey its judgments, the moral conception of heresy sets defi-
nitely before us a goodness after which we may aspire, and a sin
which we may struggle against and avoid.
In ordinary talk men will call him a heretic who departs from
a certain average of Christian belief far enough to attract their
attention. Men will speak of heresy as if it were synonymous
with error. It may be that the word is so bound up with old
notions of authority that it must be considered obsolete, and can
be of little further use. And yet there is a sin which this word
describes, which it describes to Paul and Augustine and Jeremy
Taylor, a sin as rampant in our day as in theirs. It is the self-
*t. 37-38] KING'S CHAPEL 93
will of the intellect. It is the belief of creeds, whether they he
true or false, because we choose them, and not because God
declares them. It is the saying, "I want this to be true," of any
doctrine, so vehemently that we forget to ask, "Is it true?"
When we do this, we depart from the Christian church, which i3
the kingdom of God, and the discipleship of Christ. With the
danger of that sin before our eyes, remembering how often we
have committed it, feeling its temptation ever present with us,
we may still pray with all our hearts, "From heresy, good Lord,
deliver us."
Among the varied incidents whose only bond of connection
is Phillips Brooks, there is one which caused at the moment
a flutter in Episcopal circles in Boston, the occupation of
King's Chapel on Ash Wednesday, 1874, by an Episcopal
congregation. For the first time in its history an Episcopal
bishop officiated within its walls. To those unfamiliar with
the circumstances it seemed portentous with some hidden
significance. The famous building was crowded with an
eager, curious audience, studying the ancient structure, its
chancel and communion table, its reading desk and pulpit,
preserved unchanged, unimpaired by modern improvements,
since the day when Episcopal rectors presided there, in this
first home of Episcopacy in Boston. But if the event did not
have the significance which some attributed to it, the pos-
sible regaining for the Episcopal Church of this honored
shrine in its early history, it did yet possess a deeper
and larger significance, as the manifestation of Christian
charity. It had been offered to Phillips Brooks, as the
rector of Trinity Church, for the delivery of the Price Lec-
tures, the condition of whose endowment required that the
Lectures be given either in Christ Church, King's Chapel, or
Trinity Church. The kind offer came from the late Rev.
Henry W. Foote, then the minister of King's Chapel, a man of
beautiful and saintly character, beloved by all who knew him,
whose death in the prime of his manhood brought the deepest
sense of loss and sorrow. Bishop Paddock had already been
invited to deliver the Price Lecture before Mr. Foote had
offered the use of his church, and so it came about that a
94 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
bishop of the Episcopal Church officiated for the first time
in King's Chapel.
The summer of 1874 was spent in Europe. He was accom-
panied on this visit by Rev. Arthur Brooks, who was seeing
the Old World for the first time, and for a great part of the
summer they were together. The trip differed from previous
ones, in that he saw more of people. The traditional Ameri-
can prejudice against the English, which he had hitherto
shared, to some extent, was disappearing. He received more
hospitality than on former visits, and found everybody quite
cordial and civil. It was mostly the clergy with whom he
became acquainted, but he remarks that clergymen and lay-
men have more common interests than in America. They
were talking much at this time about the Public Worship Bill
at dinner tables and in the newspapers, which surprises him,
as things of this kind at home are ordinarily confined to Gen-
eral Conventions. Of London, where he spent a few weeks,
he writes that he saw it all over again with his brother, find-
ing in it much of which he never tires. It was a special
pleasure to have been shown over Westminster Abbey by the
Dean. His acquaintance with Dean Stanley was now ripen-
ing into friendship ; he received from him and from Lady
Augusta Stanley the most cordial hospitality, and as a final
mark of complete confidence was invited to preach in the
Abbey, a courtesy extended in England only to leading pulpit
orators or high dignitaries. Dean Stanley gave the invitation
after having assured himself that he could not be mistaken in
thinking that Phillips Brooks would serve the purpose for
which the services on Sunday evenings in the Abbey had been
instituted. The fame of the preacher had in some way
already reached England. Many were desirous to hear him,
and the nave of the Abbey was filled. The subject of the
sermon was the Positiveness of the Divine Life, the text taken
from Galatians v. 16 : " This I say then, Walk in the Spirit
and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." 1 The friends of
Mr. Brooks at home were pained by the report that his sermon
was a failure in consequence of his not making himself heard.
1 This sermon is printed in the first volnme of his Sermons, p. 373.
jet. 37-38] WESTMINSTER ABBEY 95
In the words of an American newspaper correspondent,
" After the first ten minutes the speaker was inaudible at a
few yards distance, having pitched his voice too high for the
old Abbe}'." That there was some passing embarrassment is
evident, but how differently Mr. Brooks regarded it from the
newspaper correspondent is seen by his allusion to his expe-
rience in a letter to Rev. Charles D. Cooper, " The preach-
ing went very well when I got used to the size of the Abbey."
Another comment on the occurrence is interesting, because
the writer of it, who was present, says that the preacher was
distinctly heard :
About six o'clock p. m. we all started for church service at old
Westminster Abbey where Phillips Brooks of Boston was adver-
tised to preach at seven o'clock. We went quite early anticipating
a crowd and secured a tolerably good position. The nave of the
church where the services are held on Sunday evenings was very
soon crowded. There was a choral service by men and boys.
Dean Stanley read the Lessons and Mr. Brooks preached. . . .
It is a very hard place to preach in . . . but he was distinctly
heard, and the sermon was worthy of his reputation. It was a
plain, practical enforcement of the great truths of his text, enun-
ciated in simple yet elegant language, and altogether such a style
of preaching as those old walls are not accustomed to. There
may be better preachers here than the Rector of Trinity Church,
Boston, but if so we have yet to hear them. We reached home
soon after nine, grateful that we had had the privilege of hearing
Mr. Brooks in Westminster Abbey, and still more grateful that
God had given to Boston such a man and such a preacher.
Other acquaintances among the English clergy whom
he mentions are Canon Fremantle and Professor Stanley
Leathes, in whose church, St. Philip's, Regent Street, he
preached. From London he passed to the Continent to spend
several weeks, wandering through Normandy and Brittany,
thence to Venice, and back through the Tyrol over the great
Ampezzo Pass that he had long wanted to see, stopping at
Innsbruck, Munich, Ratisbon, Nuremberg, Heidelberg ; and
at Worms, to which he was attracted by the memory of
Luther. He liked to revisit spots like these with which he
was already familiar, but the trip had been mainly planned
96 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
for the convenience of his brother. The sense of vacation,
he writes, was complete and made Boston seem far away.
The main interest was in looking at churches in Normandy
and Brittany, the richness and beauty of whose architecture
impressed him. He was gathering suggestions which would
afterwards be of service.
We went up to Rouen and spent a lovely day among its old
Gothic architecture. There is nothing more beautiful in Europe.
Then we struck off into the country and for a week we have been
wandering among old Norman towns . . . each with its churches
six or eight hundred years old, some with magnificent cathedrals.
. . . For a week we have wandered on through Brittany, looked
at old castles and cathedrals. ... I have been amazed at the
richness of the old architecture of the country. In little out-of-
the-way villages, reached only by rickety country wagons, we have
found glorious and immense churches of rarest beauty, churches
that took centuries to build, and stand to-day perfect in their
splendor, with wonderful glass in their windows, and columns and
capitals that take your breath away for beauty. 1
As he wandered he was thinking of the new Trinity Church
in Boston that was growing in his absence. To Mr. Robert
Treat Paine he sends these letters :
Tours, France, August 4, 1874.
Dear Bob, . . . And how's the new Church? I dreamed
of it when I wrote to you from London, and now I dream of it
again, slowly rising, course on course. I should n't wonder if
the robing room were done up to the eaves, but I would give much
to step out of the hotel and look in the gorgeous moonlight at
that blessed lot on the Back Bay. Sometimes I am very impa-
tient at being away while it is all going on, but I comfort myself
with promises of coming home to harder work with the first Sun-
day in October. I think of many things at this distance which if
I can really do them when I get to Boston will make the Parish
more entirely what it should be than, by my fault, it has been
yet.
Normandy and Brittany have both been very great. O my
dear Bob, such old glass as one sees in these Churches little and
big. Some dreary little village off as far as Holaker or Aak will
have windows, a whole nave and choir and transepts full of them,
that would make our new Trinity the glory of America forever.
1 Letters of Travel, pp. 173-176.
*t. 37-38] CORRESPONDENCE 97
But we cannot have it, and the modern French glass seems to me
poor, not at all equal to the hest English.
I should like to he with you at Waltham now. My kindest
love to Mrs. Paine and the children, and do write me often.
Always sincerely yours, P. B.
Munich, August 30, 1874.
Dear Bob, I thank you again for your kindness in writing
to me. Yours of the 4th, a right good letter, reached me a few
days ago in Venice. First let me say how I rejoice with you and
Mrs. Paine in the birth of your little hoy. Nothing can he indif-
ferent to me that comes to your household where I have heen so
kindly made one of yourselves, and this new joy of yours is a joy
to me too. May God hless the hoy and make him all your heart
can wish. I hope to know him better as the years go on.
I must not say much about the Church because these twenty-
six days since your letter must have changed many things. Only
do keep down the expense. Let 's decorate and beautify at our
leisure, but start as clear as possible. I hear all sorts of good
things about the new Chapel. "If the Church can equal the
Chapel," says one, "it will be a great success." I look forward
most impatiently to seeing it and going to work in it. The
corner stone ought to be laid about the middle or last of October.
We will go right about our preparations when I get home, but it
will take two or three weeks to make the preparations and give
the necessary notice. The notion of setting the old rosettes is
first-rate.
So much for the Church. My summer goes swimmingly. I
came down through Switzerland from France to Italy, but did no
climbing. My climbing days are over. They never amounted to
much. I only looked at Chamouni and Zermatt. Five royal
days I spent in Venice. It was exquisite weather, and the gondola
suited my lazy mood completely. Now my face is set towards
England which I shall slowly reach, and then after two or three
more days in London I sail in the Siberia for Boston on the 17th.
How many things I have coveted for the new Church. There
was a big mosaic at Salviati's that would glorify our Chancel.
But let all that wait. Shall we not all be ready to continue our
subscriptions for the new Church till it is done?
On the first Sunday in October, then, we are together again and,
bright as this all is, I shall be truly glad.
My love to all your household, not forgetting the last born,
and I am
Always yours, P. B.
VOL. II
98 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
No traveller returns to his own country, when the long
ocean passage intervenes, without some measure of suspense or
misgiving, lest bad news should await him on his arrival.
For Mr. Brooks there was in reserve a great sorrow, in the
sudden death of his brother Frederick. The story is told
in his father's words, entered in a family record, where he
chronicled briefly the events in the lives of his sons. The
story of Frederick Brooks's short life summarily interrupted
at the threshold of what promised to be a career of unusual
success ends thus :
In September, 1874, he came to the city to see a young friend
who was sick, and who was to take charge of a school at Cleve-
land. Finding him unable, he went to Lowell for a teacher,
September 15. On returning from there in the Boston & Lowell
train he left the train at East Cambridge, intending to walk
home on the railroad bridge. The night being dark he fell
through the draw and was drowned. This was about 8.30 p. M.
He was thirty-two years of age. The body was not found until
tbe 20th in the Charles River. Funeral services were held Sep-
tember 24, at Emmanuel Church, and he was laid in Mount
Auburn.
The friendship between these two brothers was close and
beautiful. The older brother had followed with sympathetic
interest and aid every step of the younger brother's progress,
from his days in the Latin School, and then through Harvard
College. Two years they had lived together while Frederick
Brooks was at the Divinity School in Philadelphia. For the
aid, the sympathy, the brotherly love he received, the younger
brother showed his appreciation, as when he wrote to Phillips :
" I wish you would let me say what a jump I give to get one
of your letters. They are one of the things that help along
my year mightily." From the time of his ordination, Fred-
erick Brooks was recognized as a preacher of singular attrac-
tiveness. Calls to various parishes had been the evidence
that he was recognized as having some important work to
do. For a time he had been at Des Moines, Iowa, to get
a touch of "Western life ; then he became rector of a promi-
nent church, St. Paul's, in Cleveland, Ohio. To the interests
*t. 37-38] FREDERICK BROOKS 99
of this church he gave, says his brother, " devoted care, prov-
ing himself a rare pastor and preacher, helping and teaching
many souls, and building his parish work with singular solidity
and power." He became editor of the " Standard of the
Cross," and gave the paper " a marked and noble character."
His inherited interest in education led him to establish a
school in Cleveland, which should give the best classical
preparation. In this cause he came to his lamented death.
The first of the two letters that follow was written to Dr.
Weir Mitchell, the second to the Rev. George Augustus
Strong :
Boston, Tuesday, September 29, 1874.
Dear Weir, I cannot say how much I thank you for your
letter. It has helped me through to-day, but I seem all lost and
bewildered with such an utterly unlooked-for sorrow. It will all
come right by and by, but just now there is nothing to do except
to sit down and think it all over in a dull and weary sort of way.
Fred was very near to me, and few people knew, what crowds
would have known a few years hence, the ability and character
that was in him. That is not gone out, and must have some
richer field to work in than this world. But it is the terrible-
ness of it all, and the way we shall miss him and need him all
our lives, and the wretchedness at home where Father and Mother
are as brave and forlorn as possible.
Boston, October 18, 1874.
My dear George, I never knew how good a friend you
were till I got your letter last week about dear Fred. Since I
came home I have thought of writing to you because I wanted to
talk with you, and because I knew you had seen something of him
who was not out of my thoughts for a moment, though I had no
idea how well you knew him and how much you cared for him,
and because I wanted to thank you for the good kind words you
sent to Father and Mother, which helped their poor hearts very
much. But I did n't write, and by and by your letter came. I
should be quite ashamed to say fully with what feeling I read it.
It has been good to hear a great many people say kind and honor-
able and appreciative things about Fred, but there were so few
who knew him well enough to really love him and feel as I feel
about the beauty of his simple working and thinking life.
I cannot write about him, but I should like so much to be with
you in your home and hear you talk of him. I do want so to see
ioo PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-74
you, my dear George. These three weeks since I came home
have been, just between ourselves, pretty wretched. I have tried
and tried to get out of my mind the dreadful circumstances of it
all. When I can shut them out for a moment and think only of
his life here and the life he has begun beyond I am more than
happy. I am thankful and full of rejoicing. But almost all the
time the terrible scene is before me, and I think I have come
nearer to being gloomy and out of heart with life than I ever did
before. But I have n't been and I shan't be.
I am talking all about myself. To my Father and Mother,
who are getting old now, and whose house is empty of their chil-
dren, it has been sad enough. It makes my heart ache to go up
there and see them. Thank you again for your kind thought-
fulness. I am coming out to Cleveland this week.
On Sunday the 25th of October Mr. Brooks stood in his
brother's pulpit in Cleveland, Ohio, preaching in the morn-
ing from the text, " Are the consolations of God small with
thee ? " (Job xv. II), 1 and in* the afternoon another well-
known sermon, with the title, " The good will of Him that
dwelt in the Bush" (Deut. xxxiii. 16). 2 Again in the even-
ing he preached, and his text was, "It became Him, for
whom are all things, and by whom are all things, ... to make
the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings "
(Heb. ii. 10). This was the record of a day to be remem-
bered by the preacher and his hearers. Another duty de-
volved upon him, to visit the deserted room where the traces
of activity suddenly interrupted were all about him. Into his
musings, as he sat there alone with memory, we do not enter.
He looked over the sermons of his brother, and from them
selected a volume for publication. In the preface, he alluded
briefly to the beauty and power of his life. At a later time,
when writing his Lectures on Preaching, he made this terse
reference without further explanation, " To-day I have been
thinking of one whom I knew, nay, one whom I know,
who finished his work and went to God."
1 Sermons, vol. i. p. 98. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 39.
CHAPTER IV
1873-1877
SERVICES IN HUNTINGTON HALL. EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-
BOOKS. METHOD OF PREPARING SERMONS. ESSAY ON
COURAGE. CONTEMPORANEOUS ACCOUNTS OF PHILLIPS
BROOKS AS A PREACHER. TESTIMONY OF PRINCIPAL
TULLOCH.
During more than four years the congregation of Trinity-
Church worshipped in Huntington Hall on Boylston Street.
If it were a disadvantage - to be deprived of the accessories
and associations which make religion impressive, yet there
were compensations. The location was more convenient, the
accommodations more ample, and to many it constituted an
inducement rather than a hindrance that the reminders of
conventional worship were wanting. But it required a greater
effort on the part of the preacher to hold his congregation
together during this unexpectedly long period of waiting.
That Mr. Brooks felt the harder necessity which had been
placed upon him, and summoned his strength to meet it, is
apparent in many ways, but chiefly in the greater results which
he accomplished. The extracts which were cited in a previous
chapter might seem to indicate that he had already taken the
place in Boston which he had occupied in Philadelphia. But
there is some evidence going to show that the three years in
the old church on Summer Street had not exhibited the fruit
anticipated. Thus the afternoon service on Sundays con-
tinued to be thinly attended, however large might be the
congregation in the morning. This problem of the Sunday
afternoons and the second service was an unwelcome inherit-
ance, not easily overcome. To a clerical friend who once
preached for him to one of these small congregations, he
io2 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
remarked that it was not like the old days in Philadelphia.
Then the church had been filled to its utmost capacity, in the
afternoon as well as in the morning.
Prom the time that he began to officiate in Huntington
Hall, there came a change so marked in the direction and
the manifestation of his power that these years were not
remembered or lamented as a period of deprivation of eccle-
siastical privileges, but rather cherished for the richer
spiritual influence which they brought. The secular hall
took on a sacred character. The preacher rose high above
disadvantage or limitation. The afternoon service soon be-
gan to be as well attended as the morning, nor were the
accommodations sufficient to meet the demands of the throng-
ing congregation. It was a reminder of the early days of
the Christian church, when as yet it lacked temples and
altars and the symbolic pageantry of the later centuries, when
the spoken word was alone in itself adequate to reach the
intellect and to melt the heart. To the preacher it must
have meant a setting free from the traditions and embarrass-
ments of a former regime, as if like St. Paul he was at
liberty to build for himself and not upon other men's founda-
tions. This sense of rejoicing in a larger freedom runs
through these years, giving them a character of their own ;
there was a joy and happiness in the preacher which was
diffused throughout the congregation. But it should be
mentioned as a touching instance of his dependence upon
associations, or of his desire to maintain the continuousness
of his life, that he sent a request, which at once was granted,
to the Church of the Holy Trinity for the lecturn or
preaching desk at which he had stood when delivering his
Wednesday evening lectures.
The main event, of course, during these years was the
building of the new Trinity Church in Copley Square. Be-
fore, however, we turn to describe it, we may dwell for a
moment upon some features in the preaching of Phillips
Brooks which are as interesting as they are important. He
had not written many sermons since he came to Boston, for
he had been occupied and somewhat distracted by the great
jet. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 103
transition in his life. lie had fallen back upon his old
Philadelphia sermons, using as many of them as he was still
willing to preach, taking, as it were, his final leave of his
old self before launching out anew and letting down his nets
for a fresh draught. His sermon record book shows but
forty new sermons to have been written in the years from
1870 to 1873. There was here no idleness or waste of time.
It was the opportunity for large and varied reading,
a period of refilling and of quiet waiting, wherein convic-
tions took root and matured, till he should be ready for some
larger utterance. Another forward movement in his career
of triumph was slowly coming in the years of his ministry
in Huntington Hall. The signs of intellectual and spiritual
growth may be traced in the multiplication of the note-books.
He carried them in his pocket, and at any time might be
seen recording thoughts as they were flashing through his
mind. Some kind of note-book was his inseparable companion.
What Ins earlier method was of writing a sermon or of
preparation for writing we do not know. That the sermon
was often left till the end of the week, finished only in time
for its delivery, is apparent from allusions in his diaries.
When he first began to preach he wrote two sermons every
week. After he went to Holy Trinity he wrote but one,
to be preached in the morning ; while his gift for extempo-
raneous preaching was brought into exercise on Sunday after-
noons and in his Wednesday evening lectures. Many of the
plans for these earlier extemporaneous sermons remain, show-
ing that they had been carefully elaborated. It was one of
his peculiarities that he remembered his work and seemed to
hold it in account, so that often he turned back to these plans,
as if they held an equal place in his estimation with the writ-
ten sermons. He had another and a fortunate characteristic,
that his mind kindled quickly with his own thoughts, even
after many years had gone by, with the result that old ser-
mons were as fresh to him as those that were newly written.
There was always a curious interest among the clergy and
theological students who cultivated the art of preaching to
know the methods by which Mr. Brooks did his work. The
104 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
sense of form, the literary charm, the almost prodigal
abundance of thought and illustration, the spontaneity which
made a written sermon possess the full effect of an extempo-
raneous utterance inspired by the moment, this called for
explanation, if so be that he could communicate to others the
valued secret. Now that we know the entire process, the
secret appears a simple one. Preaching was the one exclusive
object that occupied his mind. The message to be delivered
and the form it should take in order to be most effective,
to that simple end he devoted himself. Prom morning
till night, in every hour of leisure or apparent relaxation, on
his journeys, in vacations, in social assemblies, he was think-
ing of subjects for sermons, turning over new aspects of
old truths, thrilled inwardly with the possibility of giving
better form than had yet been given to old, familiar doctrine.
In a word, he concentrated his thought upon one thing, it
was preaching ; that was what he lived for, and for that cause
he mi:ht almost be said to have come into the world. Be-
neath the nonchalant, trifling manner which seemed at times
to refuse to take anything seriously, the humor that played
about solemn and sacred themes, the deep undertone of his
spirit was sounding without cessation or interruption.
The first shape which the sermon took was the brief hint
in the note-book. It was an apparent necessity to put it into
writing, or it would not have been that every sermon may
thus be traced in its genesis, even every casual speech on
slight occasions. One might have thought that after so many
years of preparation it would have been possible for him to
make a few minutes' talk after dinner, or to boys in school
or college, without first writing down the idea on which he
was to touch, and then expanding it into a complete plan.
In the reminiscences by Dr. Weir Mitchell 1 an account of
one of these extemporaneous addresses is given, as it seemed
to have been born at the moment, without premeditation.
But in truth it had long been in his mind what he should
say, and the analysis had been written out. He never trusted
to the moment to bring him inspiration. To give other
1 Cf . ante, vol. i. p. 634.
jet, 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 105
illustrations, he often went to Cambridge to address the stu-
dents of the St. Paul's Society at Harvard, but in every
case the analysis of his remarks may be fouud in his note-
books or on detached sheets of paper. On some occasions
he availed himself of ideas which he was working up in
other connections, but it still remained true that he took
thought beforehand and never allowed himself to feel it
would be given to him, when called upon, what he should
speak. That was a privilege of the apostolic age, and it had
not been reserved for him.
It is not known that he ever found himself in a position
where he was forced to speak when he had made uo special
preparation, although there were occasions having a resem-
blance to emergencies when he was saved by what seems
like mysterious interposition, or the working of some reserve
force within him. Such an incident is described by the Rev.
Percy Browne, to whom Mr. Brooks communicated it :
In one of the later years when Christmas fell in the middle of
the week, Mr. Brooks had prepared two sermons, one for
Christmas Day, and the other for the morning of the Sunday after
Christmas. He preached the first sermon as it was intended. On
the Sunday morning after Christmas he went up into the pulpit,
and as the choir were singing the last stanza of the hymn he
looked down at the sermon before him, when to his horror he dis-
covered that he had made a mistake and had brought with him to
church the sermon preached some two or three days before. He
then reminded himself that he had prepared another sermon to
be preached extemporaneously in the afternoon, but both the
text and the plan had vanished from his memory. In his despair
he hastened down from the pulpit and went to the lecturn where
he began in almost reckless fashion to turn over the leaves of the
Bible in the hope that the lost text might recur to him. And
then suddenly, at the critical moment when the large congregation
were waiting for him to begin, the text flashed upon his mind,
with a vivid picture of the plan of the sermon. Some one in the
congregation, who was asked if he noticed anything peculiar, said
he only remarked that Mr. Brooks seemed to have changed his
mind after reaching the pulpit, and concluded that he would prefer
to preach from the lecturn. The reason for the change he did
not know, but he recalled that sermon as one of the most powerful
and impressive he had ever heard.
106 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
A few specimens are here given from his pocket note-
books in order to show the ideas germinating in his mind
which were afterwards to be developed into sermons ; they
also serve to illustrate the character of his preaching and
the tone of thought at the moment when they were written.
One year is as good as another for this purpose, and we
fix upon 1874, when he was preaching in Huntington
Hall:
What do we mean by hope and cheerfulness about the future ?
We know that despair and weariness all come, we don't ignore
them. But from the distance we see the greater power envelop-
ing all and working and making peace.
The difference of the sense of mystery in life in different per-
sons. About alike in those who think nothing about it and in
those who have a settled scheme.
There are days which seem to be made up of spring and autumn,
which have the hope of one and the despair of the other. Our
time is like such a day.
The relation of the Church to social life, throughout its his-
tory. The Church and the religion are not always the same, but
(and it is a weighty truth) the Church cannot long lag behind
the religion. Christianity the religion at once of individuality
and society, and so of social life which must have both of these
in it.
The way the Bible strikes at the average respectability, as in
the Elder Brother and Pharisees, yet never would overturn. No
socialism; always full of virtue and order, always bringing up
the better from below, always making growth the changing force,
always developing. That the whole secret of reform. Other
systems purely destructive ; have tried to appropriate Christianity,
but have failed.
When an end has been made of the people's old religion, of
their faith, and of the God-made man of the Gospel, do you know
what was substituted ? The faith in the God-made man of social-
ism. For what is socialism at bottom? It is man believing
himself God, in the sense that he believes himself capable of
destroying evil and suffering. (Life of Montalembert, vol. ii.
p. 112.)
For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me,
jet. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 107
and ye shall live. Amos v. 4. One must be in harmony with the
principles of life in order to live; for example, the forces of
nature, the laws of the lan<l, the men about us, of all good things.
This must be what is meant by seeking God ; not His favor, but
His nature. This is what is meant by Christ reconciling us to
God. The full life of Jesus. . . . There is a rich vitality in
the man who has sought God.
We have not so much as heard whether tJiere he any Holy
Ghost. Acts xix. 2. What is perfectly real to us so often
entirely strange to other men. What we cannot live without
they never miss. . . . But in every such case the soul is all the
time getting help unconsciously; the Spirit not confined to those
times and places where He consciously is. . . . What they lose
by their unconsciousness.
And there tvas great joy in that city. Acts viii. 8. Religion
primarily personal, secondarily social. Evil of reversing this. But
after the personal, the social to be considered. What would a
city be with Christianity accepted universally? 1. Belief. 2.
Behavior. 3. Charity. City joy is made up, independently of
personal happiness, of social life, business prosperity, and public
spirit. The love of company. A revival in a city. The beauty
and healthiness of it. . . . The qualities wanted in civic life are
just the Christian qualities.
Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee.
Acts iii. 3. There is something better for us to have than
money. So there must be something better to give. The greatest
benefactors have not given money. Christ. So of those who have
helped you most. Not make anything I say an excuse for not
giving money. What we can give, Ideas, Inspiration, Com-
fort, and above all access to God for what He can give alone,
Forgiveness and Grace. ... A man must really possess himself
before he can really give himself to another.
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. James v.
17. General tendency to think the great men so much greater
than we are. What is and what is not common to men (Declara-
tion of Independence). Settle it that privilege must belong with
character, and then there can be no arbitrary inequality. "And
I will not be judged by any that never felt the like, " said Richard
Baxter on his wife's death.
The first fruits of them that slept. 1 Cor. xv. 20. . . .
Christ made death seem and be a sleep. He established, that is,
108 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
that sleep was its true figure. This includes these ideas, (1)
Its naturalness. To sleep and to awaken again is altogether
natural. The sonnet of Blanco White. The relation of this
revelation to the wishes and hopes of the race. (2) The refreshing,
renewing power. Sleep brings back the energy of the last morn-
ing, only with the added wisdom and experience of the past day.
So of the resurrection life of Christ. The restoral of the first life,
only with the complete and redemptive work added, all the fatigue
and pain over. So your resurrection life. Restored to the Image
of God, only with the experience of life put in.
And ivhen he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved,
saying, Who is this ? Matt. xxi. 10. A great city in excitement
always a thrilling and touching thing. For there life is at its
fullest. ... 1. The impressibility of men. 2. The ignorance:
hooting boys, nay, even men, who don't know what it is all about.
3. The vast uncultured power that is there; what they might do.
*T is very like a beast. *T is insignificant in detail, but mighty
in combination.
Country good after town, as night after day, as sleep after
work, but that is all.
The moved city is the emphasis of ideas by humanity, adding
nothing to their inherent reasonableness, but very much to their
convincing force.
Who is this ? a wonder worker, a truth teacher, a soul changer ?
There must be a Theology, a Christology. Refuge in mere
moralism will not do. It is too shallow. If there be a Christ
we must know Him, think something of Him.
Christ's view of human nature. A general view necessary.
Views lightly formed. Views of easy humanitarians; present
views of universal corruption. Constant variation from wretched
misanthropy to wretched optimism. The necessity of some gen-
eral conception. How it will influence single judgments. Two
sources consciousness and experience.
Christ's view in parable of Prodigal Son, Woman of Samaria,
and Simon Peter ; in the Temptation, Transfiguration, Crucifixion.
Practical results of this view, deep indignation with sin,
sober hope and work, enthusiasm for man without folly.
The Gadarenes beseeching Jesus to depart from their coast.
Matt. viii. 34. The shrinking from any great experience.
This one reason why with all their complaint of the world and
themselves men do not strive for improvement.
The magnitude of Christianity appalls men. How they get rid
jet. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 109
of it: by formalism; by indifference; by breaking down the
truth.
The way in which Jesus lifts us to our work. He will not go ;
is better than our prayers.
That awful prayer ! . . . Depart from us, O Christ ! half un-
consciously ; by business absorption.
Imagine the whole world eager for its highest. How it would
take Christ.
One element of our shrinking from death, the natural fear of
the unknown.
But Christ goes into it with us, surrounding and tempting us
with His love. The fear of great emotion is lost as He is with
us. He is with us in a lower and so leads us to a higher state. . . .
Start with the truth that Christianity is Christ.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in
thy power ; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. Job i. 12.
The limited power of evil, the self that it cannot touch. Apply
to Christian trials, to disturbed faith, to bereavements, to loss of
property.
The need of a central definite self. The need of valuing it
above all things.
The power of trouble to disentangle the self. Compare the lim-
its of Satan's power over Jesus. Christ the assertor of a man's
self. . . .
To know the depths to which each sort of suffering and tempta-
tion may go, how deep loss of money, loss of health, loss of friends,
loss of reputation. . . . God's willingness to let everything else
go, to save the man's own self. That explains so much.
The Religious Fear. Nervousness, or with some the Religious
scare of the present moment. The need of religion being driven
(1) to more reality, (2) to more applicability, (3) to more depth.
Are not the present tendencies doing it?
What to do ! Not modify religion to every demand ; the great
liberty now to seek the absolute truth and match our ideas to it.
Threefold danger, cultivated skepticism, low life, Romanism.
Faith in God. Show what it means. Not that He will support
our dogma, but that He will bring His truth, and if our dogma
and Church is not that, we do not wish it. So I always stand
before you.
Who against Hope believed in Hope. Rom. iv. 18. Spoken
of Abraham the father of us all.
The lower hope and the higher. Hope in the probabilities of
no PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
nature ; and hope in the promises of God. The two levels o life.
So our hope of comfort, of renewal.
These two regions everywhere, the natural and the transcen-
dental.
Apply to standards of life; what we may expect of man.
Apply to evidences of God and Jesus and eternity.
Modern unbelief from admitting only lower evidences. Higher
evidence is by consciousness and revelation.
Giving none offence in any thing, that the ministry be not
blamed. 2 Cor. vi. 3. What the classes are, Dogmatic big-
ots ; the utterly indifferent ; earnest believers. . . .
What ought to be our feeling towards each?
1. Toward the bigot. Describe the evils of bigotry, always
on the verge of Phariseeism. The great variety of it, may be
Roman or Puritan. How can I feel about it? One man says,
" Trample it under foot ; " another man says, " Accept it for its
spirit, no matter about its ideas." Neither is good. Get hold
of its good and develop that. Look on the bigot as mistaken in
the search for truth.
2. Look on the indifferent as capable of truth. . . . This
illustrated by Paul's treatment of Athenians, the very pattern
of our treatment of the indifferent by our side. The universal
God is the basis of everything.
3. The need of having settled principles on which to regulate our
life with one another. What are the principles which Christian-
ity brings to bear: 1. God's love for all and guidance of all. 2.
The common teachableness. 3. The resurrection and eternal life.
4. The personal conscience. 5. The worth of the soul above the
body. All these made manifest by the Incarnation.
Some time a strong sermon on the Incarnation.
You cannot carry Christianity everywhere, but you can carry
Christ.
The character of the arguments to which men's minds are open
one of the best indications of their calibre.
Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Matt. xi. 28. Rest only in Character. Talk
about the restlessness of America which is connected with the
lack of national character. The causes of that lack in absence
of traditions and in the access of foreigners.
Rest has true self-respect, the ideal before it.
The miserable seeking for equilibrium in circumstances.
Restlessness is discontent which has no ideal before it. Dis-
content which has an ideal is progress.
*t. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK in
Trouble not the Master. Two cases where the disciples inter-
fered, to prevent Christ heing disturbed: Bartimaeus and the
Children. Their anticipation of the tendency of Churchmen to
shut up Christ to certain activities, and to lose his spontane-
ousness and freeness. The causes of such a tendency. Analyze
into a care for Him and a lurking, half-unconscious fear of ex-
haustion ; for example, Salvability of the heathen ; Forgiveness of
very great sins; Salvation of error ists; Few that he saved.
(1872.)
Sermon on Forgiveness, as the purpose of the Gospel. . . .
The prerequisites of forgiveness are repentance and faith, . . .
not remorse and belief. A reconciled God, the grandeur of that
idea. . . . Has it not been done by Christ in the world and in the
heart ? If men come into the councils of God and dwell there as
they could not of old, has not He done it ? And by the death of
Christ, is not that true also ? Sin has been made hideous, obedience
lovely, love evident. Then how evident that not by any mere
outward works the forgiveness is obtained. (1872.)
Come and see. The proper appeal that may be made to a
skeptic, to come and test Christianity: 1. The truth of the
Bible. 2. The phenomenon of Christ. 3. The Christian His-
tory. 4. The religious experience by putting himself into the
power of what he did hold.
But icill God indeed dwell on the earth ? Atheism, Panthe-
ism, Deism, Incarnation. Then the spiritual conception of an
indwelling God, a God who is in, not is, the human soul.
Say the Lord hath need of him. God's need of men; the
solution of Calvinism. The opposite statements of Spiritual
things which may both be true.
Humility. To be gained both by sense of our own weakness
and by the bigness of others. . . . Humility and self-respect
entirely consistent.
That they shotdd seek after God, if haply they might feel after
and find Him, though He is not far from every one of us. God
nearer than we think. We are blind to what is nearest to us
always. Christ the exhibition of a nearness of God which is
already a fact. The difference if we understood it all. God the
atmosphere of life.
Some said that it thundered; others that an angel spake unto
Him. The profound and superficial explanations of things.
ii2 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
Everything is capable of both. . . . Common occurrences of life,
discernment or non-discernment of spiritual causes. Religious
experiences ; nervous or spiritual ? Existence or non-existence of
angels ? Which is the more logical or true to fact ?
The relation of Christ to modern social life. The disposition
in earliest times to divide Christian Society from Pagan. The
necessity of it then, the undesirableness of it now. Does this
make the task of Christianity easier or harder? Does it not
make it much harder, requiring watchfulness more ?
Whether they will bear or forbear. The absoluteness of duty
as distinct from its relativeness. The whole subject of con-
sidering consequences and results.
Ah, Lord God, they say of me, doth he not speak parables ?
Sermon to people who think themselves not understood. Of course
they are not, in one sense nobody is. . . . God understands you.
Is that really a help ? The power of the Incarnation here, Christ's
life misunderstood. Perhaps you are not so misunderstood.
Others know us in some ways better than ourselves. The ten-
dency of our time to self -consciousness. Our houses full of it.
Specify various special instances. . . . The misunderstood reli-
gions. The would-be Benefactor, Teacher, Idealist, Leader.
Men's hearts failing them for fear. Descriptive of our time.
The tendency of such times.
Even so come, Lord Jesus. On the willingness to meet and
welcome great experiences.
The beauty and strength of reserve. The fact of God's reserve
and then some of the laws of it. The fact, in science, in reli-
gious truth, in personal treatment, in prophecy; the limits of
revelation; the Incarnation a hiding as well as an exhibition.
The laws of reserve; reserve is for stimulus, not for vexation.
Reserve is of what is curious, not what is useful. The neces-
sity of reserve ; Jewish and Christian ways of looking at ; essential
and arbitrary. Man's feeling to a reserved God and a garrulous
God.
Is devotion in proportion to advance in civilization ? Is then
religion to be tested by our civilization? Answer, No! but by
its ability to carry on its own work. It has made civilization
and carried it so far.
The relation of Christianity and society all along. It has
worked so differently; has made the monastery and made the
home.
^t. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 113
Chivalry, the desire to be with the weak ; a repugnance from
strong causes ; strong in many natures instinctively, for example,
Montalembert.
From the ideas as they first took shape in his mind we
turn to the process by which the finished product was reached.
He ceased repeating, as he had done, the Philadelphia ser-
mons. His mind was teeming with thoughts which came
faster than he could utilize them. The trouble, he said, was
not to find subjects to preach about, there was no danger
of failure of topics, but of inability to exhaust the topics.
For many years he now wrote regularly one sermon each
week. Also he devoted the week to this one sermon, for he
could still command his time, at least the best part of every
morning. Before Monday came he had the text in his mind
on which he was to write. If he had failed to secure his
text or subject before the week began, he knew there was
danger of failing to produce a sermon. It was his custom
on Monday morning to have his friends about him, for that
was his day of rest. But as they sat in his study and the
light humorous conversation ran on, in which he delighted,
his mind never lost sight of the idea which inspired him.
On the mornings of Monday and Tuesday he was bringing
together in his note-book or on scraps of paper the thoughts
which were cognate to his leading thought or necessary for
its illustration and expansion, collecting, as he called it, the
material for the sermon. Wednesday morning he devoted
entire to writing out the plan which he would follow. In
these plans there was something unusual, even remarkable.
Hundreds of them remain, for from the time he adopted this
method he continued to follow it scrupulously down to the
last sermon he wrote. To these plans he must have attached
importance, preserving them with care, and often making use
of them in various ways. They deserve therefore some
description.
What is noticeable, then, in the first place is the unvarying
uniformity of their size and appearance, as though the
working of his mind were somewhat dependent on the out-
ward form of the paper on which he wrote. They are written
VOL. 11
ii 4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
in a handwriting so small that they resemble nothing so much
as some specimens of ancient Puritan sermons, where it was
a matter of economy of paper, and a sermon was condensed
into the smallest possible space. There is a suggestion here
of some inherited touch from his clerical ancestors, in remote
generations, which may have been unconsciously impelling
him. He took a half sheet of sermon paper, folding it once,
thus making four small pages, some seven inches by less
than five in their dimensions, which he was to fill. It is also
worthy of remark that he invariably filled them out to the last
remaining space on the last page, as though only in this way
he could be sure that he had sufficient material for his
sermon. So condensed is the handwriting that each one of
these plans will average about one thousand words, in itself
a short sermon. Each plan contained when it was finished
a dozen or more detached paragraphs. His next task and
this is the most curious feature of all was to go over the
paragraphs, each of which contained a distinct idea, and was
to become, when expanded, a paragraph in the finished
sermon, placing over against each the number of pages it
would occupy when it had been amplified. Then he added
the numbers together. Thirty pages was the limit of the
written sermon. If these numbers of assigned pages fell
short of thirty he reviewed his plan to see where he might
best expand, or where to reduce if he had too many. It was
extraordinary that one who gave the impression of such utter
spontaneity, whose sermons seemed to come by a flash of
inspiration, costing no effort, should have thus limited him-
self in fixed and apparently mechanical ways.
The hardest part of his work was accomplished when he
had completed his plan. Thursday and Friday mornings were
devoted to writing the sermon ; and as each sermon contained
some five thousand words a considerable amount of labor was
still required. But he wrote with rapidity and ease, rarely
making a correction, and in a large, legible, and graceful
handwriting, which looks like a study in penmanship. Evi-
dently it was a pleasure to him to write a sermon under these
conditions. He came to each paragraph as to a work of art,
SKELETON OF A SERMON
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.
iET. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 115
knowing just the limits it should have, with no anxiety about
proportions, no fear lest his material should fail him.
I have been reading these plans carefully [writes a friend of
Mr. Brooks to whom they have been submitted], comparing them
bit by bit with the printed sermons, and was interested to find how
closely he kept to his plan as a whole, both the order of the passages
and the number of pages allotted to each. How the dry bones
live ! The earlier synopses seemed to me less finished than the ones
written only later by a few years. For instance the "Curse of
Meroz " in 1877 has an occasional outburst apparently for himself
alone, "It makes one mad;" "the muddy humility of Uriah
Heep." Indeed, I noticed a number of personal applications
which do not appear in the sermons themselves. In the "Great-
ness of Faith " opposite the words "blatant infidel " is written
"Ingersoll." I have also found passages marked for three pages
reduced to half a page, the example of a man building a house
changed to one facing a great grief, and in " Christian Charity "
whole passages and even ideas left entirely out. He must have
feared his own facility and the glowing images that came crowding
into his mind to tie himself down so, almost as a poet would, into
sonnet form. 1
What has been said of his method of preparing a writ-
ten sermon applies equally to his 'extemporaneous sermons.
Always there was the plan elaborated and written out and
afterwards filed for future reference. There are many hun-
dreds of these plans, but this difference is to be noted,
that in making them he used a full sheet of sermon paper,
with the handwriting large and bold, clearly with the pur-
pose in view of taking them into the pulpit. He could not
thus have utilized the plans of the written sermon, for the
handwriting was so small as to have required a magnifying
glass to read it. In this way he cultivated himself in the
art of extempore preaching. The practice which he had in
1 How early Mr. Brooks adopted thife method of making plans for his ser-
mons is uncertain. Cf. Remembrances of Phillips Brooks, where the Rev.
George A. Strong writes : " A stay of a week with him in Philadelphia once,
while he was still in charge of ' Holy Trinity,' showed me how he wrote his ser-
mons. 'Take a hook and pipe,' he said one morning, 'and let me map out
work for to-morrow.' The pen ran on as if the note-paper ' plan ' were an
offhand letter, and after an hour or so of absolute stillness the close-written
sheet went into the desk."
n6 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
amplifying his ideas in the written sermon helped him when
preaching without notes, for he rarely took them into the
pulpit, to keep within limits, and to build up a sermon with
as much skill and success as when he wrote it out word for
word in his study. But all this preparation served a greater
end, to give him freedom in the pulpit. Often when he was
most powerful he had departed from the manuscript before
him, or ceased to follow the plan laid out. He was never
more effective than when he delivered some written sermon
extemporaneously. In such cases he did not use the manu-
script for preparation, but went to the plan on which it had
been written, coming again under the influence of the original
idea which had first inspired him, and then giving to it such
fresh treatment as made it seem as if he were delivering
a new sermon.
It is another characteristic of Phillips Brooks as a preacher
that he made no effort to follow the rule enjoined in rhetorical
treatises calling for a culmination at the end of the discourse,
for which the most effective points or arguments should be
reserved. On the contrary he often, perhaps generally, came
to his climax as he began. He followed the artist's method,
rather than the rhetorician's, throwing his leading idea upon
the canvas in bold outline, and then holding his audience
with a gaze, growing deeper in its intensity as with an artist's
power he filled up the outline and made a living, speaking
portrait. What he was doing in every sermon was to repro-
duce the personal process through which he himself had
passed from the moment when he grasped a truth till he
had traced out in his own experience its relation to life
and to all other truth. He first opened his soul to the
influence of the truth which was to constitute his message,
devising the most forcible method in order to make it appeal
to his own heart, and then under the influence of this con-
viction he wrote his sermon. He studied its effect upon him-
self before studying how to reach a congregation. This
process kept him natural, sincere, and unaffected, preserving
his personality in all that he said, and free from the dangers
of conventionalism or artificiality. No one ever charged him
an-. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 117
with employing the artifices of rhetoric to accomplish his end,
nor did his hearers harden themselves against his teaching
under the suspicion that he moved them by sensational
methods. Although the rules of rhetoric require that the
strongest argument should be placed last if an audience is to
be stirred by the orator to accept the truth which he advo-
cates, yet in real life the strongest argument comes first, and
is confirmed by the lesser reasons which may be alleged.
This was Phillips Brooks's method. There was a letting
down of the audience as he closed from the exaltation with
which he began to the sober application of his truth in the
realities of life.
During these years, while Trinity Church was worshipping
in Huntington Hall, Phillips Brooks, as has been said,
gave himself up almost exclusively to the work of preaching.
There is the record of only two important addresses which he
gave, both of them significant not only for their inherent
value, but as illustrations of his methods of work, and for the
latter reason they may here be mentioned. He went to
Worcester in December, 1874, to deliver an address before
the Massachusetts Teachers' Association. His subject was
" Milton as an Educator," and it was treated with apparent
learning, with the marks of familiarity with his theme, as well
as with its remoter scientific bearings. But why, one is
tempted to ask, should an association of teachers, knowing so
well the needs of their profession, call upon one who was
not a professed educator for this service ? And how should
the busy parish minister find time for the investigation of
his subject, so that he could speak the word which would
give to teachers the stimulus and encouragement for which
they craved ? Or did Mr. Brooks have the art of cramming
in a short time so as to give the appearance of erudition, and
for the rest dress up the old platitudes under some temporary
mood of enthusiasm? The truth is that six months before,
while he was abroad for his summer's vacation, he was
making his preparation. For years he had been studying the
life and times of Milton. He took with him as he went away
the important books on the subject of education by Milton,
i 1 8 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
Locke, Bacon, and Herbert Spencer. He studied Quick's
" Essays on Educational Reformers," then went for himself to
the writings of Quintilian, Montaigne, Comenius, Pestalozzi,
and Basedow. When we add to this special preparation his
interest in the subject of teaching, his efforts for many years
to detect the methods of success, his experience in visiting
schools, his gifts of insight and of observation, his philosophi-
cal capacity for tracing relationships of thought, unobvious to
many, we have the evidence that he was not seeking to pose
as a scholar outside of his own department, but was doing
conscientious and faithful work.
Another address was delivered at the anniversary of the
Massachusetts State Normal School, in July, 1875, when his
subject was " Courage." 1 The preparation for it was made
a long time in advance, and among the writings of Phillips
Brooks it occupies a most important place. We are haunted
as we read with the conviction that we have before us a chap-
ter from his experience, had he chosen to give it a personal
form. He tells us his method of reading :
The habit of review reading is hostile to literary courage. To
read merely what some one has said about a book is probably
as unstimulating, as unfertilizing a process as the human mind
can submit to. . . . Read books themselves. To read a book is
to make a friend ; if it is worth your reading you meet a man ;
you go away full of his spirit ; if there is anything in you, he will
quicken it. . . . To make young people know the souls of books
and find their own souls in knowing them, that is the only way to
cultivate their literary courage.
But it is the subject itself which is most suggestive. If we
might fix upon one word to describe the character of Phillips
Brooks, it would be courage. It was written in his appear-
ance and manner, showing itself in his sermons and his conver-
sation, the one quality in him which could not be suppressed
or disguised. It had been manifested in Philadelphia when
he espoused causes which were unpopular. Had he chosen
to become a professional reformer, however obnoxious his
1 Cf. Essays and Addresses for both these papers, " Milton as an Educator,"
p. 300, and " Courage," p. 319.
mt. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 119
cause or strenuous the opposition to it, he would not have
flinched from its advocacy. Those who heard him preach
were inspired by his courage, as an army by the command of
a fearless leader. And this quality was a positive one, which
had been developed in spite of timidity and shyness and self-
consciousness. He would not have failed a second time in
the Boston Latin School. The difficulty he surmounted in
overcoming his natural reserve contributed to the development
of courage. In the earlier years a certain air of noncha-
lance has been noticed, as marking his manner while preach-
ing, the mask it may have been of his still too sensitive
spirit. But in later years, those who have watched him on
occasions when he was to address a congregation, waiting for
his word to lift up their hearts, have noticed how his face
grew pale and his whole countenance straitened with a look
of agony in the moment before he turned to mount the pul-
pit. To preach was an act requiring courage, because he
must needs, in order to be successful, unfold his inner self,
and speak of the intimate phases of the soul's life in God,
when no pressure could have extracted these things from
him in ordinary circumstances. When, therefore, he speaks
to us of courage, and gives us the definition of courage, he
is imparting the secret of his own experience : " Courage is
the power of being mastered by and possessed with an idea.
How rare it is ! I do not say how few men are so mastered
and possessed ; I say how few men have the power so to be."
The Sundays at Huntington Hall succeeded each other
with their unvarying testimony to the preacher's power. No
courses of lectures on literature, art, or science with which
the hall was associated ever witnessed a greater audience. It
would not have been so surprising if on anniversary occasions
the crowd had gone forth to meet him ; but this was the case
Sunday after Sunday, like the sun each day as it rises in its
strength, till people became accustomed to it as to the gifts of
God, and hardly wondered at the munificence of the feast. Here
is a description of one of these Sundays, which will answer for
them all ; it is taken from a Boston religious paper, " Zion's
Herald," in 1874:
120 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
Religious papers in the Middle and Southern States speak of
Boston as if given over to religious doubts, to the gospel of
modern science, and to heterodoxy generally. If their editors
could see the crowd, and know the character of it, that waits upon
the ministry of Phillips Brooks, their views might be somewhat
modified. Last Sabbath morning the immense hall was far from
being equal to the demands of the audience that crowded it.
Many stood throughout the whole service, and many went away not
finding even a place for the sole of the foot. Here ex-governors
and senators, judges and college professors, intermingled with the
humblest populace of the city. The services were most devoutly
rendered. The sermon was a fervid, simple utterance of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus, in the love and personal enjoyment of it. A
few words of address to young men and boys, at the close, in
reference to the great privilege of preaching the gospel were very
impressive. A tender silence was the appropriate response from
the beginning to the end of the excellent and eminently spiritual
discourse. The service in the interest of " Free Religion " in
Boston never draws such an audience as this. "And if I be
lifted up will draw all men unto me."
Another writer has described the preacher at this time in
terms felicitous and true :
We sometimes read of Schleiermacher and Whitefield and
Robertson and McCheyne and Chalmers and Mason, and think it
must have been good to live in the times when men preached with
their fire and their mighty hold on the heart ; but lo ! we have
the same phenomena in Boston to-day, a man in some respects
even more than the equal of some I have named.
He seizes a great and living theme ; he throws it out with a
sentence into shape; he then follows it in all its relations to life,
never entering into quibbles, nor minute matters which pertain to
some but not to all, and shows the bearing of the great central
truth on the daily needs of men. He never overflows with nor
lacks illustration, but uses it as the conditions of his subject
require, keeping it as illustrative and not as metaphorical show.
He hetrays a thorough acquaintance with the thought of our
time, passing into no antiquated domain, but meeting an audience
fresh from the magazine and newspaper with a style which is
natural and earnest and in sympathy with what is best in our
day. His breadth of thought is, perhaps, that which strikes and
draws one most, and in this not even Beecher is his master.
Philosophic candor, and a large grasp, this separates him world
wide from the common pulpit; and those who find themselves
I
at. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 111
always on the guard about the statements of others give Phillips
Brooks a ready ear. But with all this, there is in his preaching
what one must call the everlasting Gospel ; that faithfulness to
the conscience, that tender pleading, that dignity of condescen-
sion, and yet that brotherliness and sympathy, that fidelity to
dogmas, yet that absence of dogmatic expression, that lack of the
sensational, ludicrous, and egotistic, and that spiritual quickening,
which men sum up in one brief phrase when they say, "That
is what I call preaching." For myself, I should deem no vaca-
tion complete without hearing Phillips Brooks. After hearing
Candish, Dyce, Hamilton, Jones, Binney, Spurgeon, Pressens^,
Monoa, Kruimnacher, and Tholuck, not to mention other dis-
tinguished divines of Europe, there is no one who so exactly
suits me as Phillips Brooks. There is a warmth and life and
inspiration and truth from his lips that I have not found else-
where. And from what I hear mine is not an isolated case. 1
The late Dr. Tulloch, Principal of St. Mary's College, in
the University of Aberdeen, was visiting Boston in the spring
of 1874. This was his tribute to Phillips Brooks, in a letter
to his wife :
April 26, 1874.
I have just heard the most remarkable sermon I ever heard in
my life (I use the word in no American sense) from Mr. Phillips
Brooks, an Episcopal clergyman here : equal to the best of Fred-
erick Robertson's sermons, with a vigor and force of thought
which he has not always. I never heard preaching like it, and
you know how slow I am to praise preachers. So much thought
and so much life combined; such a reach of mind, and such a
depth and insight of soul. I was electrified. I could have got
up and shouted.
And again in a letter to a friend the comment is repeated,
and the comparison with Robertson made more explicit :
I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed myself here, how
kind everybody has been, and with what flattering kindness they
have received me, Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Dana, and a
man in some respects as remarkable as any of them, Phillips
Brooks, the great preacher here now. I never heard anything
equal to his sermon to-day, and you know I don't readily praise
sermons. It had all the originality and life and thought of
1 Rev. W. L. Gage, in the Congregationalist, 1874.
122 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
Robertson of Brighton, with less tenderness and delicacy of in-
sight, but more robustness and incision. 1
That a man like Principal Tulloch could bear this testi-
mony to a sermon by Phillips Brooks shows that something
had happened in the history of preaching and in the history
of religious thought. There was certainly no living critic
who surpassed him, very few if any who could be said to
equal him, in those qualities which go to making up the capa-
city for final arbitration. He was distinguished as a preacher,
Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, Moderator of the Gen-
eral Assembly of the Church of Scotland, a man Of rigid
standards and exacting in his judgments, acquainted with
the preachers of his time, whose profession called him to
study the history of preaching and the history of theology.
Those who have read his " Leaders of the Reformation," his
" English Puritanism and its Leaders," or his important work
on " The Rational Theologians of the Church of England
in the Seventeenth Century," will know that Phillips Brooks
was preaching in the presence of one whose judgment was of
value. The man who could move Principal Tulloch to such
an outburst had gained some vantage ground in the struggle
of the Christian church to overcome the world, which it is
essential that we should discover. When we turn with an
interest to the sermon, it is to find that it was no excep-
tional utterance compared with a hundred others that might
be mentioned. And yet it contained in a marked degree
that quality which now made all the sermons great. This
was the text : Jesus said unto him, Dost thou believe on
the Son of God ? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord,
that I might believe on him f And Jesus said unto him,
Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talheth with
thee? The climax of the sermon was delayed till the mean-
ing of the last answer of Jesus had been unfolded. As the
successive points in the conversation were opened up to the
hearer in the wealth of their direct and unsuspected spiritual
import, the interest grew deeper, for the portrait of Christ
1 Mrs. Oliphant's Life of Principal Tulloch, pp. 292, 303.
2 Cf. Sermons, " The Opening of the Eyes," vol. v. p. 194.
jet. 37-41] METHODS OF WORK 123
was growing clearer and the nature of every man. Christ is
drawn as the most real, most present power in the Christian
world. Men see Him, talk with Him continually, but they
do not know what lofty converse they are holding. The sub-
tlety of the spiritual imagination that enabled the preacher
to enter into the mind of Christ had the effect of reproducing
the scene, as though Christ were standing in bodily presence
before the congregation. "What had taken place those cen-
turies ago was repeating itself in the consciousness of many
on that Sunday afternoon.
CHAPTER V
1873-1877
THE BUILDING OF THE NEW TRINITY CHURCH. THE MOTIVES
IN ITS CONSTRUCTION. THE CONSECRATION SERVICES
The story of the building of Trinity Church reads like
a romance from its first inception, through the difficulties
surmounted, till it culminated in the service of consecration.
In the accomplishment of the work, the building committee,
the architect, the rector, labored together in a spirit of
harmony, with an aim which cannot be better expressed
than in the words of the report of the building committee :
" the conviction that our duty to the parish, to posterity, and
to God has been clear, to make the new church fully worthy
of the piety, the culture, and the wealth of our people." It
was fortunate for the architect and the rector that they had
such a building committee and such a parish to support
them, for as the original design of the church expanded, there
came the demand for increased expenditure until the com-
pleted work had cost more than double the amount originally
contemplated. From beginning to end a deep enthusiasm
pervaded the whole undertaking. It was impossible to bring
together two such personalities as Richardson and Phillips
Brooks without something great and unique as the product
of their joint discourse. Mr. Richardson was not a man
with ecclesiastical convictions, who endeavored to turn his
religious musings into architectural expression, but endowed
with a rich and generous nature, who appreciated the large-
hearted rector of Trinity and responded to his suggestions.
Mr. Brooks was not an architect, but he came near being one.
In his journeys through Europe he had made himself familiar
with historic churches in the countries he visited, and by his
jet. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 125
intelligent interest in the subject had prepared himself for
the tuition which Richardson could give. He had also
certain first principles of his own, which appear embodied in
Trinity Church.
From one point of view the credit for the accomplishment
of so large an undertaking belonged to the building committee,
whose culture, judgment, and zeal, as well as business capac-
ity, made the work possible, preventing misunderstandings
which would have marred the plan or limited its realization.
From another point the glory belongs to an architect who
stood foremost in his profession for originality and boldness
and power. But with Phillips Brooks originated the motives
which dominate the edifice. His ideas are written in the struc-
ture ; he supported and stimulated the genius of the architect,
turning it to his own purpose ; he possessed the confidence of
the building committee and of the members of the parish,
manifested by unstinted generosity in giving, in response to
increasing appeals. While the share which he took in the
work cannot be exactly measured, or the influence he exerted
be sharply discriminated from that of the architect or build-
ing committee, yet the story may be told from his point of
view. Trinity Church in his lifetime was popularly known
as Phillips Brooks's Church ; there is a sense in which it
may be regarded as his monument.
In the first place he appreciated the greatness of the
opportunity. The time was ripe to make an attempt in
ecclesiastical architecture which, while it respected and
followed whatever was true or desirable in traditional methods,
should yet be subservient to the expression of those higher
aspects of religion which it had been the glory of the Pro-
testant Reformation to unveil. Upon that point he was clear,
that the first condition was to break away from the so-called
Gothic style, to whose introduction into England and America,
following in the wake of the Oxford Movement, was owing
in a measure the attempted return to mediaeval religion
which had characterized the Anglican Church for the last
generation. That type of religion, with its priesthood and
confessional, and its undue emphasis on the sacrament of the
126 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
altar, had clothed itself in a style of architecture whose chief
requisite was to see, or to supplement sight by the ringing of
a bell, but where the hearing of the word of God by the ear
was not taken into consideration as affecting the structural
necessities of the building art. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God was the conviction of Phillips
Brooks. Preaching might seem weak in comparison with
gorgeous rites calculated to impress the imagination, but God
had appointed the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. This was the principle kept in the foreground, as
controlling the details of the construction. Even the piers
of the central tower, where they are visible in the church,
were made smaller than the fitting proportions seemed to
demand, failing to represent the massive foundations on
which they rest, and even concealing in some measure their
structural purpose, in order that the symbolism of the church
as a place for the proclamation of the gospel might be more
effectually secured.
But preaching was not the only motive to be embodied in
a church aiming to represent the symmetry and fulness of the
Christian faith. For the " visible church of God is a con-
gregation of faithful men, where not only the pure word of
God is preached, but the sacraments be duly ministered
according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of
necessity are requisite to the same." In order that the
dignity of the sacraments might not only be secured, but
their true significance made prominent, there was added to
the chancel end of the church, which was in the form of the
Latin cross, a large semicircular apse, to be devoted to the
one purpose of the administration of the Lord's Supper.
This was a departure from ecclesiastical traditions, marked
and even glaring, and gives to Trinity Church a distinctive
character. Its motive was to represent the idea of Christian
communion and fellowship as one great end which the Lord's
Supper was designed to promote. In the centre of the apse
stood the Lord's table, a table according to the original
institution of the feast, not an altar or a sideboard, but a
table, whose importance to the Christian imagination was not
jet. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 127
obscured or dwarfed by other ornament, not even by the chan-
cel windows. Whether it would be a success or not from
an aesthetic or architectural point of view, whether something
more impressive to the outward eye might have been devised
or not, was not the question. The spirit of ecclesiastical mys-
ticism, dreaming of an elaborate altar, with its imposing ac-
cessories, as in Latin churches, might be disappointed at the
residt in a building that promised and fulfilled so much to the
visual imagination. But if it were a failure in devising a form
of architectm*e where the central truths of Anglicanism, as
distinct from Romanism, should be bodied forth in unmistak-
able manner, yet it was an attempt at this end under circum-
stances most favorable and rare. If it were a failure, then the
inference would seem close at hand that Protestantism, which
has been powerful enough to build up the modern world, and
now carries the hopes and the possibilities of the world's future,
is driven, in seeking a fitting shrine for worship, to resort to
types of architecture that originated in and expressed the
spirit of an inferior age, to which the higher forms of Christ's
religion were unknown. But those who have witnessed the
feast of the Lord's Supper in Trinity Church, when the full
significance of the divine symbolism is apparent, must feel
that there has been no failure. The Protestant principle
controls the edifice, securing the prominence to the pure word
of God, and with it the due ministration of the monumental
rite of the Lord's Supper. The baptismal font, from this
point of view, is placed next the chancel, as it should be,
connecting closely the two sacraments, setting forth the truth
that an inward purification is the condition for participating
in the heavenly banquet.
There was still another motive in the mind of Mr. Brooks :
to combine with these features of a Protestant church what-
ever was of human and enduring significance in the earlier
methods of Christian architecture. It was no part of his
purpose to break with the spirit of the ages before the Refor-
mation. To his mind they were the " ages of faith," and to
them he made the appeal, when searching for the evidence
upon which the Christian religion must repose. Therefore,
128 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
he would take from the old order the ideas of solidity and
of imposing grandeur, of beauty, of adornment in form and
color, which should surpass, if possible, all other beauty, as
when the church seemed greater than the world, the spiritual
stronger and richer than the temporal, and in its costly deco-
ration symbolizing that wealth was most worthily employed
when it ministered to spiritual ends. Let the complex invo-
lutions of the result stand for the rich variety of religious
interests. Retain from the old, also, the sense of awe and
mystery, the deep mystery of human life, that combination
of effects in roof and windows, in which Milton, though a
Puritan, rejoiced, whose result was to dissolve the spirit in
religious ecstasy and bring heaven before the eye.
The main feature in the architecture of Trinity Church
both within and without is the central tower. In this respect,
as well as in the rejection of the pointed arch, the departure
from the so-called Gothic reproductions is apparent and strik-
ing. To quote the architect's words on this point :
In studying the problem presented by a building fronting on
three streets, it appeared equally desirable that the tower should
be central, thus belonging equally to each front, rather than put-
ting it on any corner, where, from at least one side, it would be
nearly out of sight; and in carrying out this motive, it was plain
that with the ordinary proportion of church and tower, either the
tower must be comparatively small, which would bring its sup-
porting piers inconveniently into the midst of the congregation, or
the tower being large, the rest of the church must be magnified to
inordinate proportions. For this dilemma the Auvergnat solu-
tion seemed perfectly adapted. Instead of the tower being an
inconvenient and unnecessary addition to the church, it was itself
made the main feature. The struggle for precedence, which
often takes place between a church and its spire, was disposed of,
by at once and completely subordinating nave, transepts, and apse,
and grouping them about the tower as the central mass.
In the discussions over the plan of the church by which
this result was finally determined, Mr. Brooks took an im-
portant part. Both architect and rector were agreed in
the matter of the tower as a central feature, rather than a
tower at one corner, as was at first intended. As to the
jet. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 129
" Auvergnat solution," Mr. Brooks spent the summer of
1874 travelling through the towns of middle France, where,
as at Auvergne and the Angoumois, there existed from the
twelfth century churches of the peculiar construction whence
Mr. Richardson drew, in some measure, his suggestion. He
was thus prepared to form an intelligent opinion. But apart
from this special preparation, he had an earlier predilection
for the tower, as has been already shown in his experience
at Philadelphia, where the Church of the Holy Trinity had
been completed in accordance with his desire. This pre-
ference for the tower was accompanied by another equally
strong for the rounded arch, or for what is called the
Romanesque style. These things may seem to be a matter
of indifference from a religious point of view, but he did not
so regard them. If it is admissible to suppose that religious,
or intellectual, or other motives consciously or unconsciously
inspire those who plan and build, then we may recall that the
Romanesque style was developed in the earlier Middle Ages
before the Latin Church had conquered the state, or begun
the movement for suppressing freedom of inquiry, before
the promulgation of the dogma of transubstantiation had car-
ried the power of the priesthood to absolute supremacy over
the Christian imagination. The Gothic, or as it is called
the pointed style, came later, when these things had been
accomplished. To the professed ecclesiologist, a church like
Trinity, without a spire, without the pointed arch, is an eye-
sore and hardly worthy to be called an ecclesiastical con-
struction, for their rejection seems to imply the sacrifice of
the ideas of solemnity and devotion, spire and arches
mounting upwards to express the soul of religious aspiration
pointing forever away from earth to heaven. But there is
another conception of religion than this, the consecration
of the world that now is, the recognition of the sacredness of
earth and of the secular life. To this conception Mr. Brooks
had given expression in an essay 1 read before the Church
Congress in 1875 on the " Best Method of Promoting Spir-
1 Essays and Addresses, pp. 20 ff. Also published separately by T. Whit-
taker, N. Y.
VOL. II
130 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
itual Life," where he had maintained that religion is not
something to be added to a man's nature over and above
what he already possesses, but it is rather the consecration
of all his gifts and powers to the service of God.
The spiritual life of man in its fullest sense is the activity of
man's whole nature under the highest spiritual impulse, which is
the love of God. It is not the activity of one set of powers, one
part of the nature. It is the movement of all the powers, of the
whole of his nature under a certain force and so with a certain
completeness and effect.
With this idea the architecture of Trinity Church is in
harmony. Nor is it lacking in seriousness, solemnity, and
devotion, but ministers to them, as also to a certain spiritual
serenity, in a manner and degree unsurpassed by what is called
the ecclesiological style.
It had formed a part of Richardson's design that the interior
of the church should be decorated in accordance with a large
plan embracing the whole and every separate part in its
unity of treatment ; that this should be done by some crea-
tive mind, capable of a task which in this country hitherto
had no precedent ; that the church within should be rich with
the luxuriance of color, as well as with paintings representing
angelic intelligences and the great personages of religious
history. Into this scheme Phillips Brooks entered with en-
thusiasm. For its criticism and appreciation he had prepared
himself by lingering in the art galleries, the museums, the
churches of the Old World, with an almost passionate devo-
tion. He studied and penetrated the artistic purpose; he
knew how to enjoy ; he was the natural friend of every artist.
In close connection with this artistic sense, there was one
peculiarity about him, so marked as to be almost extra-
ordinary, his love of color, in itself and for its own sake.
There is some mystery here which we do not fathom. If it
be true, as has been suggested, that color is only a subtler,
higher form of music, his whole being was responding to its
innumerable manifestations, and it ministered to him a per-
petual inward delight. His susceptibility to color was almost
feminine, so quick was he to feel and appreciate. But he
-*t. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 131
seems to have loved pure color, apart from any attempt at
adjustment or harmony. This was shown in little things,
as when, in one of his later journeys in Europe, he bought a
piece of richly colored glass, carrying it in his pocket, simply
for the pleasure it gave him to look at it. In the highest
sense of the word he was not musical. But if color be
only another form of the musical appeal, a higher and in
some ways more intellectual and more spiritual form, then
we can understand how he had more than a substitute for the
melody of sound. He became also an adept and a devotee in
the matter of stained glass, studying at factories abroad the
method of its production. It was no indifferent subject, then,
to Phillips Brooks, when the architect proposed that the
church should be made glorious by the richest effects of color
which the best artists could devise.
But to execute these things called for a large expenditure
of money as well as the artistic, creative imagination to de-
vise them. Upon this point there was the inevitable sensi-
tiveness partly grounded in human nature, and partly in the
movements of the age. Puritanism had not hitherto been
favorable to the cultivation of beauty or splendor in its
churches. The reaction at the Reformation when iconoclasm
marred or wrecked so many mediaeval monuments was an influ-
ence which had. not wholly lost its force. To this lurking
mood which would have made practical necessity the ruling
idea and not beauty or splendor the mood of the disciple
who exclaimed at the waste of the costly ointment, "This
might have been sold and given to the poor " there came a
reinforcement in the socialistic temper of the hour, which
was making good men sensitive to the uses of wealth. Upon
this point there is evidence that Phillips Brooks had thought
seriously and come to a conclusion. There was a danger lest
men in their desire to be of service to others should lessen
and reduce themselves by the neglect of the gifts of God, and
so hinder and even frustrate their mission. To set forth the
richness and the beauty of God's creation in a temple where
these things were read as in a symbol was in itself a motive
and a stimulus for which the world, the poor also whom we
i 3 2 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
have always with us, would be the better. Hence Mr. Brooks
not only justified the lavish use of wealth for the beautifying
and ennobling of the house of God, but his voice was inspiring
as he made the appeal to his congregation. In 1897, at the
twentieth anniversary of the consecration of Trinity Church,
his successor, Rev. E. W. Donald, referred in his sermon to
this point, when the results of the experiment were manifest :
These twenty years have demonstrated a fact which I fancy
will always need demonstration in the eyes of those people who
immemOrially have "begrudged the house of God the touch of
beauty," and deplored great cost in its erection and adornment.
You built a splendid temple; you meant to build a splendid tem-
ple. You spared no cost; you nobly met every demand which
enlarged plans and richer beauty year by year made upon your
generosity. You had to meet the plain-spoken criticism of those
who insisted that the difference between slightness and solidity,
between barrenness and beauty, should have been given to works
of mercy, religion, and education. If the cost of this building
had been funded and the interest of the fund devoted to causes
universally acknowledged to be worthy, the aggregate income of
twenty years would not equal the munificent sum which, with the
blessing of God upon it, has been offered and distributed by
Trinity Church.
The interest in watching the progress of the work grew
stronger as the many anxious problems in the matter of con-
struction were met and overcome. The completed edifice
did not quite represent the original intention of the archi-
tect. The walls were to have been several feet higher, and
" the original design of the tower showed a square lantern
with turrets at each corner, much like the present tower, but
surmounted by an octagonal portion rising some fifty feet
higher." But to carry out this plan of the tower called for
walls of such thickness in the tower that, in the minds of
experts who were consulted, the foundations, however strong,
would not be strong enough to support the weight. To this
criticism Mr. Richardson demurred, but the change was made.
The lowering of the walls was partly in obedience to acoustic
demands, which were an important consideration, as was also
the construction of the ceiling, a wisdom justified by the
result.
iET. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 133
The first difficulty to be overcome lay in the nature of the
ground, which was of gravel filled in, what is called " made
land," incapable of sustaining the weight of a building. In
the spring of 1873 the work began of preparing the founda-
tions. The number of piles which were driven was some
forty-eight hundred. A careful record was kept of each pile
driven, " the number of blows required to drive it to a resist-
ing medium, the depth to which it was driven, the height
from which the hammer fell, the weight of the hammer, and
the number of inches which the head of the pile sank at each
of the last three blows." The final determination of the plan
of the church was delayed until this preliminary work was
done. In the fall of 1873 the contract was made for the
masonry of the structure. The immense weight of the central
tower constituted the chief difficulty against which an excess
of precaution was taken. The four piers which support it,
carrying arches, fifty feet in span, the whole tower weigh-
ing nineteen million pounds, rest upon four truncated pyra-
mids, each thirty-five feet square at the base, seven feet
square at the top, and seventeen feet high. Mr. Richardson
has told the story of the experiments made, the failures, the
work which had to be undone, the time taken for testing ex-
periments, with stones and cement of different kinds, until
the desired security was attained. Thus the year 1873 was
spent in getting ready, a tedious year which to onlookers
yielded no visible result.
In the following year the work was pushed rapidly forward.
The corner stone should have been laid in the summer of
1874, but owing to Mr. Brooks's absence in Europe the event
was postponed till November 10, when the height of the walls
prevented the attendance of all but a few. The contract
called for the completion, in November, 1874, of the chapel,
connected by a corridor with the church, and at that time the
congregation took possession of it, the foretaste of the greater
things to come. Through the following winter the stone was
cut for the remainder of the building at Westerly, Dedham,
and Longmeadow, some of it also coming from Rockport,
from Quincy, and from the coast of Maine. It is an interest-
i 34 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873^77
ing fact that much of the granite stone from the Old Trinity
on Summer Street has been worked into the foundations.
The massive scaffolding was now built which was to serve for
the piers and arches of towers, and which remained in place
in the interior, preventing any view of the final effect until it
was taken down a few days before the church was consecrated.
So the work went on, until in July, 1876, the last stone was
laid in the tower, and in its exterior appearance the church
was completed.
There now followed a period of impatient waiting for the
completion of the interior decoration. Mr. John La Farge,
the most eminent of American artists, to whose superintend-
ence this task was entrusted, gathered about him competent
assistants who labored with him, says Richardson, "in a
spirit of true artistic enthusiasm for a work so novel and
affording such an opportunity for the highest exercise of a
painter's talents." Mr. La Farge had a magnificent scheme,
but it required time for its fulfilment, and time was now
becoming a condition which he could not control. He asked
for an extension and it was given him, but even that was
not sufficient. Still he had accomplished much and made
the completion necessary and possible also at a future day.
At first it had only been intended that he should paint a
few pictures on the walls. But he and Richardson saw their
opportunity to attempt something never before accomplished
in America. He succeeded in obtaining permission to paint
pictures which should be an organic part of a great scheme
of color for the whole church. He did not ask for any ade-
quate compensation, but only for permission to make the
effort.. He confined his attention to the roof and the walls
of the central tower in the confidence that if this were com-
pleted the rest would follow. He consented to stop his work
on the thirty-first day of January, 1877, and with great doubts
and misgivings the day of consecration was fixed for Feb-
ruary 9. He labored up to the last moment of the allotted
time, and is reported to have spent the whole night of Jan-
uary 31 at his work. Then began the task of taking down
the great tower staging, which had stood for two years and
mt. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 135
a half, when for the first time the full effect of the interior
was visible.
It is not possible here to go into any detailed description
of the building or its decoration. At the time of its erection
it awakened an unusual interest in Boston ; its progress was
followed by the newspapers ; architects discussed it at their
meetings. There was no standard for judgment or compari-
son ; some called it the chief architectural ornament of the
city ; others said it surpassed in magnificence any church in
New England; and others, still, were not afraid, as they
thought of the architect and his colaborers, to pronounce it
unequalled throughout the land. A report of the impression
it produced, in its then novel beauty and magnificence upon
a competent judge, is taken from the " Boston Transcript "
of February 5, which will stand for many similar notices
written at the time :
A splendid surprise is in store for the worshippers at Trinity
Church on the opening of that temple to the public for consecra-
tion next Friday. The interior is impressive in its vast spaces
alone, the grandeur of its wide and lofty arches spanning nave
and transepts, and the height of the ceiling in the great square
tower open to the sight far beyond the vaulted roof. The grand
exterior dimensions of the church somewhat prepare one for the
spaciousness within. But only seeing can realize the superb
beauty of the decoration, rich yet not garish, elaborate and not
"piled on," magnificent in splendors, yet noble and dignified,
artistic yet religious and fitting for the place. Its richness is
beyond compare, because there is literally nothing like it this side
of the ocean. Trinity is the first church in this country to be
decorated by artists, as distinguished from artisans. The result
must be to make an era in American art and Church building.
On February 3 the last timbers of the staging were taken
down. In the five days that remained the work was carried
on with great rapidity, of cleaning, finishing the floor, putting
up the pews, laying the carpets, completing the organ, and on
Thursday night, February 8, everything was done. The debt
of $60,000, unavoidably incurred, had been paid as soon as
the appeal to remove it was received. The following day
was to be the greatest in the history of the parish, memorable
136 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
for the congregation, but chiefly for the building committee,
the architect, and the rector : an occasion of interest, also,
to more than could participate in the ceremonies, to those
outside of the Episcopal Church, and to the city of Boston.
To Mr. Brooks it was left to perfect the details of the
function of consecration, that it might be worthily performed.
The services began at eleven o'clock, and by that time the
church was crowded. Among the invited guests were the
Governor of the State, the Mayor of Boston, clergymen of
other denominations, the wardens and vestrymen of other
parishes, the architect, the artists, and builders. The late
Colonel Theodore Lyman, a friend and college classmate of
the rector, acted as the marshal of the day. One hundred
and seven clergymen walked, in procession from the chapel
to the western entrance, where they were received by the
wardens and vestry of the Church, and together went up the
nave, reciting alternately the twenty-fourth Psalm, whose
sentences seemed to take on a deeper meaning : " The earth
is the Lord's and all that therein is ; the compass of the world
and they that dwell therein. Lift up your heads, O ye gates ;
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory
shall come in." The consecration prayers were said by Bishop
Paddock ; the Instrument of Donation was read by Charles
Henry Parker, the senior warden, and the sentence of conse-
cration by the Rev. W. E. Huntington of Worcester. It
was characteristic of Phillips Brooks that he should call about
him on such a day the friends of his life who were in the min-
istry, or who had been associated with him in the theologi-
cal seminary. Thus the Rev. Arthur Brooks, the Rev. Thomas
S. Yocum, the Rev. Wilbur F. Paddock, and the Rev. C. A. L.
Richards were assigned parts in the service. The Rev. Dr.
Richard Newton represented Philadelphia and its associations.
The venerable Stephen H. Tyng of New York read the Com-
mandments, the Rev. Henry C. Potter the Epistle, and the
Gospel was taken by Rev. George Z. Gray, the Dean of the
Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge. But in the chief
place of honor stood Dr. Vinton to perform the act necessary to
complete and crown the occasion, the delivery of the sermon.
iET. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 137
He had followed Phillips Brooks from his boyhood, had
advised with him when in uncertain groping after his life-
work he had first thought of the Christian ministry ; he had
received him to his heart and home when as a young clergy-
man he came to Philadelphia ; had made the way for him to
the Church of the Holy Trinity as his successor ; had been his
counsellor on every occasion, blessing him away from Phila-
delphia to Boston, and now in Boston, once more as the rector
of Emmanuel Church, had resumed the old relation in deeper,
more sacred intimacy. Dr. Vinton preached the sermon, and
his text was Revelation xxi. 22 : "I saw no temple therein :
for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of
it." Then followed the Communion service at which Bishop
Paddock officiated, assisted by the Bishop of Central Pennsyl-
vania, the Rt. Rev. M. A. DeWolfe Howe. The music was
under the direction of the organist of Trinity, Mr. James
C. D. Parker ; the choir consisted of Miss Parker, Dr.
Langmaid, Miss Morse, and Mr. Aiken, together with a
chorus of forty voices. With a lunch served at the adjacent
Hotel Brunswick, the exhilarating and glorious occasion came
to an end. This letter, manifesting the spirit in which the
building of Trinity Church was accomplished, was written to
the rector by Mr. Robert Treat Paine on the evening of the
day of its consecration :
Boston, Friday, February 9, 1877.
And now, my dear old Friend, at the close of this great day,
which has brought the glorious consummation of our hopes and
prayers, I want to send you a few words to say how this long five
years' labor, working with you and for you and for our noble
church, has been to me an inexpressible pleasure.
In all the difficult and doubtful questions which have met us
from time to time, the hand of God seems to have guided us and
to have brought us to a wise decision. I have felt throughout
that your prayers were powerful to get this aid and guidance.
On one matter, that of involving the Parish in debt, I have
always been moved in two directions, feeling on the one hand that
we were bound not to load the future of the Church with a heavy
debt, and that as an agent of theirs I must be faithful to this
obligation, and yet on the other hand unable myself to tolerate
the idea that, in carrying out the great work of transplanting
138 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
the church from one site to another and building our new church
to stand for centuries as we trust, we should strive or even be
willing only to use the resources of the past.
Here, too, God seems to have been with us. And the debt,
which in spite of our efforts to keep it down rolled up so large a
sum, has only given us all an opportunity to show the love of the
whole people to you, and their readiness to follow your example
of great generosity, and their devotion to our glorious new House
of God. The eager and noble response to your appeal shows
better than any words, not only their love to you, but how much
you have done in them.
Not one of the donors, large or small, but must always love it
more as his church, now that he has taken his part in its comple-
tion. And surely we must feel more worthy to have it and enjoy
it, when we have added so largely to make it broad and beautiful
and rich.
May the spirit of the Living God go with us into our new Home,
and fill it and you and all of us full of His presence and power
and blessing in this generation and many future generations, and
make it a mighty power for good so that we shall not have
builded it in vain, this is the prayer of one whose rare privilege
it has been to be in this matter your coworker, and always your
friend, R. T. Paine, Jk.
To this letter Mr. Brooks replied :
Hotel Kempton, Boston, Saturday evening 1 ,
February 10, 1877.
I wish I could tell you, my dear Bob, something of what yes-
terday was to me, and of how my deep gratitude and love to you
mingled with the feeling of every hour. May God bless you is
all that I can say. The Church would not be standing there, the
beautiful and stately thing that it is, except for your tireless
devotion. How often I have wondered at your undiscouraged
faith; and all my life as I look back on these years of anxiety
and work, I shall see a picture of constancy which I know will
make me stronger for whatever I have to do. Your kind words
crown the whole and leave nothing to be desired in this complete
achievement.
I am almost appalled when I think what the great work in this
new Church may be. I know that I shall have your help and
prayers in the part of it which will fall to me to do. Many,
many happy years are before us, if God will, and when we leave
the great dear thing to those who come after us we shall be near
one another, I am sure, in the better life.
jet. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 139
I cannot realize to-morrow. But I know it will be a happy
day. And so may God's blessings rest on you and yours always.
Your grateful friend, P. B.
In the following letter the Proprietors of Trinity Church
acknowledge the contribution of the rector to the beauty and
glory of the new edifice :
Boston, 9 Doane Street, April 4, 1877.
My dear Mr. Brooks, At the annual meeting of the Pro-
prietors of Trinity Church, held on Easter Monday, last, the
following vote was passed and is now transcribed from the
Records :
That in the midst of the rejoicing with which our people with
overflowing numbers of old friends and large accessions of new-
comers have crowded our new and spacious House of Worship, we
cannot let this great epoch in the life of our ancient Parish pass,
without placing on permanent record our sense of the deep obliga-
tions of us and our whole people to our beloved Rector, Mr.
Brooks.
We have heard with pleasure our Building Committee report
that throughout this great five years' enterprise of building our new
Church, his taste and culture, his zeal and patience and faith have
largely aided in the great result ; that to him in large measure is
due the beauty and the glory of the new Church ; that he has been
himself the inspiration of the Architect, Builders, and Committee.
We appreciate most deeply his noble generosity in contributing
so largely to the treasury of the Parish, and in thus setting an
example which was followed by our people so liberally that we
have been able to present our church free from debt and conse-
crated to God. And we accept his gift as one more proof among
many of his ardent love to his parish.
We cannot conclude these few words, so feebly expressing our
gratitude to our noble pastor and beloved friend, without telling
him how deeply we all feel indebted to him for holding our Parish
so firmly united by his devotion to us, through all the dreary
interval between our old home on Summer Street and our new
Church. The love of our whole people, men, women, and chil-
dren, is all that we can give him in return.
A true copy from the Records,
Attest : Stephen G. Deblois, Clerk of Corporation.
It may seem to mar so beautiful a narrative, but it is
necessary to allude to an incident which occurred in connec-
tion with the services of consecration. To the sacrament of
i 4 o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
the Lord's Supper there came many clergymen of other
denominations, and among them were eminent Unitarian
divines, all of whom had been personally invited to remain
for the communion. Such an event might in other days have
taken place without comment. But at this peculiar juncture
of ecclesiastical circumstances it called forth criticism and
condemnation. The late Rev. O. B. Frothingham, who re-
presented the movement known as " Free Religion," com-
plained in a letter to Dr. James Freeman Clarke, published
in " The Inquirer " (Unitarian), that by participating in the
sacrament at Trinity Church Dr. Clarke had shown himself
oblivious of the high ideal of his own communion :
The dignitaries (?) who invited the liberal clergy to partake of
the sacrament did what was for them a generous thing; they
were liberal and magnanimous ; they forgot for a moment their
ecclesiasticism, the stringency of their dogma, the exclusiveness
of their institution, the anathema of their creed. . . . Their eye
had caught the vision of a broad church, whose enclosing walls
embraced believers of every name. But what shall we think of
the liberals who accepted the invitation? Were they looking for-
ward? Were their faces bathed in light? Were they straining
the line of their traditions?
To this piece of fine rhetoric, beneath which was the
familiar ecclesiastical exclusiveness, Dr. Clarke briefly re-
plied that in his judgment it was more in accordance with
the spirit of liberal Christianity to accept such an invitation
than to refuse it. He distinguished between the simple rite
of the Lord's Supper and any formal ceremonial with which
it might be encompassed. To Mr. Brooks he wrote : "I was
not at all disturbed by what was said by some Unitarians of
our communing at your church. Their objections seemed to
me too frivolous to deserve notice, but for the sake of the
principle I thought it worth while to reply to Frothingham's
strictures and may do so again. But really it seems almost
too simple a matter to discuss."
From the other side there came a protest by a presbyter
of the Episcopal Church to the bishop of the diocese against
what seemed to him " a grievous sacrilege " at the consecration
of Trinity Church, in the admission to the Holy Communion
mt. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 141
of " those who avowedly deny the faith once delivered to the
saints, even concerning the fundamental doctrines of our
Lord's Godhead." Such an act was to be regarded as a vio-
lation of Scripture, of " Catholic " custom, and of Christian
instinct, as well as contrary to the letter and spirit of the
formularies of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The newspapers took up the subject, speaking of it as an
unprecedented circumstance, never witnessed in the Episco-
pal Church before. Mr. Brooks kept silence. He had made
up his mind to keep out of ecclesiastical controversy. As
to the meaning of the formularies of the Episcopal Church,
he had long since come to the conclusion that they were not
intended to exclude from the communion those who did not
accept her articles of faith or follow her mode of worship.
He was in sympathy with Dean Stanley's attitude in admin-
istering the Lord's Supper to Dr. Vance Smith, a Unitarian
minister, when the Communion was kept in Westminster
Abbey, at the moment the revisers of the New Testament
were about to begin their work. Those who objected to this
act of intercommunion did not, as he thought, represent the
spirit or the history of the Church of England or of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in this country. He, too, dis-
tinguished between the ceremonial forms or professions which
accompanied the act of Holy Communion and the simple rite
itself, the eating of the bread and the participation in the
cup of blessing. The one essential requisition for the com-
munion were the words of invitation in the office itself : " Ye
who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are
in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a
new life, following the commandments of God, and walking
from henceforth in His holy ways, draw near with faith, and
take this Holy Sacrament to your comfort."
Because he was convinced of the truth of the doctrines of
the Trinity and the Incarnation, it did not follow that he
should refuse to associate with those who could not receive
them. The " Catholic " usage which forbade Christian fellow-
ship with those who denied the coequality of the Son with
the Father was not necessarily Christian usage, and was no
142 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
ideal to be followed. From this position he did not recede.
But, as in the case of Dean Stanley, his comprehensiveness of
spirit was obnoxious to many of his brethren ; his action was
not to be forgotten ; he was destined to hear from it again
after many years. He had gained, however, the confidence
and affection of ministers and people of every Christian
denomination. The love and respect of the Unitarians in
Boston were henceforth accorded to him as to no other man
outside their own communion.
The new Trinity Church was not what is technically known
as a " free church," nor did the rector covet for it that title,
knowing as he did how phrases which spoke much to the ear
might in reality be hollow. The pews were owned or rented
by the Proprietors, and on each pew a tax was laid for the
support of public worship. But the large galleries in the
transepts of the church were free in every sense; no tax was
laid on them, and no contribution solicited from those who
occupied them. It had been an object kept in view by Mr.
Brooks when the plans of the church were drawn, and urged
by him upon the architect, that this ample accommodation
should be provided. When it is remembered that the gal-
leries accommodate some four hundred people, a larger
congregation than is found in most churches, thus constitut-
ing as it were a church within a church, the generosity
of Trinity Church can hardly be impugned, even if it is not
known in ecclesiastical parlance as a free church. Not only
so, but it was understood between the rector and the congre-
gation that at an early moment in the service pews not
occupied should be regarded as vacant, to be placed at the
disposal of the stranger.
These things were making their impression upon the peo-
ple of Boston and the community at large, changing what
had been a long and deep-seated prejudice into a mood of
expectation that with Phillips Brooks as a leader there was a
great work in the city for the Episcopal Church to accom-
plish. Boston was the city of the Puritans, their chief strong-
hold, where memories were long and traditions tenacious.
The revival of the study of American history was bringing
jet. 37-41] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 143
out again in new vividness the grievances, real or fancied, of
the time of the Stuarts and the age of the Commonwealth.
The people of Boston were not to be deceived with sounding
phrases ; they were quicker than most people to get at the
reality of things, and there were many among them who
disliked or mistrusted the Episcopal Church. They did not
believe that anything good could come out of it. It seemed
to them like an alien church, whose spirit was hostile to
liberty and to religious freedom. They watched its bishops,
thinking that they detected in them as of old the tendency
of ecclesiastical power to beget tyranny. Its services seemed
to them cold, formal, and meagre, inadequate to the expres-
sion of human sympathies or spiritual aspirations. These
long-standing prejudices had been aggravated by the ecclesias-
tical reaction which followed in the wake of the Oxford
Movement, verifying the reasons for the ancient dislike and
dread of a communion which was now seeking for fellowship
with Rome, and had learned to disown the Protestant
churches as having no place within the bounds of organic
Christianity.
It was the work of Phillips Brooks in Boston and through-
out the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to overcome this
dread and disarm these suspicions. The traces of his influ-
ence now begin to be manifest. There was no one among
the descendants of the Puritans who had a more represent-
ative estimate of the situation than the late Rev. Dr. George
E. Ellis. He was a Unitarian minister retired from active
service, devoting his leisure to historical reading and the
writing of books, at a later time to become the honored pre-
sident of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He was one of
those who went to the Communion in Trinity Church. This
letter will show how strongly he was drawn to Mr. Brooks :
110 Marlborough Street, February 10, 1877.
My dear Mr. Brooks, After thoughtfully digesting the
noble and appropriate services and the delightful experiences of
yesterday in connection with the consecration of Trinity Church,
I feel prompted to express to you in this form my sincerest con-
gratulations on the fair completion of an undertaking which must
i 4 4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1873-77
have engaged so deeply your own anxieties and interests. It has
been something more and better than mere curiosity that has led
me almost daily to watch the progress of a critical and generous
enterprise, from the driving of the first pile to the solemn dedica-
tion of the completed sanctuary. In my view, the distinctive
character of your congregation, your own ministry, and the pro-
minent and honored position which you represent before this com-
munity conserve the very best elements of religious culture, and
of a spirit of Christian comprehensiveness and liberality, associ-
ated in my thought with the selectest fellowship of the class of
disciples with whom I have been most intimately connected ;
while at the same time the original deposit of the faith and the
fitness of its dispensation have found in you a wiser guardianship
than it proved to have with the so-called Liberal denomination as
a whole. So I would venture with much respect to assure you
that I am heartily interested in the effective work which, with
such modest personal unobtrusiveness and with such power, you
are doing among us.
And I must recognize with a hearty appreciation and gratitude
the delightful Christian courtesy shown towards all the miscella-
neous company of ministers, including myself, in the arrangement
made yesterday for our participation in and enjoyment of the
seemly and impressive services, especially the Holy Communion.
With sincerest respect and regard, I am
Very truly yours,
George E. Ellis.
Rev. Phillips Brooks.
The following comments from the daily newspapers of
Boston are not quite free from a touch of severe kindliness.
There is a tone in one of them, at least, of lingering uncer-
tainty ; they warn while they praise ; but, on the whole, they
are constrained to trust the larger hope for the Episcopal
Church. As for Phillips Brooks, they join in the chorus of
unqualified approbation. The first extract is from the " Bos-
ton Globe," the second from the "Daily Advertiser : "
The Episcopal Church is evidently to have a future in Boston,
and has now, at least, one house of worship to which all can point
with local pride. It remains, however, to be seen how Bishop
Paddock and his coworkers shall develop their religious body as
a Christian force in this community. If this Church shall largely
show forth the admirable spirit for which Phillips Brooks is so
well known, the spirit of liberality and cordial sympathy toward
- ,.,--...,.:
jet. 37 _ 4 i] NEW TRINITY CHURCH 145
all Christian people, it will rapidly gain in strength and numbers.
To-day this purpose appears to be in the ascendant, and the
result is a cause for rejoicing everywhere. We do not ask Epis-
copalians to change their polity or their doctrines, but as a con-
servative Church to be sympathetic, generous, and noble in practi-
cal work ; and it is because the ovation of yesterday points in this
direction that we give it mention here. Not the least interesting
feature of the services yesterday was the invited presence of the
pastors of nearly all the leading congregations in the city. The
Episcopal Church lost nothing by this, and the whole community
gained a great deal.
The dedication of Trinity Church to-day is an occasion of inter-
est to many more than those who will participate in the cere-
monies, and to persons who do not belong to the Episcopal
Church communion, as well as to churchmen and churchwomen.
In the first place the parish is an historic one, and for many
generations has had a conspicuous place in Boston's annals. In
the next place the building to be dedicated ranks as one of the
notable ornaments of the city. . . . Not a little of the wide-
spread interest in this particular parish and its magnificent house
of worship is owing to the respect and affection felt for its elo-
quent and noble-hearted pastor. There is no doubt that when-
ever he leads the worship, whether in hall or cathedral, he will
exert a liberal, exalted, and powerful influence in behalf of the
highest standards of Christian living. The good wishes and
sincere prayers of a multitude which no church could contain will
ascend with the words of solemn dedication to be uttered within
the walls of the beautiful temple, that Trinity and Phillips Brooks
may long be spared to Boston and to mankind.
So Phillips Brooks took his place as in a cathedral, where
for many years he was to sway the people with an hitherto
unknown power. The enthronement of an ecclesiastical digni-
tary could possess no deeper significance. He seemed now to
stand at the height of his renown. He had other conquests
yet to achieve, but he had accomplished the most difficult, in
some respects the most important, of them all, he had
made the conquest of Boston. From this moment his friends
watched him with a feeling of pride mingled with awe, while
he continued to stride forward and upward, as if there had
been placed no limit to his power.
vol. n.
CHAPTER VI
1877-1879
EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. INVITATION TO PREACH
FOR MR. MOODY. SUMMER ABROAD. SERMON AT WEST-
MINSTER ABBEY. HARVARD UNIVERSITY CONFERS THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF DIVINITY. COMMENTS ON THE
GENERAL CONVENTION.' VISIT OF DEAN STANLEY TO
AMERICA. ILLNESS AND DEATH OF WILLIAM GRAY
BROOKS
The chief event in the year 1877 was the consecration of
Trinity Church. Next to it in importance was the delivery,
before the Divinity School of Yale University, of the " Lec-
tures on Preaching," which will be referred to in a subse-
quent chapter. The lectures were delivered during the months
of January and February. Before entering the new Trinity
Church, Mr. Brooks had feared that his voice might not be
found sufficient for the large edifice, but the first trial
demonstrated that the fear was groundless. There were
places where it was difficult to hear, but he was heard as well
as any and better than most of those who officiated at its
consecration. 1
Dr. Tyng, then in the fifty-sixth year of his ministry, an
uncompromising Evangelical divine, but none the less in sym-
pathy with Phillips Brooks, wrote to him on his return to
New York :
1 In his Yale Lectures he had said little ahout the manner of delivering 1 a
sermon, but his one reference to elocution is of a humorous character: "Of
oratory and all the marvellous mysterious ways of those who teach it, I dare say
nothing. I believe in the true elocution teacher as I believe in the existence of
Halley's comet, which comes in sig'ht of this earth once in about seventy-six
years."
iBT. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 147
St. George's Rectory, New York, February 25, 1877.
My dear Brother, Two weeks ago I had the great plea-
sure of being with you in your new and grand Church. I have
desired to write to you since I returned home. But I have had
a busy and a feeble time. The impression made upon me by all
the events of my visit has been very absorbing. Familiar with
the time when the Old Church was in the midst of scattered
houses, and large gardens, I could hardly realize the prospect
from my windows as possible. Half a mile out in the sea, I
found myself in the midst of a new and wonderful city, more
grand and glorious than I had ever dreamed as possible. Boston
has thus become almost unrivalled as a City. The Churches now
in this new place are marked with a singular grandeur of as-
pect. But the glory of the later house for my dear old parental
Church was to me, perhaps, the chief wonder of the place. I
can but congratulate you, and all your contemporaries, over the
attainment you have made and at the prospect before you. In
the vast liberality of their action, and the majestic scale on which
they were ready to record it, they have given you a pledge for
great results, by God's blessing, for your whole succeeding min-
istry. . . .
Farewell. Pax Vobiscum,
Stephen H. Tyng.
Mr. Brooks responded to this letter in a spirit of reverence
and affection for its venerable writer. But he could not for-
bear taking exception to statements made by Dr. Tyng in a
sermon which he preached in the new church shortly after its
consecration. To the Rev. Arthur Brooks he writes :
March 5, 1877.
I have been amused at the way in which the New York clergy
have given us their blessing since we started. Dr. Tyng preached
for us on the afternoon of the first day, and told us that nobody
could be a Christian who did n't believe that the world was made
in six literal days. The Moses up in the New Tower laughed
aloud at the statement. Yesterday afternoon Dr. Morgan of St.
Thomas's in your town turned up and preached an orotund dis-
course which had quite a good manly flavor to it. In conse-
quence of his appearance, I find myself the surprised possessor of
a discourse which I have never preached, an event which has not
occurred before, except on a Saturday, for years. . . .
We are in the rush of Lent. One talks until he is tired of the
i 4 8 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
sound of his own voice, and then he talks some more. There is a
good healthy religious influence, I think, and underneath our little
work the deep thunder of the Moody movement is rolling all the
time. I hear nothing from Bristol, but have no doubt your Ordi-
nation took and all goes well there. 1
Boston, March 7, 1877.
Dearest Arthur, Queer what you said about Hans Sachs's
poems. I had sent for and got the volume, and here it is with
some of the jolliest woodcuts and German poetry, which is pretty
easy to make out, and very quaint. Oh, if we were but in Nurem-
berg, you and I, to-day! As a sort of variety in Lent I have
begun to read Miss Martineau's "Autobiography." It is as unlike
a Lent lecture as possible. The calm complacency of her unbelief
is something wonderful. Just here Mother came in to see me.
The first visit she has made this winter. They really seem likely
to break up and go to Andover this spring. I am talking of
taking their servants and setting up housekeeping this fall.
The allusion to the work in Boston of Mr. D. L. Moody,
the Evangelist, recalls the circumstance that while the revival
meetings were in progress Mr. Moody was for some reason
unable to preach, and Mr. Brooks was invited to take his
place. It was an interesting circumstance, and invested with
theological curiosity, that an Episcopal clergyman, the rector
of Trinity Church, should receive such an invitation. The
Episcopal Church had hitherto shown but little sympathy
with revivals. Many doubted whether Mr. Brooks was suffi-
ciently familiar with evangelistic methods to meet a con-
gregation drawn together by Mr. Moody's earnestness and
eloquence. But he was invited in the confidence that the
thousands who were flocking nightly to the tent, or Tabernacle
as it was called, where the services were held would not be
disappointed when they knew of the change. And this con-
fidence was not misplaced. It was an event in the history
of the revival that Phillips Brooks had taken part in it.
The announcement [said one of the Boston papers] that the
Rev. Phillips Brooks was to preach was sufficient to fill the
Tabernacle to its utmost capacity last evening. On no occasion
1 The reference is to the Rev. John Cotton Brooks, who after his ordination
became rector of St. James's Church, Bristol, Pa.
jet. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 149
has there been a larger audience, and it was composed of a much
different class of people than usually gather. The regular ser-
vices were opened by the congregation rising and singing, "Just
as I am without one plea." The Rev. W. W. Newton of St.
Paul's offered prayer, and Mr. Sankey gave the notices for the
week, and sang "The Ninety and Nine." Mr. Brooks read for
the Scripture lesson from the twenty-sixth chapter of Acts.
The congregation joined in singing the hymn, "'T is the promise
of God full salvation to give." Mr. Brooks then preached, and
the services closed with benediction.
The text from which the sermon was preached was the
passage from St. Paul where he describes his conversion:
"Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto
the heavenly vision." The preacher was at his best as he
unfolded the text, expounding the principle of conversion
as he himself had experienced it, that the vision must come
first, to be followed by obedience, when the sense of sin would
inevitably ensue, but with the assurance of forgiveness. He
condemned not only by irirplication, but in express language,
the opposite method which sought first to produce the sense of
sin, and after the conviction of forgiveness had been attained,
held out the prospect of the heavenly vision. He assumed
throughout that religion was natural to man, because all men
were by creation and by redemption the children of God.
They had wandered ; they had forgotten or neglected or were
ignorant of their birthright ; but when the vision came, it
appealed to something in every man's constitution, rousing
within him the dormant faculties of a divine relationship.
Dr. Tyng was moved when he heard of the incident, and
wrote to Mr. Brooks this letter :
St. George's Rectory, New York, March 24, 1877.
My dear Brother, I have read your Sermon at the Taber-
nacle, as reported in the "Journal," and I am grateful for the
grace which enabled you to do the thing itself in the midst of all
the prejudices of Boston, and then to do it so skilfully and well,
amidst the pressures of the occasion. I have always united with
those faithful brethren, because I have believed them doing God's
work, and in the way which His providence had planned. In
all the work which they have done under my notice, I have found
much to praise, much to be thankful for, nothing to reprove.
i$o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
That the varied shapes of denial, which modern Anti- Evangelism
has adopted, whether the pride of opinion, or the vanity of posi-
tion, or the veil of formalism, or the working of mere hatred of
truth, should combine against the simplicity of Truth as these
plain men present it could not surprise me, and would not in the
least move me. But perhaps there is no place where authority
so much opposes Freedom after all as our dear Old Boston. The
Cradle of Liberty in name, but at the same time the nursery of
much prejudice, and of much determination that no one shall
violate Boston Notions, whenever they become popular. That
you have given your growing influence to revival movements is
to me and to many a call for much thankfulness. God, even
our own God, will bless you and your work. I rejoice that you
were not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision. It is a curious
fact to remember how many have received a heavenly vision, in
Old Trinity in years gone by, when there was but little Earthly,
to make it probable, or to encourage it, when appearing. There
was always there an undercurrent of real, vital religion. It was
the home of many of the Lord's hidden ones. Your ministry
is the New Testament upon the Old, the bringing out to being
and view the things which were. The Gracious Lord bless you
in it all, and make you an eminent Caller forth of his hidden ones
to open light, usefulness, and glory. I take the greatest interest
in hearing of you, and am always glad to hear from you.
Faithfully yours,
Stephen H. Ttng.
It had now been three years since Mr. Brooks had known a
vacation which had brought him rest from preaching. In the
summer of 1875 he had preached at Emmanuel Church, Bos-
ton, and in the summer of 1876 at Emmanuel in the morning
and at St. Mark's in the evening. His congregations were
composed of dwellers in the city who could not leave, and of
strangers sojourning or passing through, who availed them-
selves of the opportunity. This free gift of himself met its
full appreciation, and was part of the larger ministry, whose
fruits would be manifest in due time. But now he had
resolved upon a summer abroad, for, though he does not
mention it, the strain had been long and severe. When his
intention was known to the people of Trinity Church, the
following unanimous resolution was taken at a meeting of the
Proprietors on Easter Monday :
jet. 4i-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 151
On Motion of Mr. Winthrop, it was Resolved: "That the
Proprietors of Trinity Church, deeply sensible of the great labors
of their Rector during the past year, and of the invaluable ser-
vices which he has rendered to the Church, desire to express their
cordial concurrence in his purpose to seek rest and relaxation in
foreign travel during the approaching summer, and that the sum
of Two Thousand dollars be appropriated towards defraying the
expenses of his tour, with the best wishes of us all that he may
enjoy the vacation which he has so richly earned, and return to
us with fresh vigor for his work."
While in London Mr. Brooks saw many people whom he
speaks of as pleasant and civil. General Grant was then in
England, of whom he writes as the great sensation, eclipsing
all other Americans, " as if they wondered what we had come
for." He dined at the American Minister's, and met the
" great warrior." He saw much of Dean Stanley and of the
English clergy, was admitted to the House of Lords and the
House of Commons, attended the Convocation of the southern
province, listening to a discussion on the subject of the con-
fessional, which ended in a vote by a large majority on the
Protestant side. He carried with him abroad the interests of
Trinity Church. To the late Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, who
was also in England, he wrote :
London, July 4, 1877.
Dear Mb. Winthrop, I must write you a few words to
tell you how much I enjoyed my little visit to Groton yesterday,
and how much I thank you for sending me there. It was a
delightful day, and the drive from Sudbury to Groton was very
charming. The Rector was most courteous and hospitable, and I
saw all that must always make the place very interesting to
Massachusetts men. I congratulate you upon this window in the
church at Groton. It was looking very beautiful yesterday. The
thick glass behind it seems to have brought it to just the right
degree of brilliancy and color. The restoration of the tomb
seemed to me also to have been thoroughly well done.
My glass efforts in London have been very perplexing. Clayton
& Bell were shamefully behindhand, and yet what they had done
seemed to me even better than the window already in the Chancel.
The Lord's Supper window is almost finished, and the centre
window is just begun in glass from a cartoon which I like exceed-
ingly. I have not definitely entrusted the other four windows to
152 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
them, but I have no doubt that I shall do so this week. I leave
for the Continent next Monday (July 9). My only hesitation
is in the matter of time. They promise to have them all done by
next Easter or Whitsunday at the farthest, but we know what
their promises are worth. But I am sure that when they come
they will be thoroughly good. I hope that the Committee will
think that I have done right. I called at Burlison & Grill's
the first day I was in London, but found they had just sent your
window. It is probably in its place before this, and I hope it
wholly pleases you. They had some beautiful work just finished
for Lichfield Cathedral, and I hear them praised everywhere.
I was sorry to find that Lady Rose had left town. She wrote
kindly, asking me to come to Henley-on-Thames, but I was not
able to command the day. I saw the Archbishop, who asked much
of you. Dean Stanley is sadly changed since I saw him last,
and the Deanery is a very different place. I have promised to
preach for him in the Abbey on Sunday morning, which will be my
only preaching away from Trinity. I beg you to remember me
most kindly to Mrs. Winthrop, and I am
Most faithfully yours,
Phillips Brooks.
On Sunday, July 8, he preached for the second time at
Westminster Abbey. There was no complaint of bis not being
heard. Canon Farrar, whose acquaintance he now made, wrote
to him, " It was a very great pleasure to me to resign the
Abbey pulpit to you, and very nobly you used the opportu-
nity." Dean Stanley, who was present, listened with delight
to a doctrine which was after his own heart. The text was
from Isaiah lx. 19 : " The sun shall be no more thy light by
day ; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee : but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light,
and thy God thy glory." The subject was " The Symbol and
the Reality." At a moment when the symbolism of mediaeval
ritual was urged upon the modern church as though the Pro-
testant Reformation had been mistaken in abandoning it, when
it was argued that an elaborate and gorgeous symbolism was
a necessity of the religious life, the conviction was growing
stronger in the mind of the preacher that this was not the
method which brought the highest result, that no symbol was
doing its true work unless it was educating those who used it
jet. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 153
to do without it if need be. This principle was applied not
only to religious symbolism, but to all the symbols of life.
Everywhere the letter stands for the spirit, and to give up
the letter, that the spirit may live more fully, becomes from
time to time the absolute necessity.
After a few weeks in England, Mr. Brooks left for the Con-
tinent, going first to Belgium and Holland, then up the Rhine,
pausing for a moment in Germany, then to Italy, Venice,
Florence, and Milan, and finally to Switzerland. While he
was in Holland he received the news that Harvard University
had in his absence conferred upon him the honorary degree of
Doctor of Divinity. On the diploma which was sent to him
it read that the degree was given " in recognition of his elo-
quence as a preacher, his dignity and purity of life as a
minister of religion, and his liberality and large-mindedness
as a man." To the Rev. James P. Franks of Salem, who first
conveyed him the news, he wrote that he would not be called
Dr. Brooks. To his friends and parishioners, and to people
generally, it seemed most fitting still to call him Mr. Brooks,
as though ecclesiastical titles, however deserved, somehow
separated them from the man. There was a self-conscious
smile when his friends ventured to address him as Dr. Brooks.
Old Bible Hotel, Amsterdam, Sunday, July 15, 1877.
Dear James, You are a jewel of a fellow to write me that
letter. It reached me as I was dressing myself at Brussels the
other morning. It was the first news I heard of the honor which
Harvard had done me. I was surprised at it, and of course grati-
fied. I had supposed the College had given up all idea of making
any more D. D.'s, and especially that they would not give the
degree to one of their own overseers. But as they have thought
good to do it, I am pleased and proud, for a Cambridge man
thinks that there are no honors like those which come from Cam-
bridge. Only I won't be called Dr. Brooks, and you may stop
that for me when and where you can.
How I wish you were here to-day, sitting this morning, looking
out with me on this muddy Canal, and seeing the Dutchies go to
Church. It is very odd and interesting. We would go off some-
where into the country this afternoon, and get under the shadow
of a windmill, and talk about all sorts of things, from the day we
first met in Philadelphia to the prospects of the next General
1^4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
Convention. Then we would come home to table d'hote and
spend the evening in the big square which they profanely call the
" Dam, " looking at the people, and seeing what queer things they
do. But that mustn't be. You are in Salem and preparing to
preach the gospel to S to-day. I honor you, and I am glad I
am not in your place. Last Sunday I preached for Mr. Stanley at
his church in London, and William and I were much in the little
man's company while we were in his town. He is very pleasant
and entertaining, but much changed since his wife's death. He
has grown old, and seems to be fighting hard to keep up an inter-
est in things. The usual collection of Broad Churchmen was
about him, and convocation was sitting in Westminster School
almost under his roof. I heard a long debate one day on "The
Priest in Absolution. " On the whole, London was delightful and
I was glad to get out of it for the Continent, as I always am. I
investigated all the Glass-makers, and found some very interest-
ing men among them.
We are at Holland now, and all this week we shall be here.
How I wish you were here ! William is well and seems to enjoy
it all, and is first-rate company. My bestest love to Sally and
the babies, and come and see me in September at 175 Marlborough.
Always yours, P. B.
Mr. Brooks returned to Boston in September to live there
henceforth under changed conditions. His father and mother
had given up their house on Hancock Street, and had gone to
North Andover to reside in the old Phillips homestead.
Forty-four years had elapsed since in the same house, to
which they now returned, they had been married and thence
had come to Boston, establishing themselves in the first home
on High Street. They had seen six boys go out from them
into the world, four of them still living, and now that the
youngest had gone from home, they looked to North Andover
as a quiet retreat in the decline of life. Mr. Brooks would
gladly have had them come to live with him, and would have
made any arrangements for that end ; he had counted upon
it as his pleasure and privilege, but the parents declined to
accept such an invitation from him or any of the other sons.
It was understood in the family that it was not possible. The
mother refused on principle any such invitation. For many
years Mr. Brooks had kept his bachelor quarters in boarding
alt. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 155
houses and hotels, first on Mount Vernon Street, and then at
the Hotel Kempton on Berkeley Street. He now set up
housekeeping for the first time at No. 175 Marlborough Street,
taking into his employment the servants who had lived with
his mother.
Mr. Brooks had returned to find the General Convention
of the Episcopal Church sitting in Boston, but was unable to
attend its sessions on account of illness, what was called
a slow fever, which confined him for a time to the house. He
had at this time also some difficulty in walking, owing, it may
have been, to his increasing weight. These were not favor-
able conditions for judging of the work of a General Conven-
tion.
" Last Sunday," he writes, " I had three bishops in Trinity,
and went to all the services, and by night was saturated with
commonplace."
175 Marlborough Street, Boston, October 8, 1877.
Dear old Cooper, A thousand thanks for your letter.
Well, I am home again, and once more Europe is behind my back.
I had a royal time, and lots of places put me in mind of our sum-
mer there which, after all, was the best of all. Let 's see : we
drove again up the Inn Valley starting from Innsbruck (where
they have got now a tremendous new hotel). We stopped again
at Landeck and Mais and FinstermUnz, and such an afternoon
and night as we had at Trafoi you never saw. It is the most
gorgeous view and made me think with horror of what was hid
from us on that rainy afternoon we passed there. The ride up
the Stelvio was superb, but at the top we had a driving snowstorm
and went over the ridge buttoned up to the chin and our hands
down deep in our pockets. Then down to Bormio where was the
bath, and then by Tirano to Lake Como and Venice and Bologna
and Florence. It was all beautiful, and now seems like the same
dream that those journeys always do when they are over.
We had a quiet, dull voyage home, and the day before we landed
I was taken with what the Doctor calls a slow fever which has
kept me a good deal shut up ever since. It is the slowest fever
that ever was got up. The seat of it is principally in the back
of the knees which give way when you have walked about a
square. Altogether it is an attack of general good-for-nothing-
ness which I am tired of, and which I am glad to be able to hope
is almost over now.
i 5 6 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
It has allowed me to ignore the General Convention which is
going on in as miserable and useless a way as you can conceive.
There is nothing for them to do, and they are trying hard to
make something by bringing up all kinds of ridiculous proposi-
tions. I was glad once more to sign the petition about the Bap-
tismal service. It reminded me of good old times, and I hope
we shall have it triannually as long as this church stands. It
never will be granted of course.
I can't come on in November. I wish I could, but I must be at
work. The summer and the sickness and the Convention together
have lost me so much time, and then I have promised to go to
the Congress in New York. I hope I shall meet you there, for I
do want to see you ever so much. My kindest remembrances to
Mrs. Cooper. Don't forget me.
Your old friend, P. B.
To Eev. W. N. McVickar, who had become the rector of
Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia, he writes :
October 17, 1877.
My dear William, ... I had a splendid summer and
hated to come home. I always do. But now that I am here I
am reconciled, for is n't the General Convention here, and does n't
it bring all the good fellows from all over the country ? You and
Cooper are the only men I want to see that I haven't seen. The
thing itself, the Convention, is as funny as possible. I have n't
been there myself for I have been sick, but I hear all about it, and
I hope you read your " Daily Churchman " before you go to bed.
They have done literally nothing. They did one piece of busi-
ness week before last, and cackled over it all about town like a hen
over her eggs. But the House of Bishops the next week sat down
on it and vetoed it, and so they have really and literally not one
thing to show. So they talk about the beautiful harmony that
prevails. . . . And they swell, O, how they swell ! And each
" swole " a little worse than the one before him, if it were pos-
sible, except Bishop Williams. He is an old jewel and talks like
a sensible man.
The admiration of Mr. Brooks for the late Bishop Wil-
liams of Connecticut was reciprocated. Thus Bishop
Williams, who now met him for the first time, writes to
him:
I am not speaking empty words, but true ones, when I say to
you, that for myself I rejoice in the meeting at Boston, espe-
jet. 4i-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 157
cially because it gave me the opportunity which I had long wished
for to see you. I have very deeply felt, and I think appreciated,
the great work you have done and are doing, and I pray God
may long be spared to do in Boston. And I have greatly wished
to take you by the hand and say something of what was in my
heart. I am very thankful for the opportunity.
In November he was present at the sessions of the Church
Congress in New York, and on his return he writes :
175 Marlborough Street, Boston, November 7, 1877.
Dear Arthur, I am glad to hear that my coming away did
no serious harm to the Congress. It seems to have gone on most
swimmingly to the end, and I am very glad I came and thank
you most truly for your kind welcome and hospitality. I was all
the better for it, and am now quite well. Isn't it good to have
these show occasions done with and settle down into the steady
pull of Parish Life. Last Sunday seemed a blessed relief.
There was nobody to be civil to in the Vestry Room, and you could
read the service yourself and preach the Gospel which had been
bottled up all the time. Now there is a clear field for the winter
and I don't mean to have anybody preach for me, except when
you come, before next year. ... I have father staying with
me for a day or two. He came down to vote and to attend the
Historical Society to-morrow. He seems capitally well and goes
out prowling around the town in his old fashion, as if Marlbor-
ough Street were quite as good a place as Hancock Street to
start from. The election does n't look well. 1 Massachusetts
has gone all right, but New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
seem to be all wrong. The policy is right, and I hope they will
stick to it. But it would be an awful thing to have the country
thrown into the hands of the starved Democrats two years hence.
But I suppose it is a case of "doing right though the heavens
fall," about as clear as we often see.
Have you read the new " Life of Sumner " ? I have finished one
volume of it and found it interesting. The wonderful reception
that he had in England and the sight of the boyhood of these men
who are either gone, or are old men now, are very attractive. Then
I have been reading Bowen's new book. 2 I had forgotten what a
queer, familiar, almost jocose style he has, but his expositions of
the systems of philosophy are certainly very clear, though one
doubts sometimes whether he has got to the bottom of them.
1 The election of Hayes for President when Tilden was the Democratic can-
didate.
2 History of Philosophy.
158 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
In December there was a visit to Philadelphia. His refer-
ences to it, as in this extract from a letter to McVickar, show
that his heart still turned to it with a yearning affection :
December 13, 1877.
Yes I am coming to Philadelphia, and am counting upon it im-
mensely. It will be the shortest visit possible, but then it will
be Philadelphia. As to preaching, you must speak to Charles D.
Cooper. Anything that you and he agree on I will do. Only
let 's not make too terrible a rush of it. Of course the pulpit of
Trinity is the dearest spot on earth to me, in other words, is
home.
The occasion which took him to Philadelphia was the tenth
anniversary of the consecration of the Church of the Holy
Apostles, of which Mr. Cooper was rector. When Mr. Cooper
invited him to come, he wrote at once : " Why, of course
I '11 come. Do you think I would let the friends of the Holy
Apostles gather and I not be there ? " The visit was to come
soon after his birthday. This letter to Miss Meredith of
Philadelphia strikes the usual keynote of the birthdays :
December 18, 1877.
Dear Miss Meredith, ... It seems as if everything out
of the old times were altered so and things whirl on so fast now,
sickness and health, trouble and pleasure chasing each other
quickly. The quiet, smooth, unbroken life is all gone. This is
not perhaps less happy, but " the time is short " seems to ring
out of everything. And then again the whole of things seems of
so much more consequence and the details of things of so much
less than they used to. I wonder if everybody gets to feel so.
I was forty-two last Thursday.
But I am coming on to Philadelphia next month, and shall at
least get in sight of the old times again. I am coming for the
tenth anniversary of the Holy Apostles! Mr. Cooper has sent for
me to revive the memory of the day when we begged the money
together. I shall have but a day in the good town, and am much
afraid that I shall see my friends only from the pulpit.
Mr. is a curious creature, not at all to be turned off in a
sentence; full of learning, with a strong dash of genius and half
crazy. One vision of him in a city where he is not known must
be amazing and bewildering.
A happy Christmas to you all, and may God bless you always.
Your sincere friend, Phillips Brooks.
mt. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 159
The work in his parish in the year 1878 went on as usual.
The Lenten services grew deeper in their interest and power.
His Wednesday evening lectures called out very large con-
gregations. His references to the season of Lent in his let-
ters must be interpreted as meaning that he put his whole
sold into the frequent services, hut did not care that any
one should know with what deep feeling and with what la-
borious study he prepared himself for the penitential season.
His epistolary references to it are in contrast with the note-
books, with the earnestness of his mood stamped upon every
page. He took up large subjects, in courses of addresses
which called for thorough and comprehensive study. In his
Sunday preaching the sermons followed each other on the
same high level. He did not write many letters, and these
inclined to brevity. He writes to Mr. Cooper, February 8,
1878 :
Weir Mitchell has been here curing all the dilapidated Bosto-
nians. His coming makes a great sensation, for he is a very famous
man. I felt as though I were a nerve doctor myself with all the
patients that swarmed about the house.
After him came Dr. Newton, the Rev. Richard Newton of
your town. He stayed with Willie, not with me, and seemed to
be overcome with indignation at his recreant brother. How he
does pitch into him !
So you see we have some excitement here. But on the whole
Boston is dull, and nothing but the endless round of Church work
keeps me from getting stagnant. I think I have never been
busier about that since I was in the ministry.
He asked the Proprietors of Trinity Church for permission
to hold free evening services during Lent, and the request
was granted unanimously without limit of time. On these
occasions the great church was filled. He made an exchange
with Rev. Arthur Brooks, at the Church of the Incarnation,
New York, on the Sunday after Easter, and then we hear
of him again in Philadelphia, where he has gone for the visit
to Mr. Cooper.
175 Marlborough Street, Boston, March 18, 1878.
Dear Arthur, . . . Yesterday was a queer day. In the
morning I got Sankey to come in and sing to our Sunday-school
i6o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
children. He made a little speech to them which was capital, as
simple and earnest and affectionate as possible, and then he sang
"Ninety and Nine " execrably. . . .
Lent is moving on quietly and seriously. Next Sunday is our
Confirmation Day, and then I shall be easier. I have never held
it quite so early before, and I look forward with much pleasure to
the weeks of Lent which will still remain after the anxiety of
Confirmation is over. Now every minute of every week is busy
as has been the case for these seventeen last springs. How alike
they all are, and yet one never gets tired of them. I hear all
sorts of questions about a new Church paper which is to grow up
in New York. Heber has written to Percy and to others about
it. I am afraid that you and I will die without seeing what we
want, and the last number of "The Churchman" will be dropped
into our graves. The "New Church Journal" I am afraid will
not be very interesting. The perpetual symposium business will
tire.
Have you ever seen Chauncey "Wright's "Life"? Did you know
him in Cambridge? It is very interesting, I think. His meta-
physics are pretty steep and his conclusions often pretty bad. . . .
The picture of a quiet, simple, thoughtful, unambitious Cambridge
life is rather nice. . . .
Well, after Lent we must have a meeting somehow. The time
and place will be given on small bills. I see as little now of
Father and Mother or of John as I do of you. I have n't been
to Andover since that tremendous Saturday morning when you
came down and I went up, and I have n't been to John's at all.
He was up at the Club in fine spirits and seemed to like the "In-
stitution," though he modestly held his peace at his first meet-
ing. . . .
He congratulates his brother on a proposed trip to Europe,
and speaks for the first time of Rev. Leighton Parks, who
has just come to Boston as Dr. Vinton's successor :
May 20, 1878.
I picture to myself the scene behind the smokestack of the
Bothnia when you and your fellow travellers sit around your
Bishop and he tells you what he means to do at the Pan. Don't
let your contempt for the whole affair prevent you from getting
just one sight of walking with the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. That surely would be a sight worth seeing. I am going
up to Andover to-day to see Father and Mother.
I find the great Church sensation here is Parks at Emmanuel.
jet. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 161
He is impressing people very much. Dr. Vinton heard him yes-
terday and says he is a remarkable fellow. I have not heard him,
but called on him the other day and found him bright, intelligent,
and modest, a real good fellow. He is a Broad Churchman
steeped in Maurice to the eyes.
He was taking an interest in little things, such as the fur-
nishing of his house, at a time when antique eolonial furniture
was the fashion.
To Mr. Cooper he writes :
May 25, 1878.
Here I am safe at home again with all the fun behind me and
full of gratefulness to you all for all your hospitality. Every-
thing was very delightful at the good old town, the Breakfasts,
and the Convention, and the talks, and the walks, and the general
smell and taste of good old times that was about the whole.
Boston is sadly different. I feel after I get back from one of
my visits to you as if I had only just moved here and were a
stranger in the streets.
The clock and the corner cupboard came safely and are both
up and running most satisfactorily. I know what time it is and
what day of the month and of the week and of the moon. If it
only gave the Golden Letter and the Dominical Number and the
First and Second Lessons I should feel entirely set up.
In June he was present at the centennial of Phillips
Academy, Andover, of which he writes to Arthur Brooks,
June 10, 1878 :
Yes, we did have a good time. I do not know when I have
seen a big display go off so well throughout, and we were a sort of
quiet centre to the whole thing, we Phillipses, around which it
all resolved. We had the glory and they had the work; and
that is always fun.
It was very pleasant, too, to have you and L here. It is
not often now that all four of us boys get together in one room
as we did here in my study the other night. So let us be proud
and happy for the way the whole thing was done, and hope for
another occasion soon. . . .
He went soon after this event to Phillips Academy, Exeter,
to deliver the address to the graduating class, then to Vir-
ginia, where he read an essay on " The Pulpit and Popular
Skepticism." Of this last visit he writes, July 9, 1878 :
vol. n
1 62 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
I went down into Virginia with Jim, We visited the old
Seminary where I read an Essay to the Alumni, and got quite
sentimental about old times. The old place seemed to be full of
life and turned out a good many parsons of the peculiar Virginia
kind which is n't a bad sort, though one would n't want a whole
church made up of them. Then we went down to the Virginia
Springs in the Blue Ridge, where we passed three very queer and
pleasant days, taking much sulphur both inside and out. Mean-
time the heat had grown to be something awful in those Northern
parts, but down where we were everything was as cool and delight-
ful as possible. On our way back we stopped and spent two days
with Willie McVickar, saw lots of Cooper, smoked many pipes,
and talked the whole Church over.
He took a house at Hingham for the summer, going to
Boston every Sunday to preach. Of the life at Hingham he
writes to Mr. Cooper :
August 3, 1878.
I never had such a profoundly quiet summer as I am having
now. I am here in a queer little cottage on an obscure back bay
of Boston Harbor, where there is nothing to do, or at least where
I do nothing, no sailing, no fishing, no riding, no walking.
Nothing in the world but plenty of books and time and tobacco.
Nobody to talk to or to talk to me. And I like it first-rate,
almost as well as Heiligenblut and Bad Gastein. But it is very
different.
The only thing I really do which I can put my finger on is to
prepare my volume of sermons which is coming out in September.
Every day some proof comes down which I have to correct and
send back. I doubt if they are worth publishing, and I have had
a hundred minds about going on or stopping them, but I am in for
it now, and will send you a copy when they come out. . . .
In his seclusion at Hingham, he wrote often to his brother
Arthur, in Europe, following his movements with the sym-
pathy of an old traveller :
August 16, 1878.
I am sure you will have a delightful summer, and we shall
follow you through it all with our good wishes. It is about the
pleasantest thing that people can do in this fallen world.
I don't think the Pan- Anglican troubled you much, and from
all accounts it won't trouble anybody a great deal. I don't hear
of anything said or done there which was of the slightest con-
sequence. And it gets to be very funny when in General Con-
jet. 41-43] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 163
ventions and Pan Synods and all sorts of Assemblies of Ecclesias-
tical people the one thing they can crow over when the meeting
breaks up is the "perfect harmony " of it all, as if it is a wonder
to sing a Te Deum over, if Churchmen come together without pull-
ing each other's wigs off and tearing each other's eyes out. . . .
No doubt you saw the little Dean, who is well I hope, but who
certainly must have seemed to you very much changed from when
we saw him in '74. . . . Have you seen Grant anywhere? The
prospect of making him our next President is taking shape and
soon will be a settled thing. All the European tour, with its
receptions and parade, has been deliberately planned for this.
Ben Butler is going to try to be Governor of Massachusetts this
fall, and that will keep things lively here. There has been a
blackguard named Kearney about here preaching low Irish Com-
munism, whom Butler has taken up, and made an ugly mess. But
what do you care for American politics when you are looking at
the Madonna di San Sisto. . . . You are very good to offer to do
anything for me. The picture which I saw was an etching from a
portrait of James Martineau, the portrait, I think, by Watts. I
saw it in Dr. Peabody's Study and liked it, and should like to
have it, but don't let it trouble you.
The dread of an impending sorrow was hanging over Mr.
Brooks through the summer in consequence of the illness of
his father, whose health was steadily declining. He invited
both his parents to Hingham, and they came, but, as the
change was not beneficial, they soon returned to Andover.
Nothing could exceed the thoughtfulness and tender devotion
which he showed in the now changed relationship, when
instead of the father watching over the son with anxious
affection, it was his privilege to care for both father and mo-
ther. He sent his friend Dr. Lyman to Andover, in the
hope that the best medical skill and experience might be of
some avail. He wrote every week to his brother abroad
giving an account of his father's condition. He wrote often
to his mother to encourage her ; he sent everything that his
ingenious thoughtfulness could devise which would cheer or
help the invalid in his weakness, who, although he continued
feeble, and evidently would never again be stronger, yet was
cheerful and happy on the whole, with only occasional moods
of discouragement.
1 64 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
The summer passed, and September brought an event of
the highest interest to Mr. Brooks as well as to people
throughout the country, the visit of Dean Stanley to Amer-
ica. No Englishman ever came whose presence called forth
more enthusiasm, nor did any one realize until he came how
deep and widespread was the feeling which prompted the
people out of pure gratitude to express their sense of indebt-
edness in every form which could do him honor. It was one
of the important days in the history of Trinity Church when,
on Sunday, the 22d of September, he stood in its pulpit,
and, with his keen perception of the romance of history and
the picturesque quality inhering in representative occasions,
treated the moment as a meeting of the East with the West.
The sermon which he preached was afterward printed, and
the manuscript given to Mr. Brooks, who preserved it among
the things that he valued. The visit to Boston came to an
end with a breakfast given to the Dean by Mr. Brooks, at
the Hotel Brunswick, when the clergy of Boston and vicinity
had the opportunity to hear his pathetic words before he left
the country.
A visit to Gambier, Ohio, which Mr. Brooks had projected
as a holiday after the summer's preaching, was prevented by
his father's illness. To the Rev. George A. Strong he
wrote :
175 Marlborough Street, Bostok, Saturday, October 5, 1878.
Dear George, My Father is very ill. He has been failing
for a long time, but there has seemed to be every probability that
it would go on slowly, and that the end was far away. But day
before yesterday there came a change which has left him so that
every day we are compelled to look for what may not come for
months. But I am afraid his death is very near. His mind is
failing rapidly, and every day seems to draw the veil a little closer
between us and any possible communication with him. I suppose
it is paralysis, though there has been no recognizable shock, only
a gradual benumbing of mind and body.
The year as it came to an end found him in the midst of
many occupations, of which the most laborious was the prepa-
ration of the Bohlen Lectures, to be given in Philadelphia.
But he found time for loving attentions to his father. The
jet. 41-43] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 165
thought of his father was uppermost in his mind, infusing
into his work a new consecration :
175 Marlborough Street, Boston, December 7, 1878.
Dear Arthur, ... I wish I was coming on to see you as
you so kindly ask me to do. We would walk and talk and look
at pictures, and I 'd smoke and perhaps we 'd go and see some of
the brethren. But it mustn't be. This is the time to work.
"Wednesday Evening services and Parish Visitings and Sunday
Sermons and Christmas Carollings, and all these things chase one
another too fast for one to get in a visit to New York between
them. So I 've written to the New England Society that I cannot
help them eat their dinner, and to the Christian Young Women
that I cannot associate with them. The Mexican League I
haven't heard from, but I should have to give them (or It) the
same sort of an answer.
I have just begun to write the Bohlen Lectures which are to
come off in Philadelphia some time before Ash Wednesday. They
are a fearful invasion of the legitimate and regular work of the
ministry, and the longer I am a Parson the less I think I like
special work, the more I like to keep down to the steady hum-
drum of the Parish Mill. . . .
I was at Andover last week. It happened to be rather a bad
day with Father and he was a little more blue and "helpless than
usual, but on the whole I think he remains about the same. Mo-
ther is well, and seems to keep up her spirits wonderfully. I feel
now as if Father very possibly might go through the winter about
as he is now, unless some sudden shock or cold should come.
P.
The experience which he had long been dreading, whose
import to himself he had been sounding in advance, came on
January 7, 1879. On the evening of the day of his father's
funeral, which took place at Trinity Church, he wrote to his
mother. Other letters that follow call for no comment.
They tell the story in its simple and natural pathos.
175 Marlborough Street, Boston, Thursday evening,
January 9, 1879.
Dear Mother, I am thinking about you so much to-night
that I must write you a little after all, though I said I should
not. Lizzie will have told you how simply and fitly everything
was done to-day, and it must surely be some satisfaction to us all
to know how everybody's heart is full of honor for dear Father.
1 66 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
His body was borne into the church by his old friends, Mr.
"Winthrop, Mr. Deane, Mr. Robert Mason, and Dr. George Ellis.
Dr. Vinton read the service with the deepest feeling. I have not
seen him except to get a pressure of the hand as we came out of
the church. He is staying at Mr. Snelling's where he will have
the best of care and will not suffer from his kind-hearted excur-
sion. At Mount Auburn everything was done just exactly as you
wished. As we left they were just going to strew the branches
on the grave. The two evergreen crosses hung above the graves
of George and Frederick, and the faithful custodian promised
that this new precious grave should have the most sacred care.
William and Arthur and John and James and I went out, and
Edward Brooks followed in a carriage by himself. Chardon
Brooks and Charles Francis Adams were in the pew directly
behind us. There were a multitude of other people in the church
whom I did not see.
All this is pleasant to all of us, but it is nothing beside the
thought of the new life which Father has begun, and which never
can be broken. When we remember his weakness and restlessness
a week ago, and then think of the perfect peace and joy and
knowledge that he is enjoying now, it is not so hard to bear it all
and even to be thankful. It was a noble, faithful, useful life
here, and now he is with Christ. It will not be long before we
are with him. Let us try to be brave and wait as he would want
us to do.
My dearest mother, you do not know how much you are to us,
nor "how we all long to have you rest upon us, and let us help and
comfort you and make you happy.
May God help us all to live as faithfully and die as peacefully
as dear Father has.
Your loving son, Phillips.
Boston, January 11, 1879.
Dear old Cooper, You are a good kind fellow to write to
me about Father and to speak of him so kindly. He was one of
the simplest, truest, healthiest, and happiest natures that God ever
made. All his life long was a perpetual delight in common
things and a quiet, faithful doing of the duties that some men
make a fuss about, as if they were the most natural things in the
world and everybody did them. His religion was as simple as all
the rest of his life, always flowing on serenely, as if to be a reli-
gious man and to love God and trust Him were not an exceptional
and hard thing, but as true a part of human life as breathing.
And at the last he grew simpler and sweeter as his strength faded
jet. 41-43] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 167
away, and died at last with calm dignity such as only a child or
a strong man can have. But we shall miss him dreadfully.
Life will never be again what it has been all these years with him
behind us. And poor mother wanders about looking for some
one to be anxious about and to take care of, and finding it a
dreadful pain that her last anxiety is over, and that she has only
to rest in peace till her happiness comes.
Yes, I shall come in February and lecture. The lectures are
poor enough for they were written in the midst of all this derange-
ment and distress, but I shall fulfil my engagement, and I shall
see lots of you, old fellow. I promised McVickar long ago to
stay with him on this official visit, but I shall see you all the
time, and I am counting on it more than ever now. My love to
Mrs. Cooper, and I am
Always yours, P. B.
175 Marlborough Street, Boston, January 18, 1879.
Oh, my dear George, how I wish I was in Gambier to-night and
sitting with you and M in front of your fire, and talking over
all these things which it is so unsatisfactory to write about.
First, I want to thank you for your last letter about Father. I
have been feeling all these last ten days as I know thousands of
men have felt before me when their fathers have died, but feel-
ing it just as freshly as if I were the first man that ever went
through it, and with the strong belief that no father ever was to
his boys just what ours has been to us. He was so bright and
happy and simple and strong through all the long years while our
lives revolved around his, and in these last years while he has
been failing and we have had the privilege that we could do
something for him, he has been so sweet and gentle and childlike
and so full of happiness in his constantly narrowing life. And
at last he lay down and died with the same quiet dignity with
which he had lived. There is nothing that is not good to remem-
ber. It was as healthy and true a life as ever was seen, and now
I miss him as I never dreamed that I could miss anybody, and it
will be so to the end, I know. You knew him a little. He always
felt that my friends were his friends, and so he always talked of
you as if he knew you well. I know that he would have been
glad to think that even so far away, and with so slight a recollec-
tion of him, you would care something for his death. And I
should have felt more cast adrift than I do now if I had not had
your words of sympathy. It sounds very stupid and cold to say
that I thank you, but I love you more than ever.
I am sorry for all the mishap about New Bedford. No mat-
168 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
ter ; perhaps something else may turn up soon and may be better
managed. I want you somewhere here, and somehow feel more
than ever now that, as our private circles grow thinner and thinner,
it would be good if we could each draw a little more together and
end our ministries, when the time for it must come, in something
of the same snug and pleasant group in which they began. All
we can do is to be upon the watch in case that any chance of such
a welcome thing turns up.
I am glad that you welcomed Casaubon. He was selected with
a little more discrimination than usual, for I had just been reading
his life myself, and had been charmed not so much with him as
with the Book. I hope that you will like it when you read it.
... I have been lame all winter with a queer weakness of the
knee, which the Doctor don't seem to understand. It probably
is rebelling at the amount it has to carry. But it is about well
now. Give my best love to M , and I am always,
Yours, P. B.
February 5, 1879.
Dear Paddock, A thousand thanks for your kind and
thoughtful letter. I have always felt as if you knew Father from
the memory of the old meeting twenty years ago at Alexandria,
and from knowing how you had met him occasionally here since
then. What you saw him at those times he always was, simple,
cordial, affectionate, and full of a desire that everybody should be
happy. Underneath this there was a quiet strength and integrity
and a true Christian faith, which made his presence one of the
healthiest atmospheres for a lot of boys to grow up in. And now
that he is gone I can thank God heartily for all that he was and
all that he is.
But it makes life a different thing. It makes the world seem
at first very empty. And it makes it all the more to seem not
sad when one looks forward to his own going. But meanwhile it
makes one cling all the more to old friends. And I am full of
gratitude that you should think of me. You are a true, kind
friend, and have been for these more than twenty years. God
bless you. Always yours, P. B.
Boston, February 11, 1879.
Dear Mother, I have hoped to come and have another
pleasant evening with you this week, before my departure for
Philadelphia, which comes next Monday. But one by one I have
had to strike off my evenings for engagements which I could not
escape, and now they are all gone and I must not hope to see you
jet. 41-43] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 169
until I get home again. I am very sorry, for I enjoy my little
runs to Andover better than anything that I do now, and two
weeks seems to be a long time to wait, but it will pass and I shall
come to you as soon as I possibly can after I get home. I hope
that you are all well and will keep so, for we are all thinking
about you all the time, and by and by we hope to have you with
us here in Boston, and in the scattered places where the Brooks
boys live. So take the best care of yourself for our sakes.
I send you the remarks of Mr. Winthrop about dear Father,
which he made at the Historical Society on the day of the Funeral.
By and by there will be a longer tribute in their published volume.
But I thought you would like to see this now. It is good to
know how he is valued. Almost every day some of his old friends
tell me of their respect for him, and of how he is missed in the old
places where he lived so long.
I send you also Dr. Stone's letter which I believe you have not
seen. It is just like him. Can you send me within a day or two
the name and full address of the minister at North Andover who
held the service at the house ? I should like to write to him
before I go away. ... A little letter from John about the visit
that I am going to make him in Lent to preach for him on the
13th of March. He is in the full tide of prosperity and happi-
ness. I shall not see either him or Arthur on my journey to
Philadelphia or on my way home, for I shall be hurried through
each way. But I shall try to visit both of them after Easter.
Perhaps you will go with me. I am awfully disappointed that I
cannot come up, but I must bear it. Give my love to Aunt Susan
and Aunt Caroline and Aunt Blossom.
Always affectionately, Phillips.
To this letter his mother replied :
North Andover, February 12, 1879.
My dear Phillips, Your kind and loving letter deserves
a letter in return, and miserable as it will be, I am going to
write you one. I sometimes think I '11 write and then thoughts
of Father come over me, and I am too sick at heart to attempt it.
But I want to write to you to-day, for I am overpowered with
all the marks of love you show me, and I want to tell you how
much I appreciate it. But oh, I feel so unworthy of it all that
it surprises me that you can care so much for me. Now you must
not say as you always do, "Oh, how humble you are," for I really
feel it all. Believe me, dear Phillips, I am as sorry as you are
that you can't come up this week, for I do enjoy your visits, but
I have not expected it, for I know you must be overpowered with
i 7 o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
work all the time, and have no time to spare, for you are in your
busiest season now. But I shall dwell on the pleasure of your
promised visit after your return from Philadelphia.
I hope you will enjoy your little trip, and that it will rest your
mind and body, for both must need rest. Do enjoy all you can,
and sleep all you can, for I consider that sleep is our greatest
earthly blessing.
I thank you for sending me Mr. Winthrop's notice of dear
Father. I am glad his friends do him honor ; he deserves it all.
Also I thank you for Dr. Stone's letter; it is a comfort to me; he
was Father's first minister in the Episcopal Church, and he always
admired him.
I am very sorry to see by the paper the instant death of
Governor Gardner's son in Colorado, by a snow slide. How it
makes me think of our poor Frederick's sudden death! Do you
remember that Tuesday of this week was the anniversary of dear
George's death, sixteen years ago! How I long for them all.
But I thank God that he has spared me so many loving ones.
Now, dear Philly, please don't feel anxious about me while you
are gone. I am very well and very comfortably situated, near to
the Aunts' rooms, who are untiring in their kindness to me, night
and day, and when their time of trouble comes I hope I shall be
all ready to serve and comfort them.
I wish I could sew on some buttons or do something to help you
before you go. Be sure I shall think of you a great deal in your
absence; perhaps you will answer this letter while you are gone.
Good-by, and with many thanks for all your goodness and
tenderness to me, remember I am always your fond and loving
Mother.
Among the tributes to the memory of William Gray
Brooks was one from Dr. Vinton, who was moved as he re-
called the history of the family with which he had been closely
associated. He writes to Mrs. Brooks, at North Andover :
The solemn service to which I was called last week at Trinity
Church brought you to my mind with an affectionate sadness, and
awakened all the associations which began with my rectorship at
St. Paul's Church and have continued ever since with some of
your family. I recall your anxiety for Mr. Brooks's religious
state, and how God answered your prayers for him. I remember,
too, our many conversations about your children, and how again
your prayers were met by seeing them all turn to Christ, and I have
often thought that you ought to be the happiest of Mothers. . . .
jet. 41-43] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 171
At the first meeting of the Massachusetts Historical
Society held after the death of their colleague, words of
grateful appreciation were spoken in behalf of the society.
They are full of meaning, for they are describing qualities
which reappeared in the son, with only this difference, an
adventitious one, to which the son attached no importance,
that he had filled no exalted public station.
The president of the society, the Hon. Robert C. Win-
throp, said, in announcing the death :
I cannot fail to make the earliest mention of the loss which
comes nearest to us and to allude first to the death of our esteemed
and respected friend and associate, William Gray Brooks, Esq.,
a gentleman to whom we were all warmly attached, and whose
companionship and hearty cooperation in our work have been so
highly valued by us all. Indeed I may say that we have had but
few more attentive or more useful members during the seventeen
or eighteen years since he was elected. No one certainly has
taken a warmer interest in our welfare, or rendered us more sub-
stantial services. As repeatedly a member of our Standing Com-
mittee, and occasionally its Chairman, and especially as a leading
member of the committee to which our building was entrusted
during the process of its reconstruction, Mr. Brooks was ever
most diligent and devoted. I know not how we should have gone
through with that protracted and often perplexing process without
his practical wisdom and his faithful and untiring supervision.
Always prompt and punctual at our meetings, as long as his
health permitted him to attend them, he took also an intelligent
and eager interest in our historical proceedings, and from time to
time made important communications on genealogical or histori-
cal topics. Tracing back his ancestry to the famous minister of
old Boston and of new Boston, John Cotton, and immediately
connected with families which have given so many eminent men
both to the ministry and to the magistracy of New England, his
mind was naturally turned to inquiries and investigations which
might aid in the just commemoration of these local worthies, and
our records bear frequent evidence of his success.
The Rev. Robert C. Waterston added these discriminating
words :
He was gentle and unassuming, scrupulously true to the practi-
cal duties of life ; his courtesy of manner, generosity of heart,
and integrity of purpose won for him universal respect and love.
172 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-79
He seemed never to be troubled by that restless ambition which
desires to make itself prominent. Cheerfully he pursued the even
tenor of his way, satisfied with being a kind neighbor, an upright
citizen, a trustworthy and honorable man. His sound sense and
clear judgment gave value to his counsel. There was nothing
morbid in his nature, and no tendency to unreasonable impulse or
exaggeration. Calm and considerate, his words carried with them
a proportionate weight. Consistent in his actions, what he did
he was not obliged to undo. In his business he had no passion
for unlimited accumulation of wealth. A reasonable competency
satisfied his desire. He was generous ; but what he imparted he
sought to distribute so that it should result, as far as was possible,
in permanent good. In his charities he shrank from an appear-
ance of display. Whatever tended to promote the public wel-
fare found in him an earnest response; and, in carrying forward
plans of general enterprise, according to his means, he was ready
at all times to do his part.
But there was yet a higher tribute which the son was to
pay to his father, when in the human relationship he saw the
medium of the divine revelation. Such had been the earthly
father's life that to the son it bore witness to the nature of
and the evidence for the Fatherhood of God. In the year
before his father died, Phillips Brooks was speaking to the
students of the Yale Divinity School on the best method of
teaching religion, or the relationship between God and man
which constituted religion :
*& j
It is merely the completion, the transfiguration of that which
we can see in any healthy family. . . . For myself, every year
that I have preached, that sight, the child and the father in their
deepest relationship to one another, has grown an ever clearer
and richer revelation of the mystery of man and God. In it I
find the clearest exhibition of the highest and most comprehensive
thought of duty, which is loving obedience including in itself the
power and effect of education.
At the time of his father's death he was preparing his
Bohlen Lectures on " The Influence of Jesus." It was while
his bereavement was still fresh that he wrote these words, in
illustration of the central theme of his book, Jesus as
revealing the Fatherhood of God :
Beyond all analysis lies the relation whieh every true son holds
mt. 41-43] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 173
to a true father. It is a final fact. You cannot dissolve it in
any abstract theory. It issues from the mysterious sympathy of
the two lives, one of which gave birth to the other. It has rip-
ened and mellowed through all the rich intercourse of dependent
childhood and imitative youth and sympathetic manhood. It is
an eternal fact. Death cannot destroy it. The grown-up man
feels his father's life beating from beyond the grave, and is sure
that in his own eternity the child relation to that life will be in
some mysterious and perfect way resumed and glorified, that lie
will be something to that dear life and it to him forever. All
this remains. . . . The joy and pain, all the richness and pathos
of his home life, while they keep their freshness and peculiar
sanctity, have in them and below them all the multitudinous hap-
piness and sorrow of the larger life in the great household of the
world. The child feels something of this truth by instinct.
The thoughtful man delights to realize it more and more as he
grows older (pp. 184, 185).
CHAPTER VII
1877-1878
LECTURES ON PREACHING. FIRST VOLUME OF SERMONS.
THE TEACHING OF RELIGION. THE PULPIT AND POPU-
LAR SKEPTICISM
The narrative of the first ten years of the ministry of
Phillips Brooks in Boston, which has now been given, will
serve to confirm the impression of a change or difference when
compared with that of his ministry in Philadelphia. What,
we may ask, had become of that intense mysterious force,
evoked by the war, by which he rose even above the high level
of his work as a preacher ? What is there in these years that
corresponds with his wonderful power as a platform speaker
or public orator when he was advocating reforms whose neces-
sity stirred the lowest deeps of his soul ? That passionate
vehemence had not, like some transient flame, been extin-
guished, but transmuted into some other manifestation of
power. These years whose record has been traced are quiet
years compared with what went before or what came after-
wards, a time of silent preparation, of study, and of inward
ferment, of which but little evidence is apparent in his letters.
But, as has been so often remarked, the traces of his work are
concealed. We must then turn to his published writings,
which now began to multiply, wherein will be seen the man
in other aspects, in new phases of his personality. They will
show that he had been concentrating his mind on the study
of his age, and on the message which that strange and troubled
world was demanding.
It was in the early part of the year 1877, when the build-
ing committee of Trinity Church were making strenuous
efforts to hasten its completion, that Phillips Brooks went to
*t. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 175
New Haven to deliver his lectures on Preaching before
the students of the Yale Divinity School. It was a time of
unusual excitement for his parish and for himself when he
was writing the lectures, an excitement and enthusiasm
which culminated in their delivery. So deeply was he moved
that for some reason he could not bear to make the journeys
to New Haven alone, and took with him one of his relatives.
The event stirred him the more deeply because for the first time
he was unveiling his own personal experience, as he had felt
compelled to review it when he sought to explain the secret
and power which made the pulpit effective. The greatest
charm of the Yale Lectures, from a literary point of view, is
that they constitute the autobiography of Phillips Brooks,
the confessions of a great preacher. The book is personal
throughout ; he speaks often of himself freely in the first per-
son, and at other times veils the revelation. Always he is
giving the result of his own reflection and observation of life.
It is a book which owes nothing to predecessors in the same
field, of which there are many. He confines himself to preach-
ing as he had experienced its workings, or studied its method,
or observed its power. In this review of his life he went
back to his days at the Virginia seminary.
I can remember how, before I began to preach, every book I
read seemed to spring into a sermon. It seemed as if one could
read nothing without sitting down instantly and turning it into a
discourse. But as I began and went on preaching, the sermons
that came of special books became less and less satisfactory and
more and more rare. Some truth which one has long known,
stirred to peculiar activity by something that has happened or
by contact with some other mind, makes the best sermon
(p. 159).
He recalls how he had come very early to the conclusion
that what was desired in the ministry, as the condition of
effective preaching, was the combination of learning and in-
tellectual force with the capacity for devout and deep and
intense feeling. " In many respects an ignorant clergy, how-
ever pious it may be, is worse than none at all " (p. 45).
He was wont to say that he had not worked as hard as he
176 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
should have done in college, but he did not make this admis-
sion regarding his time in the theological seminary.
Most men begin really to study when they enter on the prepa-
ration for their profession. Men whose college life, with its gen-
eral culture, has been very idle, begin to work when, at the door
of the professional school, the work of their life comes before
them. It is the way in which a bird who has been whirling
vaguely hither and thither sees at last its home in the distance
and flies toward it like an arrow (p. 43).
He speaks of the first sermon which he preached, " which
it was at once such a terror and such a joy to preach." As
he compares the earlier with the later sermons, he finds sen-
tences written years ago, containing meanings and views of
truth which he perceives in them now, but had not seen in those
early days. The truth was there, but he had not fully appro-
priated it. It has been shown that he had no taste or capac-
ity for mere abstract ideas apart from their concrete rela-
tionships. So far as he studied philosophies, metaphysical
systems or their history, it was to catch their bearing on the
practical issues of life. Ideas moved him as they did because
and only in so far as he could trace this connection.
The disposition to watch ideas in their working, and to talk
about their relations and their influence on one another, simply
as problems in which the mind may find pleasure without an
entrance of the soul into the ideas themselves, this, which is the
critical tendency, invades the pulpit, and the result is an immense
amount of preaching which must be called preaching about Christ
as distinct from preaching Christ. There are many preachers
who seem to do nothing else; always discussing Christianity as a
problem, instead of announcing Christianity as a message and
proclaiming Christ as a Saviour. . . . It is good to be a Herschel
who describes the sun; but it is better to be a Prometheus who
brings the sun's fire to the earth (p. 20).
Here is a passage which is the climax of self -revelation.
He veils himself, it is true, to a certain extent, and puts what
he has to say in impersonal form, but the description corre-
sponds to no one but himself :
There is something beautiful to me in the way in which the
utterance of the best part of a man's own life, its essence, its
asT. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 177
result, which the pulpit makes possible and even tempts, is wel-
comed by many men, who seem to find all other utterance of
themselves impossible. I have known shy, reserved men who,
standing in their pulpits, have drawn back before a thousand eyes
veils that were sacredly closed when only one friend's eyes could
see. You might talk with them a hundred times, and you would
not learn so much of what they were as if you once heard them
preach. It was partly the impersonality of the great congrega-
tion. Humanity, without the offence of individuality, stood
there before them. It was no violation of their loyalty to them-
selves to tell their secret to mankind. It was a man who silenced
them. But also, besides this, it was, I think, that the sight of
many waiting faces set free in them a new, clear knowledge of
what their truth, or secret was, unsnarled it from the petty cir-
cumstances into which it had been entangled, called it first into
clear consciousness, and then tempted it into utterance with an
authority which they did not recognize in an individual curiosity
demanding the details of their life. Our race, represented in a
great assembly, has more authority and more beguilement for
many of us than a single man, however near he may be. And he
who is silent before the interviewer, pours out the very depth of
his soul to the great multitude. He will not print his diary for
the world to read, but he will tell his fellow men what Christ may
be to them, so that they shall see, as God sees, what Christ has
been to him (pp. 121, 122).
The " Lectures on Preaching " possess a further literary
charm because they connect the pulpit with life, and with the
highest, richest manifestations of life. The book took its
place as an important contribution to literature, apart from
its value as a treatise on homiletics. It abounds with literary
allusions and illustrations new and effective, showing at once
the scholar and the man widely read in the world's best books.
The work that he had done in the Virginia seminary, as
seen in the note-books that he had kept, is constantly re-
appearing. The movement is rapid ; there is no lingering by
the way ; every page is full of condensed purpose. There is
nothing artificial, no posing for effect; but plainness and
great directness of speech, perfect naturalness and simplicity.
The book captivates the reader, simply for this reason alone,
the transparency of the soul of its writer, between whom
and the reader there intervenes no barrier. And further it
vol. n
178 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
is redolent with happiness and hope for the world, as if
at last the new day had dawned for humanity, and mankind
might enter on its heritage, long promised and seen from
afar, but now ready to be ushered in. It set the standard
high, yet it did not discourage ; it rather stimulated, begetting
an enthusiasm which overrode all obstacles. It abounded in
sentences which linger in the mind, the perfection of expres-
sion in words.
There must be a man behind every sermon.
The intercourse with God in history.
The intelligent speculations of the learned become the vague
prejudices of the vulgar.
The real power of your oratory must be your own intelligent
delight in what you are doing.
You grow so familiar with the theory of repentance that it is
hard for you to know that you have not yourself repented.
If you could make all men think alike, it would be very much
as if no man thought at all, as when the whole earth moves to-
gether all things seem still.
To be dead in earnest is to be eloquent.
The personal interest of the preacher is the buoyant air that
fills the mass and lifts it.
The sermon is truth and man together. It is the truth brought
through the man.
The temptation from being messengers to be witnesses of the
faith.
Say nothing which you do not believe to be true, because you
think it may be helpful. Keep back nothing which you know to
be true because you think it may be harmful.
This value of the human soul is something more than a mere
sense of the soul's danger. It is a deliberate estimate set upon
man's spiritual nature in view of its possibilities.
Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work. If you ever
find that spirit growing on you, try to preach on your most exact-
ing theme, to show yourself how unequal to it you are.
Pray for and work for fulness of life above everything; full
red blood in the body ; full honesty and truth in the mind ; and
the fulness of a grateful love for the Saviour in your heart.
Success is always sure to bring humility. " Recognition, " said
Hawthorne, "makes a man very modest."
In addition to their literary merit, or their value as the con-
fessions of a soul speaking to men but always speaking before
jet. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 179
God, the " Lectures on Preaching " have another significance
in the assertion of theological or religious principles never
quite so emphatically uttered before. The leading idea is that
truth and moral efficiency in the will are contagious, and pass
from man to man through the medium of personality. Per-
sonality is defined as a conscious relationship to God, which
through the spirit of obedience to the divine will unfolds and
expands all human powers and brings out the revelation
of man. The subject had been before his mind from the
moment he turned his thought to the ministry. He had asked
himself at once the leading question, how the power which
existed in abundance was to be brought to bear upon the will
so as to issue in conduct. So early as 1862, in an address
before the Evangelical Educational Society, he gave the an-
swer, training for the ministry meant the development of
personal power, which as an agency for moral regeneration
was mightier than any other, as bringing the power of God to
bear directly on human souls. He took up the same subject
when he went to Providence in 1865, to give the Phi Beta
Kappa Oration at Brown University. His subject was " The
Personality of the Scholar." On both these occasions we
know from contemporary testimony that he was listened to
with absorbing attention, and the atmosphere was full of
the magnetism of his presence as he expounded his vision,
that all which the minister or the scholar knows or loves must
go out with him into all his life. If personal character were
thus sought for the service of humanity, then the world would
be uplifted to a higher plane, and belief in human progress
would rest upon sure foundations, for it would be nothing else
than belief in God. With this same message he had gone to
the dedication of the Bradford Academy in 1870, and to the
students of the Andover Theological Seminary in 1874. What
he said was received as new truth, so vividly did he feel his
force and urge it with such effect upon those who listened.
His eloquence was at the highest point when he touched
upon this theme. Thus his motive had for years been slowly
accumulating in momentum when he went to Yale in 1877,
to deliver his lectures on Preaching.
180 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
How far was his doctrine new ? Can it be called the con-
tribution of some important discovery to the cause of religious
progress ? In one sense the issue was as old as the history of
the Christian church. It was what the Roman mind was
thinking of when it devised the theory of apostolic succes-
sion, that power was handed down in the church by verbal
commission from apostles to their successors. It came up
again when the question was broached whether purity of
character was an indispensable requisite in administering the
sacred rites, or whether the power which had been imparted
in ordination was sufficient for their validity. It haunted
the Middle Ages as a disturbing theory at a time when it
was the prevailing opinion that the power given in ordination
was sufficient whatever the character of the officiating priest.
It was the issue which underlay the rise of the papacy, that
disobedience to the papal will was a moral defect which viti-
ated ecclesiastical acts. When the spiritual enthusiasm of the
first age of the Protestant Reformation was declining the old
issue turned up again in new form, whether it were neces-
sary that a preacher should have felt the power of the truth
he proclaimed in order to make it effective by his preaching.
It constituted the weakness of the eighteenth century, the
tacit assumption that character had little connection with
the work of a Christian preacher. It was characteristic of
the Evangelical Awakening that it called for conversion in
those who should minister to the salvation of others. But
in the homiletic method of the time, the conversion of the
preacher was mainly important as securing the presentation
from the pulpit of the pure gospel, thus constituting an occa-
sion of which God might avail himself in acting on the souls
of the hearers.
When we review the history of this issue with which Phil-
lips Brooks was now concerned, it is evident that he had
penetrated directly to the heart of the difficulty which had
beset the ages. His book on Preaching would not have been
the event it was for arousing a new life in the churches if it
had not been that he placed his finger upon the sensitive spot
in the body ecclesiastic, and pointed out the remedy. No
zet. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 181
such utterance bad been beard before because tbe principle
be now asserted was placed in tbe foreground of tbe long
perspective and given tbe emphasis its importance demanded.
Others may have said it before, many bad illustrated it in
living ways, but it was left to him to give it the final expres-
sion. He struck the dominant note in bis first lecture, which
sounded throughout the course :
Preaching is the communication of truth by man to men. It
has two essential elements, truth and personality. . . . Preach-
ing is the bringing of truth through personality. . . . Jesua
chose this method of extending the knowledge of himself through
the world. However the gospel may he capable of statement in
dogmatic form, its truest statement is not in dogma but in a per-
sonal life. Christianity is Christ. A truth which is of such
peculiar character that a person can stand forth and say of it, "I
am the truth, " must always be best conveyed through personality.
"As My Father has sent me into the world, even so have I sent
you into the world." It was the continuation out to the minutest
ramifications of the new system of influence, of that personal
method which the incarnation itself had solved. Nothing can
ever take the place of preaching because of the personal element
that is in it (p. 7).
In the assertion of this principle that truth in order to its
effective presentation must come through personality, Phillips
Brooks was planting himself upon a psychological motive,
whose latent working had been manifest in history. Nothing
could take the place of preaching because of the personal
element in it ; no multiplication of books could ever supersede
the human voice ; no newly opened channel of approach to
man's mind and heart could do away with man's readiness to
receive impressions through his fellow man. " It is strange
how men will gather to listen to the true preacher. It is
to-day as it was in past ages, when Chrj r sostom preached at
Constantinople, or Bishop Latimer at St. Paul's Cross in Lon-
don." But this principle had even a wider and more signifi-
cant application. It was related to the movements of reli-
gious life and thought in tbe nineteenth century. It met
that instinct which, amid the confusions of tbe time, or what
182 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
seemed the shifting foundations of religious belief, called out
for a return to " historic Christianity."
This conception of preaching puts us into right relations with
all historic Christianity. The message can never be told as if we
were the first to tell it. It is the same message which the church
has told in all the ages. He who tells it to-day is backed by all
the multitude who have told it in the past. He is companied
by those who are telling it now.
The message is his witness, but a part of the assurance with which
he has received it comes from the fact of its being the identical
message which has come down from the beginning. Men find on
both sides how difficult it is to preserve the true poise and pro-
portion between the corporate and the individual conceptions of
the Christian life. But all will own to-day the need of both.
The identity of the Church in all times consists in the identity of
the message which she has always had to carry from the Lord to
man. All outward utterances of the perpetual identity of the
Church are valuable only as they assert this real identity. This
is the real meaning of the perpetuation of old ceremonies, the use
of ancient liturgies, the clinging to what seem to be apostolic
types of government (p. 18).
And again, this principle that truth must come through
personality, through the man who has himself been moved
and conquered by the truth, was urged as specially needed in
a New England community, or wherever the later develop-
ment of Calvinism, as by Hopkins and Emmons, had para-
lyzed the pulpit as well as the hearer. That man must wait
till God chose to act in the process of conversion, that the
preacher might give a message, but bore in himself no con-
tagious witness to the truth, this fatal assumption had
acted like a subtle poison in every New England community.
It had made religion something exceptional in its working,
out of harmony with natural laws, something unreal also, and
intangible, without relation to real life, and therefore tending
to vanish away. Against this tendency, which he had recog-
nized in his own experience and observation, Phillips Brooks
made most effective opposition. He brought religion down
from the clouds to an actual reality, communicated from man
to man, not only in the pulpit, but in the daily course of life.
The religion of Christ had been first implanted as a leaven
/et. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 183
in humanity by the personality of its founder, and from that
time had never been without its witnesses, the children of
God in every generation.
We get here some explanation of Phillips Brooks's power
as a preacher, and of the comprehensiveness of his appeal.
He satisfied the High Anglican in his own communion as well
as the descendant of the Puritans. He did justice alike to
the human and the divine aspects of religion, as coming
through man, but coming also from God, who worked in and
through the human personality. Thus was solved the pro-
blem of the schools which had given rise to controversy and
inward perturbation and distress, whether the will of man
was free, and he were able in and by himself to accomplish
the work of his salvation, or whether that work were solely
of God, and man was so much helpless material in His hands
to be galvanized into life.
Upon this point he was emphatic and uncompromising,
the absolute necessity of character in the preacher, the im-
portance of impressing his audience with the conviction that
he possessed the character which comes from association with
Christ. " Personal piety is the deep possession in one's own
soul of the faith and hope and resolution which are to be offered
to one's fellow men for their new life." "Nothing but fire
kindles fire." He wishes that he could find words, new and
overwhelming, with which to enforce his conviction that to
live in Christ and to be His, and not our own, makes preach-
ing a perpetual privilege and joy. He cannot believe that
any one will find it hard to talk about these things for two
half hours every week who lives with God, whose delight it
is to study God's word, in the Bible, in the world, in history,
in human nature.
From this point of view he considers the pulpit problem of
preaching old sermons, and of the relative merit of extempo-
raneous and written discourse. No one complained when he
preached old sermons, but the criticism often was that the old
were better.
I think that every earnest preacher is often more excited as he
writes, kindles more then with the glow of sending truth to men,
1 84 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
than he ever does in speaking; and the wonderful thing is, that
that fire, if it is really present in the sermon when it is written,
stays there, and breaks out into flame again, when the delivery
of the sermon comes. The enthusiasm is stowed away and is
kept. ... As you preach old sermons, I think you can always
tell, even if the history of them is forgotten, which of them you
wrote enthusiastically with the people vividly before you. The
fire is in them still (p. 173).
He objected to quotations in a sermon, whether of poetry or
prose, because they weakened the power of personality. He
thought that there was such a thing as the gift for preaching,
capable of cultivation, to some extent an innate power in every
man, it might be called also enthusiasm, or eloquence, or
magnetism. Whether or no it existed in all, or could be
cultivated, he defined it, and in defining it described him-
self, the quality that kindles at the sight of men, the keen
joy at the meeting of truth and the human mind, the power
by which a man loses himself and becomes but the sympa-
thetic atmosphere between the truth on one side of him and
the man on the other side of him. It was the possession of
this gift of kindling at the sight of men which enabled him
to write the last chapter of his book, where his eloquence
culminates as he describes " the value of the human soul."
He attached the highest importance to his exposition of this
point. To a friend who once spoke to him of his lectures on
Preaching, saying that the last lecture was the most signifi-
cant, he replied that out of all the comment made on his
book, this was the first time it had been mentioned ; that he
wrote for the sake of enforcing this truth ; that in the love
and the reverence for human souls lay the deepest secret of
power in the ministry. The doctrine of the value of the hu-
man soul was not new. It had been one of the stock expres-
sions of the Evangelical school that the Christian minister
must be possessed with " the love of souls." He heard it at
St. Paul's Church in Boston and at the Virginia seminary.
But he inherited it in his blood, from a father who had an
untiring interest in all that was human and personal, from
a mother whose heart went quickly out to every one with
iET. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 185
whom she came in contact, where there was the possibility
of exerting a moral influence. It was this motive which
attracted him to teaching as a profession, because in it the
contact of soul with soul was more intimate and powerful
than in any other relationship. The culminative force of all
his generations was behind him, till it burst forth in him in
complete and unprecedented expression. He loved places
and things, he loved nature, but above all he loved humanity.
It was this gift which made his heart leap up when he beheld
the waiting congregation. No one can forget the look that
he gave when he had ascended the pulpit, as if to draw in
the inspiration for the effect that was to follow before he
bent himself with the fervor and tumult of his powerful soul
to the communication of his message.
We shall see that this power of valuing the human soul,
this reverence for man as such, increased in such proportion
in his later years as almost to defeat the purpose of the great
preacher, creating a multiplicity of demands upon his time
to which he was no longer equal. But for many years he
held himself in restraint, till the work he had been given to
do was accomplished. This lecture, therefore, on the value
of the human soul is in some ways more characteristic of
Phillips Brooks than anything else he has written. To this
result everything in his reading, his study, his experience,
contributed. From being a conviction, it grew into a pas-
sion. He was full of reverence for those whom he met. He
grew in humility as his reverence for others increased.
There was stamped upon his manner a lofty yet tender cour-
tesy. The traditional bearing of the clergy, distant and
conscious of their own importance, wherein might be read
the impression of constant deference or adulation, all this
was totally foreign to him.
The " Lectures on Preaching " constitute an event in the
history of the pidpit. No similar treatise ever met with such
a reception. It became at once a manual for the clergy
and for theological students. Some books are so thoroughly
done that they pass at once into the life of a people, to reap-
pear again in many ways. This book has iufluenced the
1 86 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
whole mass of Christian sentiment in America, leaping the
bounds of denominationalism. It carried with it hope and
vitality, inspiration and enthusiasm, the expansion of life and
of religion. " It is the best word about preaching that has
been uttered," was one of the comments upon it, " and its
wise sayings deserve to pass into proverbs of the profession."
" I can hardly tell you," writes a Western bishop, " how de-
lighted, charmed, and helped I have been in its perusal."
An eminent Unitarian divine bore witness : " It seems to me
that it will make ministers from serious young men now try-
ing the shifts of the meaner crafts and not entering the min-
istry because of the glamour and unreality about it. This
unreality your book will certainly remove." One who heard
the lectures, a professor of homiletics, wrote, " They read bet-
ter than they sounded when delivered, which is saying a great
deal, and we rejoice in the wide sale the volume is having
and the expressions of satisfaction with it which we hear on
every side." Another bishop in the Episcopal Church
thanked him for the blessing the book had brought him, " It
has met certain wants and touched experiences which seem
hidden from every one but God." A distinguished professor
of Sacred Rhetoric in a Congregational seminary wrote,
" You do not need words of commendation from me, but I
gratify myself more than you in telling you how helpful the
book is to me in my work, every page of it. My pupils are
all reading it with great avidity." An eminent historical
scholar, who listened to the lectures and knew of their recep-
tion, says, " I have never heard of a lisp of dissent from the
judgment of those who heard them with admiration and de-
light." " The charm of your book," writes an Episcopal clergy-
man, himself known as a pulpit orator, " is that it makes us all
forget you and leads our thoughts up to the Lord, who gives
the words and makes great the company of the preachers."
A Harvard professor speaks of it as " the very word that I
want to carry to the many students in the College and the
Divinity School who turn to me with their plans and their
hesitations." A Baptist clergyman wishes him to know of
" what he is doing for a multitude of the Baptist ministers of
jet, 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 187
the generations coming." From a Presbyterian theological
seminary in the South came this tribute :
My mind sprang to the truths contained therein as if there had
been an affinity between the two. My crude notions found ade-
quate expression and a fuller and wider development than I had
imagined possible. So that while sadly conscious of my failure
to attain or even realize the high standard you set up, I rejoice
in more definite and vivid conception of my work. The lofty
ground on which through the entire course you tread fills me
with new hope, new joy, and imparts a very inspiration at the
thought of the holy work before me. ... I gladly confess my
obligation to you for instructions which will color my future min-
istry and to the operation of which any good I may accomplish
will be largely due.
Dr. Stone, of the Episcopal Theological School in Cam-
bridge, instead of writing to Mr. Brooks himself, wrote to
his mother, whose way he had guided into the Episcopal
Church :
I have just finished the reading of Phillips's "Lectures on
Preaching, " and I wish you to join me in giving God thanks for
such a book and for such a writer. His Lectures must have been
a great blessing to those who heard them, and they must be a
great blessing to all who read them, specially to all young preach-
ers who read them. And if it were in my power I would put
them in the hands of every young preacher in the land. They
could find no better human helper in the great work before them.
The following estimate is by the Rev. H. C. Badger of
New Haven :
I believe neither the English language nor any other has any-
thing worthy to stand beside them, treating such a theme,
judging the wide reading, the wit, the wisdom, the mental grasp
of the problem, the keenness of the analysis, the profoundness of
the insight, or the perfect comprehension of the problems of our
day. . . . That book I would lay beside the Bible of every
young minister to-day. I would have every preacher read it
every year as long as he lives.
These testimonies, which might be greatly multiplied, are
sufficient to show that Phillips Brooks had made another
conquest of theological students and theological seminaries
1 88 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
throughout the land. He had set the standard of preaching
for his age.
Phillips Brooks had been preaching for nearly twenty
years before he gave to the world a volume of his sermons.
He had been tempted, in 1863, only four years after his ordi-
nation, to prepare a volume for the press, and had withdrawn
it when half printed. From that time he had resisted the
pressure to publish, and when he finally yielded it was with
reluctance. The first volume of his sermons, which appeared
in 1878, met with an extraordinary reception, attaining a sale
of twenty-five thousand. They were welcomed as literature,
as a new poem or as the newest book. But they were also
received as a special religious message in an age of trial and
doubt and weakness. The reception accorded by the press
in public criticism was favorable, often eulogistic in the high-
est degree, with hardly a dissenting voice. One curious
expression of dissent was given in an English newspaper,
where his sermons were compared among others with Bishop
Butler's, and to Butler was awarded the superiority. Others
compared him with Robertson of Brighton, giving them equal
honor. "We have seen how he was regarded by those who
heard him preach, in the many reports which were constantly
appearing in the newspapers. How he was now regarded
when he was put to the test of the printed book, where the
competent judge could weigh his words, is shown in a criti-
cism that may be taken as representative :
Unlike Robertson, Phillips Brooks constantly reminds us of
him. He has the same analytical power; the same broad human
sympathy; the same keen knowledge of human nature, toned and
tempered and made more true by his sympathies ; the same mys-
terious and indefinable element of divine life, so that his message
comes with a quasi authority, wholly unecclesiastical, purely per-
sonal; and the same undertone of sadness, the same touch of
pathos, speaking low as a man who is saddened by his own seem-
ing success.
The " Lectures on Preaching " had brought to Mr. Brooks
many letters, calculated to flatter the vanity of an author, if
jet. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 189
it had been in him to be ministered to by flattery. But
this volume of sermons was followed by a flood of letters,
which did not speak so much of his eloquence or intellectual
gifts as of the good he was doing for human souls. We are
listening in them to the secrets, as it were, of a confessional,
where people are pouring into his ear their sorrows, and are
telling him of the relief he has given. What the public
press said of his sermons was one thing, what the people were
saying to him was another. From every part of the country
the letters came, from those who had never heard or seen
him, as well as from those who found a special pleasure in
associating his voice and presence with the reading of the
printed page.
The principle which had guided the author, in selecting
twenty sermons for publication out of some six hundred he
had written, it would be difficult to tell. It was no easy task
to make the selection, and we know that it was made with
scrupulous care. What strikes the reader as he glances over
the titles of the sermons is the large proportion assigned to
topics of comfort and consolation. The volume opens with
a sermon on " The Purpose and Use of Comfort ; " other
titles are, " The Withheld Completions of Life," " The Soul's
Refuge in God," " The Consolations of God." One other
sermon similar in tone is from the text, " Brethren, the time
is short." There seems something incongruous between the
prevailing tone of the sermons and the man who, as we have
seen him in his letters, or as he appeared in his familiar con-
versation, abounded in humor, in mirth and vitality, as if he
had known neither trouble nor sorrow. One of the letters he
received was from a person who had found consolation by the
reading of the sermons, and who goes on to speak of the
trials he had gone through, and the depths to which he had
descended :
What I wished to say is this, that I found in your first two
sermons that which touched and threw new licrht or better light
upon the crucial points of my experience and trial ; for instance,
when you argue the fact and why God sometimes withholds evi-
dence for a few years. It did me good as a medicine, but I
i 9 o PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
asked, " How did toy brother find this out ? " "With a great sum
obtained I this freedom." Are you freeborn, or have you passed
all through that way that even He trod, made perfect through
suffering? . . . Not since Robertson's beautiful sermons has
anything found me, and found me in such deep places (as Coleridge
said of the Bible), as your sermons.
The question which this unknown correspondent put to
him was also put by many others. But he generally turned
it off with the remark that it was possible to enter into these
things by the imagination. However it may be, he had made
a study, a scientific study, if it may be so called, of the art of
consolation. In his large parishes, as well as in the outer
world, he was constantly confronted with the problem of sor-
row and suffering. His own personality attracted as by a
magnet those who were in trouble. He suffered with them
through the immeasurable tenderness of his own soul and his
vast outflow of sympathy. What the meaning of it all might
be, in a world which was beautiful, which God had created
and loved, was the problem that haunted him. He did not
undertake to solve it by any dogmatic principle. He waited
for the growing light. But of one thing he was sure, that the
only consolation was in God.
It was characteristic of the letters that came to him that,
taking them together, not one sermon in the volume but was
mentioned by some one as having met some special need, or
brought inspiration or joy or courage. One of the writers
speaks of the sermon on the " Trinity " as having " broken
down all misgivings, so that I can now say I believe in God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost." That is
one of the finest sermons in the volume, showing the capacity
of insight into theological distinctions, a sermon such as
would have delighted the heart of Athanasius. The sermon
on " The Symbol and the Reality," which had charmed Dean
Stanley, when he heard it at Westminster Abbey, appears to
have been a general favorite. It placed a common principle
beneath the symbols of religion and the symbols of common
life. The sermon on "Humility" seemed to reveal a new
cultus for the highest of Christian virtues, " It came upon
mt. 41-42] LECTURES ON PREACHING 191
me like a flood of light," wrote a venerable divine in whoso
character humility was the crowning attribute. The sermon
on the " Positiveness of the Divine Life " brought out anew,
and with the preacher's own peculiar force, the truth which
Chalmers announced and Dr. Bushnell had reiterated, " the
expulsive power of a new affection." The sermon for All
Saints' Day is the only one chosen for publication out of his
Philadelphia preaching, the rest of the sermons belonging to
the years from 1873 to 1878. But though one of his earliest,
this sermon for All Saints' Day is perhaps the most beautiful
of all. It gives the modern conception of sainthood as com-
pared with the Catholic or mediaeval ideal.
Saints, as we often think of them, are feeble, nerveless crea-
tures, silly and effeminate, the mere soft padding of the uni-
verse. I would present true sainthood to you as the strong chain
of God's presence in humanity running down through all history.
. . . That is the true apostolical saintly succession, the tactual
succession of heart touching heart with fire. . . . These saints
who help us on our way were incorporations not of the power, nor
of the truth, but of the spirit and the character of God.
A few testimonies may be given in the words of their
writers, for they are living touches in the portraiture of
Phillips Brooks. They may stand for the conviction of
thousands of others in the church universal which he was
then addressing. They come from young and old, from men
and from women, from clergymen and from laymen, from
all the walks of life :
I am sure you will rejoice to hear how my life has been made
richer and fuller through your aid, and my poor blurred sight of
men as trees walking exchanged for clear outlines and effulgent
day.
You are speaking to men as no one else can.
No book save the Bible gives me so much strength and holy
ambition.
I covet your method of presenting the truth of the Gospel more
than that of any man living.
The volume has become my vade mecum. Your sermons are
the highest interpretations of Christian philosophy ever uttered
from an American pulpit.
x 9 2 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
You seem to me a person who understands human nature through
a close study of yourself, having thoroughly tested all natural and
acquired tendencies and resistances, and with sympathetic tender-
ness can tell others how to live and be victorious.
They have helped me in a great and almost nameless trial
through which I am now passing. Do you know there are trials,
compared with which even that of a lifetime of bodily pain and
prostration seems almost trivial ? I cannot understand how you,
who have perfect health and happiness, can know so much about
the condition of those who have neither.
To young ministers of all our tribes they are invaluable. I
suppose that scarcely a man among our students will fail to read
them, and all who can will own them. To me they are a refresh-
ment for the cheer they give in the assurance that the pulpit is
not waning.
Among the sermons in this volume is one entitled " The
Present and the Future Faith," from the text, " When the
Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the Earth ? " which
has an historical value. When the future historian of reli-
gious thought turns back to the nineteenth century he will
find that religious faith and hope reached their lowest point
at this moment, and were then at their furthest ebb. It is
this circumstance which may explain in part the predomi-
nance of religious comfort and consolation which prevails in
the volume. The sermon above mentioned was preached on
Thanksgiving Day, in 1874, when the hall of the Institute of
Technology was filled with an audience that listened in intense
silence, for the preacher had gathered himself up for a repre-
sentative utterance. He describes the religious situation from
within with deep sympathy and the tenderest pathos. There
is no complaint or condemnation for any agency which may
be responsible for the dark eclipse through which the church
is passing. He refers to it as existing, but as sure to disap-
pear. He offers no panacea to cure the evil ; it has gone too
deep for any special remedy. When Tennyson had been
writing in the fifties there was a battle waging for intel-
lectual freedom, for escape from the limitations and crude
interpretation of a traditional theology. The battle was over,
the freedom had been gained, but with it had come sadness
jet. 41-42] THE TRIAL OF FAITH 193
and uncertainty, the misery of religious doubt. The freedom
seemed to be of no avail, the " larger truth " did not follow
in its wake. It was the moment which Matthew Arnold has
described in his poems, in " Obermann Once More," or the
lines on "Dover Beach," "the wandering between two
worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born." This wa3
the preamble of the sermon :
I should like to say a few words upon the religious conditions
with which we are all more or less familiar. I am led to think
and to speak of the disturbed condition of faith in our time. No
subject is more pressing. Even the most careless man's thoughts
rest very much upon it. It is discussed and talked of every-
where.
He proposes to trace some of the forces which have pro-
duced the disaster. It is owing chiefly to the wonderful
increase of men's knowledge of second causes, which inter-
feres with or overclouds their belief in first causes, in provi-
dences, in a personal and loving care, which is back of every-
thing. There is some truth in the statement that ages of
ignorance are ages of faith, in the common saying that much
knowledge and elaborate life are dangerous to faith in final
principles and forces. It is a magnificent story how natural
science has brought out the starry host of second causes from
their obscurity and shown how He who works everything works
by everything in the world. This profuse discovery of means,
however, has clouded thought regarding the Creator. With
the religious derangement is associated corruption in political
life and formalism in the church. These are really one, at bot-
tom, with the scientific skepticism of the time. If one looks at
them philosophically he must see that it is truly so. The
magnifying of machinery in church or state follows from the
loss of first principles of government. " Dogmatism and
ritualism are all wrong when they think themselves supremely
believing. Both are really symptomatic forms of unbelief."
Another feature of the age, making it a " transition
time," lies in the contradictions with which it is full. Chief
among the contradictions is the conflict between individual
vol. n
i 9 4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
freedom and authority. It is a time that takes its character
from its relation to what has gone before and what is to come
after rather than from what it contains in itself. This gives it
an aspect of restlessness and unquiet. It is full of the sense
of having broken with the past and of having not yet appre-
hended the future that is to come. But to go back is impos-
sible. " The man who, tired of the freedom of individual
thought, wants to push the church back into the peace of
mere authoritative and traditional religion, and the man who,
tired of the noise and confusion of popular government, wishes
to push back into feudalism, both are mistaken and will not
succeed. Confusion is to be escaped, not by being repressed
into stagnation, but by being developed into peace." But
for the passing moment the age is dark and hopeless, those to
whom we look for guidance are silent, and the best and wisest
do not speak.
The most pathetic sign of such a transition time is the posi-
tion in which it places the best individuals who live in it. The
best men in the more fixed and stationary ages speak out the
loudest. They stand on certainties, and speak with clear and con-
fident tones. The most noticeable and touching thing about such
times as ours is the way in which so many of the best men are
silent and will not speak. It is so both in politics and religion.
The most thoughtful men are always tending to withdraw from a
political confusion which they cannot understand and which
makes them mere spectators. And how many of the purest and
devoutest people whom we know refuse to speak a word in all the
tumult of religious and ecclesiastical debate that always is so loud
around us. To take again the words of a very remarkable poem
of that most representative poet of our time whom I have twice
quoted already :
Achilles ponders in his tent,
The king's of modern thought are dumb,
Silent they are though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
Silent while years engrave the brow-
Silent, the best are silent now.
But the highest quality in this sermon for the times is the
spirit of inextinguishable hope. His optimism is everywhere
apparent. He is an optimist because he believes in God.
jet. 41-42] THE TRIAL OF FAITH 195
It is not a shallow optimism, repeating empty phrases, but
comes from one who was competent to interpret the motives of
despair. " I do not certainly say that such a time is best,
though really in my heart I do not think the world has ever
seen a better. There must be better ones to come. Tho
story of the world is not yet told. ' We are ancients of the
earth and in the morning of the times.' ' The sermon con-
cludes with suggestions as to how a man is to get the best
out of his time and shun the worst. He offers no solution
of the conflict between religion and science. From that snag
he held aloof. He does not depreciate nor denounce the
men of science. But he advises his hearers in the first place
to cling to the solidity and persistency of nature, the calm-
ness and oldness and orderliness of this world of growth and
matter. It means something that, in the disorder of thought
and feeling, so many men are fleeing to the study of orderly
nature. And it is rest and comfort, whatever men are feel-
ing, that the seasons come and go. Whatever men are doubt-
ing, the rock is firm under their feet, and the steadfast stars
pass in their courses overhead. And in the second place he
urges them to make much of the experiences of life which
are perpetual, joy, sorrow, friendship, work, charity, rela-
tions with one's brethren, for these are eternal. And in the
last place, it is not religion itself that is unsettled, but it is
only the thoughts about religion that are not clear. Love is \
at the root of everything. The human soid responds to the
appealing nature and life of Jesus Christ. Here is the great
last certainty. Be sure of God and nothing can overthrow
or drown you.
Everything indicates that during these years, that is, from
the time he came to Boston, he had concentrated his strength
on the study of the religious situation, why it was that
faith had grown weak, and what was the best method of meet-
ing the difficulty. As dtiring the war he had thrown himself
into the vindication of its great issues, so now he identified
himself with the religious conflict, watching the phases it
assumed, brooding over the subject in his hours of solitude ;
196 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
in his walks also among men, as he listened to the casual
conversation or the tacit assumptions, which implied so much
more than was said. At the meetings of the Clericus Club
these questions formed the staple element in every discussion.
He contributed his share to the talk on these occasions, but
among his other endowments he had the capacity of being
the best of listeners. Every meeting of the club formed a
picture which he studied in silence. He neglected no source
of information, and preeminently he studied his own soul in
deep sincerity. He was preparing for some larger expression
of himself than he had yet given, not seeking the opportunity
to make it, but waiting till some call should come when he
should be moved to say what was uppermost in his heart.
In 1878 Mr. Brooks went a second time to New Haven,
giving two lectures before the students of the Yale Divinity
School on the " Teaching of Religion." In the summer of
the same year he made an address before the alumni of the
theological seminary of Virginia, when he took for his sub-
ject, "The Relation of the Pulpit to Popular Skepticism."
The two themes are closely allied ; in both he was dealing
with the question, how best to meet the spirit of modern
unbelief. The lectures on the "Teaching of Religion " are
specially significant as showing that he still maintained the
superiority of the intellectual powers, giving to them the
leadership in the approach to religious truth. 1
Again we go back to his early years for that first hint of
the task whose accomplishment he was now maturing. Then
he had recorded in his note-book the conviction that there was
adequate power in life for the transformation of humanity
into the divine ideal, but the practical question was how to
bring the power to bear upon the will. He had now reached
the conclusion that the power of the pulpit was identical with
the power of the teacher. The same method which made the
1 The first of these two lectures on the " Teaching of Religion " has been pub-
lished in Essays and Addresses, the second is still in manuscript. The essay
on the " Pulpit and Popular Skepticism " was printed in the Princeton Review,
March, 1879, and is also included in Essays and Addresses.
mt. 41-42] TEACHING OF RELIGION 197
teacher effective could be applied by the preacher. It was
an encouraging fact in an age of religious doubt that the
remedy might be found in the principle that Christianity
could be taught. As the teacher developed the capacities
latent in the pupil, so there was in every man the capacity
for religion, which must be evoked by the teacher's methods.
But the conviction that religion was capable of being taught
met with opposition in a vague and general sentiment that it
was a thing that could not and ought not to be taught. In
meeting this objection, it was necessary to give a definition
of religion. Among the many attempts to define it, all of
them containing elements of truth, that which Phillips
Brooks now gave deserves attention : " Religion is the life of
man in gratitude and obedience and gradually developing
likeness to God ; " and " the Christian religion is the life of
man in gratitude and obedience and growing likeness to God
in Christ. Religion is not service simply, nor is it grate-
ful love alone, but gratitude assured by obedience, obedience
uttering gratitude." *
Having given his definition of religion, he further clears
the way for his purpose by criticising three methods of teach-
ing it, the dogmatic or intellectual, the emotional, and the
mechanical: the first, holding that religion is taught when
doctrines or truths have been imparted ; the second, dwelling
on the importance of moving the feelings ; and the last, insist-
ing on the confessional and spiritual directorship. Or, as he
puts it again, one teaching religion as truth, another as feel-
ing, and another as law or drill. But the true method of
teaching religion is where the personality of the teacher in-
vades the personality of the scholar. The largest idea which
covers every demand of the ministry, he avows it in his own
experience, consists " in bringing the personal Christ to the
personal human nature." He turns this point over and reit-
erates it in many varying forms of expression : " The object
of all the teaching is to bring Christ to men." When this
principle is recognized as fundamental, other methods fall
1 Essays and Addresses, p. 35.
i 9 8 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
into their true relationship ; doctrine, emotion, and conduct
cease to be counted as valuable in themselves, and are valued
as avenues through which Christ, the personal Christ, may
come to the soul.
He has much to say about Christianity considered as doc-
trine. He recognizes the righteousness of the reaction in the
popular mind against the assumption that men are to be saved
by right opinions. But because men are not saved by intel-
lectual belief is no reason for discarding doctrines. He pro-
tests against any tendency to " soften " the truth or pare it
down to meet men's wishes. He recalls Tertullian's words,
Credo quia impossibile, as the expression of no rare experi-
ence :
It is the religion of most demands that has most ruled the
world. The easy faiths have been the weak faiths. Men like to
feel heroic in their faith; and always it has been easier to excite
fanaticism than to build up a quiet, reasonable belief. It would
be a wretched falsehood, and one which would no doubt defeat
itself, if a preacher tried to take advantage of this fact of human
nature ; but it may at least come in to help us to resist the dis-
position to omit or soften truths in order that men may receive
the truth more easily. The hope of a large general belief in
Christian truth, more general than any that any past age has wit-
nessed, does, no doubt, involve a more reasonable and spiritual
presentation of it than the past has seen, but it will never be
attained by making truth meagre. . . . The only real assurance
against unreal, fantastic, sensational, indulgent teaching about
Christ is the teacher's own complete conviction, from his own
experience, of the perfection and sufficiency of Christ, just as
Christ is.
There was much talk in the days when these lectures
were delivered of the necessity of doctrinal preaching. It
was said of Phillips Brooks that he did not treat of this or
that doctrine. " A man says to me, ' Why do you not preach
this truth more ? ' and I reply to him, ' Why should I ? '
and he answers, ' Because it is a truth which many men are
denying, and many other men are forgetting.' But the an-
swer is not sufficient. It may be because men are indifferent
to it that one ought to preach it, or that may be a reason for
mt. 41-42] TEACHING OF RELIGION 199
feeling that it is not the truth most needed at the moment."
As to religious controversy he has a word to say. lie does
not condemn it, nor dare to wish that all the great contro-
versial voices of the past or of the present could be silenced
or swept from the pedestals where the admiration of mankind
has set them. But there are conditions of the public mind
when a man must set his face against controversies. It is
bad to cry, " Peace, peace ! " when there is no peace. It is
just as bad, in some ways it is worse, to cry, "War, war ! "
when there is no war.
It seems to me as if, were I a layman in the days when some
doctrine had got loose as it were into the wind and was being
blown across the Common and up and down the streets, I should
go to church on Sunday, not wanting my minister to give me an
oracular answer to all the questions which had been started about
it, which I should not believe if he did give it, but hoping that
out of his sermon I might refresh my knowledge of Christ, get
Him, His nature, His work, and His desire for me once more
clear before me, and go out more ready to see this disputed truth
of the moment in His light and as an utterance of Him. . . .
Preaching Christ ! That old phrase, which has been so often the
very watchword of cant, how it still declares the true nature of
Christian teaching! Not Christianity, but Christ! Not a doc-
trine, but a Person ! Christianity only for Christ ! The doctrine
only for the Person ! x
The first of the lectures on the " Teaching; of Religion "
was occupied with the intellectual aspects of Christianity,
and how these were related to the personal Christ and to the
actual life of man. He followed still the customary division
of the human powers, into intellect, feeling, and will, while
he protested against it as breaking up the unity of man. His
own predominant tendency was intellectual, as it had been
from his earliest years. To know for himself, to understand
in order that he might believe, had been his ambition. But
he recognized in himself other methods of knowing than
through the intellect alone. The full perception of truth
must come through the quickened feeling, and above all
through the obedient will. In this threefold psychological
1 Essays and Addresses, pp. 49, 54.
2oo PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
order Christian doctrine or truth is to be regarded as a clear
glass held squarely between God and man in order to the
reflection of the pure reality ; feeling is to furnish the middle
term between truth and duty ; and duty is obedience to God's
will, which unites the service of our brethren with the culture
of ourselves. But he adds : " There is one thing which I value
more than this. What impresses us most in the best, the
most Godlike men we ever see is, I think, the inability to
tell in them what of their power is intellectual and what is
moral. It is the characteristic of all spiritual advancement
that it asserts more and more the unity of man, makes him
less and less a bundle of faculties, more a man, made in the
image of God, who is one God in the complete harmony and
cooperation of all his life."
But the familiar classification he still found convenient, and
in the second lecture he considered the teaching of religion as
it is related to the feeling and the will. Under feeling he in-
cludes worship. He does not restrict worship to the prayer and
praise of the congregation ; preaching and architecture and
music have their important relation to worship as the outcome
of feeling. He dwells on the mystery of feeling, " We
talk about it as if we knew about it, yet what a mysterious,
variable, and imponderable thing it is." There occurs a pas-
sage here which is so exact a description of his own preach-
ing, and his own mysterious power, that it deserves quota-
tion :
A man comes and stands before a multitude of his fellow men
and tells them a story. It is of something which happened long
ago, yet which concerns them. It is of something which happened
in one special time and set of circumstances, yet it is universal.
As he speaks, his fellow men who listen begin to change before
him. They flush and glow; . . . they tremble in their seats;
they almost leap to their feet ; tears start into their eyes. It is a
most attractive spectacle. It fires the speaker, and he goes on to
make yet more intense and glowing the emotion that reacts on
him. One who stands by and gazes, though he may not hear a
word, is caught with the thrilling, heating atmosphere, and finds
himself trembling with mysterious desires. The voice stops, but
the spell is not broken. The people rise and go away exalted.
jet. 41-42] TEACHING OF RELIGION 201
They tread the pavement as if it sprang heneath their feet and
hreathe the air as if it were alive with beautiful and serious
thoughts.
The importance of feeling in religion is strongly urged. To
the lack of feeling is due the defect in modern architecture
as compared with other ages, when true feeling found expres-
sion in every part of the edifice :
I think it is not wrong, it is not extravagant, to say that the
artistic element in almost all of it (our present ecclesiastical art)
conies in as a stranger. It claims a place purely for its own
beautiful conception or skilful conception. Whether it be an
imitation of something old, something which once uttered truths
which men do not now believe or which they realize in other ways
... or whether it be original and new embodying the sense of
beauty which belongs to our own time, the reason of its unsatis-
factoriness is still the same, it does not stand genuinely between
truth and duty, the truth and duty of the present day, interpret-
ing one to the other. The architect draws a plan for a church
building, so far as its artistic element is concerned, because as a
student he admires that type of a church in some past age, or
because simply as an artist he feels its absolute beauty, and not
because it is the form in which he finds the natural utterance of
the Christian thought of which his soul is full, nor because he is
thinking of the power and inspiration which it ought to exercise
upon the men who are to worship within its walls. And the
decorator draws dreadful mechanical patterns or paints his artifi-
cial saints upon your walls Avith the same imperfection of purpose,
and so with the same failure of result. But none the less is it
true that the architect who builds the perfect Christian church
for any age must be a man who believes in the Christian truth
which that age realizes, and who is enthusiastic in the desire that
the Christian men and women of the age shall do the Christian
duty, outward and inward, which the conditions of their age
demand and make possible. ... He must be neither the pious
mediaevalist nor the modern skeptic. He must be the modern
Christian.
He takes the opportunity of speaking about music, and
especially music in the churches. Here are the thoughts which
were running through his mind as he stood in church or pulpit
while the service of song was performed :
I think that many of the disputes about its methods are seen
202 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
to be of little consequence, and many of the dogmatic decisions
about those methods appear shallow and false. Disputes about
methods always grow loud and positive in proportion as the con-
ception of purpose is vague. Shall all the people sing, or shall
the trained and gifted voices of a few declare the praises of the
Lord? I believe in congregational singing. I believe it should
altogether be the chief and preponderant method of our worship.
But remember that the question altogether should come first,
what is the purpose of singing at all? I suppose it is twofold.
First, church music is the general utterance of the melodiousness,
the joy, the poetry of religion. And second, it is the special
means by which a special truth is fastened on the soul, and a
special duty made winning and authoritative. Now there are two
ways in which any strong feeling finds satisfaction and increase.
One is by the man, in whose heart it is, uttering it himself in
what best way he can; the other is by his hearing its ideal utter-
ance from the lips most gifted to declare it. . . . When a great
congregation is to praise the Lord and to learn truth and duty
by the melody of song, I for one should be sorry to have it lose
either of the two exaltations, either that which comes of the great,
simple, sublime utterance of its own emotion, or that which comes
from listening while voices which the Lord has filled with the
gold and silver of His choicest and most mysterious harmony
reveal to us the full beauty of truth and the full sweetness and
sacredness of duty.
There is another passage in this lecture in which he speaks
of the music of preaching, and throws light upon his own
work in the pulpit :
What I have said of music applies, I think, to all the graces and
appealing tones of the preacher's art. There is a music of preach-
ing. What the melody of a hymn is to its words, that the elo-
quence of the preacher is to his truth. . . . The Quaker hushes
the sacrilegious chant, and then listens to the hymn of the inner
life. The Puritan breaks the window, and then paints in soft or
lurid words a picture from his pulpit which tempts or scares the
souls who listen and believe, and weep or tremble. Where is the
difference ? . . . Words like notes or colors may lead from truth
to duty, or they may stand helpless, leading from nothing to
nothing. We are afraid of eloquence nowadays, and no doubt our
fear of it has borne good fruit. There never was a time when
so many men wrote and spoke good English. . . . The only mis-
giving which one has, I think, the only want which one allows
himself to feel in reading the great abundance of good writing
jet. 41-42] TEACHING OF RELIGION 203
which he meets with everywhere, is in a certain absence of that
glow and richness, whose absence lie knows is the price he pays
for the crystal purity of the pages he reads. He sees that elo-
quence of style or gesture has acquired a suspicion of unreality.
It has gone out of favor in our colleges. It only lingers in our
pulpits here and there. The fact that there is where it lingers
makes us sometimes hope that there is where it shall be born into
new power. We wonder whether it may not be for the pulpit,
having learnt with all the other writing and speaking of the age
that the primary necessity of written or spoken words is clearness,
then to assert that clearness is more, not less, clear for the warm
glow of earnest feeling, and to give back to the best writing and
speaking of the age to come a power of personal appeal and legit-
imate attractiveness in return for the necessity of careful thought
and clear expression which no doubt the pulpit has learned from
the best writing and speaking of this accurate but uninspired age.
Having treated of the place of the intellect and of the feel-
ing in the teaching of religion, he comes to the will, and to
obedience he pays high tribute. To the will as to the goal
and termination come the intellect and the feeling. In
his definition of religion he puts obedience as the crowning
glory of the whole, obedience, in gratitude for what we
know of God in Christ. No ancient Roman, whether pagan
or Christian, ever asserted more strongly the claims of obedi-
ence to be the highest virtue. A most impressive catena of
passages might be selected from his sermons in which he
glorifies obedience. It is not the badge of servitude, but
of freedom and equality. It is the mightiest of words, be-
cause it stands for the final expression of the man in whom
the knowledge of Christ has entered, taking possession of
the whole range of being. The obedience of Christ was the
crown of his glory, the badge of his divinity. And in order to
obedience the freedom of the will, in every sense of the word
"freedom," is the inalienable prerogative of man.
The point of view from which he treated the subject of
obedience in this second of his lectures on the " Teaching
of Religion " was its importance and relationship in a system
of ethics. It was possible to conceive the service of others as
the motive of duty, or duty might be urged as a means of
self-culture. He accepted both theories as legitimate, but
204 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
subordinated both to duty conceived as obedience to the will
of God. The hard sense of obligation in the one, or the
danger of self -consciousness in the other, disappeared when
duty sprang from gratitude and love to a person, to God
revealed in Christ. This was the ground on which Christ
rested when inculcating the seemingly ungracious duties of
life, " I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
that spitefully use you and persecute you ; " and not merely
that His disciples would thus engage in the service of men, or
attain higher reaches in self -culture, although these objects
are implied, but " that ye may be the children of your Father
which is in heaven."
The lectures on the " Teaching of Religion " were aimed to
meet the conditions of the hour, " times like these when
men's power of believing seems to be weak and sickly." He
comes to the subject more directly in the essay on " The Pul-
pit and Popular Skepticism." The prevailing type of skepti-
cism differs from that of other ages, in that it is marked by
its completeness and its despair. It does not merely reject
this or that doctrine, but the whole body of the Christian faith.
It goes so deep that it has a perpetual tendency to defeat
itself. Because it offers no substitute for the discarded reli-
gion, it leaves men's religious natures unprovided for and
hungry, and in this there is hope, for it gives to Christian-
ity the perpetual advantage of human nature. In speaking
of the deeper sources of unbelief he says :
It is not the difficulty of this or that doctrine that makes men
skeptics to-day. It is rather the play of all life upon the funda-
mental grounds and general structure of faith. It is the meeting
in the commonest minds of great perpetual tides of thought and
instinct which neutralize each other, such as the tides of faith and
providence, the tides of pessimism and optimism, the tides of self-
sacrifice and selfishness.
Let this not seem too large or lofty an explanation of the com-
monplace phenomena of doubt, which are thick around us in our
congregations in the world. The reason why my hearer, who sits
moodily or scornfully or sadly before me in his pew, and does not
o
5
V,
u
X
u
H
y.
jet. 41-42] PULPIT AND SKEPTICISM 205
cordially believe a word of what I preach to him, the reason why
he disbelieves is not that he has found the evidence for inspiration
or for Christ's divinity or for the Atonement unsatisfactory. It
is that the aspect of the world, which is fate, has been too strong
for the fundamental religion of the world, which is Providence.
And the temptation of the world, which is self-indulgence, has
seemed to make impossible the precept of religion, which is self-
surrender; and the tendency of experience, which is hopelessness,
has made the tendency of the gospel, which is hope, to seem
unreal and unbelievable.
Because this is the character of the skepticism of the time
it cannot be overcome by any special skill in proving this
truth or disproving that error. " The main method of meet-
ing it must be not an argument, but a man. The method
which includes all other methods must be in his own man-
hood, in his character, in his being such a man, and so appre-
hending truth himself that truth through him can come to
other men." Among the most needed and the rarest quali-
ties that such a man must have is candor. The mind of the
people, and of the clergy also, is confused and doubtful
about the once received doctrine of " verbal inspiration."
Another doctrine called in question is that of everlasting
punishment : there are those who reject it, while others are
timidly asking whether a man can be a Christian and yet
keep a hope for all God's children. Let the clergy be candid
in dealing with these points. " A large acquaintance with
clerical life has led me to think that almost any company of
clergymen gathering together and talking freely to one an-
other will express opinions which would greatly surprise and
at the same time relieve the congregations who ordinarily
listen to these ministers." A venerable preacher standing in
his own pulpit had said not long before that no man was a
Christian who did not believe that this world was made in
six literal days. Such a statement should not be allowed to
pass without most clear and earnest disavowal. The old talk
about holding the outworks as long as possible before retreat-
ing to the citadel is based upon a metaphor than which none
could be more mischievous. It is a dangerous experiment
206 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
for parents to try with their children, teaching them what
they themselves have long since ceased to believe.
The true man must also escape from partisanship, and
from the reproach of it. What hurts the clergy is the idea
in the popular mind that they are committed to these things,
and are no longer seekers for truth, but advocates of eertain
accepted positions. Let the clergy at least cease to use ques-
tionable arguments, and at any rate prevent their ministry
from seeming like a scramble for adherents rather than a
Christ like love for souls.
He repeats what he had already said in his lectures on the
r " Teaching of Religion," that it is a foolish and base idea to
/ suppose that in days like these men want to have Christian
[ truth made slight and easy for them :
In times of staggering faith, as is shown in Christian history,
men need the whole truth. They should not he asked to believe
1 just as little as possible and told that the most exacting articles
of faith may be cast away. ... It would be no strange issue of
such times as we are living in if out of them should come a great
demand for difficult doctrine, a time of superstition, a fever to
succeed the chill ; for the spirit that cries, " Credo quia impos-
sibile," the heroic spirit of faith, is too deep in our human nature
for any one century to have eradicated it. That we may guard
against such reaction into superstition, as well as meet the present
infidelity, what we need is not more easiness, but more simplicity
in the doctrine which we preach, and in our way of preaching it.
I In other words, it is not a smaller amount of doctrine, but it is a
'larger unity of doctrine. It is a more profound entrance into the
heart of doctrine, in which its unity and simplicity reside, a more
true grasp and enforcement of its spiritual meaning.
He illustrates his meaning by reference to the doctrine of
endless punishment. The best way of meeting the subject is
to cease to preach about it, and to seek to bring the power of
the person of Christ to bear on the lives of men, awakening
in them a dread of sin and a desire for holiness. " I will not
care nearly so much that a man should hold what I believe
to be the truth about future punishment as that he should
be deeply convinced of the enormity and persistency of sin."
It is vitally important that all religious truths should be
jet. 41-42] PULPIT AND SKEPTICISM 207
shown to have some necessary connection with righteousness
of character. Only in this way can they be established in the
minds of men.
There are doctrinal statements, which puzzle and bewilder,
which are in reality excrescences on the faitli and must be cast
away by the natural and healthy action of the system. There are
doctrinal statements, which once were true and did vast good
and yet were only temporary aspects of the truth. There are men
living by them still, as men are still seeing the light of the stars
extinguished in the heavens long ago. The time will come when
these temporary statements will disappear, and when their light
goes out it will be of all importance that they recognize the sun
by whose light these accidental and temporary points of its exhi-
bition have been shining.
This sun of all truth is the person of Christ. The characteris-
tic of our modern Christianity, which correlates it with all apos-
tolic times, is the substitution of loyalty to a person in place of
belief in doctrines as the essence and test of Christian life. This
is the simplicity and unity by which the Gospel can become effec-
tive. These are the ideas of Christianity which are in conflict
to-day, one magnifying doctrine whose great sin is heresy ; the
other magnifying obedience. To follow the latter is in these
days, I think, the best method of dealing in the pulpit with
popular skepticism. The superiority of this method, whose essence
is the personal relationship with Christ, lies in this that it
offers "the highest picture of the combination of stability with
progress while, on the other hand, the intellectual conception is
always sacrificing stability to progress or progress to stability."
In this connection he takes occasion to speak of the subject
of Christian Unity :
I do not see the slightest promise in any dimmest distance of
what is called the organic unity of Christendom on the basis of
episcopacy or any other basis. I do not see the slightest chance
of the entire harmonizing of Christian doctrine throughout the
Christian world, that dream which men have dreamed ever since
Christ ascended into Heaven, that sight which no man's eye has
seen in any age. But I do see signs that, keeping their different
thoughts concerning Him and His teachings, men, loyal to Christ,
owning His love, trusting His love, may be united in the only
union which is really valuable wherever His blessed name is
known. In that union, and in that alone, can I find myself truly
1
208 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1877-78
one alike with Peter and with Paul, alike with Origen and Atha-
nasius and Augustine, alike with Luther and with Zwingle and
with Calvin and with St. Francis and with Bishop Andrews and
with Dr. Channing, alike with the prelate who ordains me and
with the Methodist or Baptist brother who is trying to bring men
to the same Christ in the same street where I am working. And
no union which will not include all these ought wholly to satisfy
us, because no other will wholly satisfy the last great prayer of
Jesus.
The essay offers some practical suggestions. Since the
popular skepticism is one in character with the skepticism of
the scholars and of the schools, therefore the Christian min-
ister should keep himself acquainted with the newest develop-
ments of thought. He urges the importance of preaching
Christ, but would enlarge its range. There must be no sacri-
fice of the intellect.
The Christian minister should be so familiar with what men
are thinking and believing that he can know the currents of pre-
sent thought, see where they cross and oppose, where they may
be made to harmonize with the thought of Christ. This familiar-
ity is something which must be constantly kept up in the active
ministry. But its foundations ought to be laid in the theological
school.
And so he concludes with this statement of his attitude :
My one great comprehensive answer then to the question, What
is the best method of dealing in the pulpit with popular skepti-
cism ? is really ftiis : Make known and real to men by every means
you can command the personal Christ, not doctrine about Him,
but Him ; strike at the tyranny of the physical life by the power
of His spiritual presence. Let faith mean, make faith mean,
trusting Him and trying to obey Him. Call any man a Chris-
tian who is following Him. Denounce no error as fatal which
does not separate a soul from Him. Offer Him to the world as
He offered and is forever offering Himself.
CHAPTER VIII
1879
THE BOnLEN LECTURES ON THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS
The Bohlen Lectures on the "Influence of Jesus" were
published in 1879. This work must be regarded as one of
Phillips Brooks's most important contributions to the develop-
ment of theological science. More even than his lectures
on Preaching may it be said to be his autobiography. He
has here expressed himself most fully in describing his own
inner life and the deeper motives which inspired his preach-
ing. Incidentally, also, he has spoken upon many important
points correlated to his main theme. The treatise is a small
one, allowing little opportunity for expansion, but the expan-
sion will be found in his sermons.
It is now nearly the lifetime of a generation since this
treatise was given to the world. Issues then living have
been determined and new ones have arisen. The book has
fulfilled its true mission in meeting a widespread popular
need and in changing the trend of religious thought. Its large
circulation bears witness to its influence. But it requires
some comment here in order to bring out its full significance,
to show wherein its power lay in meeting the age, in closing
a chapter of confusion and contradiction in religious thought
as well as introducing a new era in religious life. To those
who are passing through the mood of the last generation the
book has still a special mission. But it has also certain en-
during qualities which secure its permanent place in religious
literature.
And in the first place, to touch upon its autobiographical
value, it shows this to have been the main characteristic
of Phillips Brooks, whether as a man or as a preacher and
theologian, that he was from the first in search of a
vol. n
210 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1879
stronger religion and a stronger Christ than the age pre-
sented. He needed it first for himself and then for others.
His powerful tumultuous nature cried out for strength, for
some one to obey, whose will would subdue him and bring
him into the captivity wherein lies perfect freedom. There
is a passage in his essay on the " Pulpit and Popular Skep-
ticism " which must be taken not only as his appeal to
others, but as the outcry of his own soul, where he calls for a
powerful Christ, " a Christ so completely powerful that once
perfectly present with a human soul He must master it and
it must yield to Him. If the reason why men doubt Him is
that they do not, cannot, will not, see Him, then I think it
must be certain that what they need is a completer, more
living presentation of His personality, so that He shall stand
before them and claim what always was His claim, ' Believe
in Me,' not 'Believe this or that about Me,' but 'Believe
in Me.' " 1 Like all great men and strong natures, Phillips
Brooks could live only in contact with strength and greatness.
For this reason he had been fascinated by Carlyle, by the
study of Mohammed and Luther and Cromwell, men to
whom he had first been introduced in " Heroes and Hero
Worship." But as Carlyle had been disappointed in his
search for great men in history, so also did Phillips Brooks
become disenchanted with Carlyle. For Carlyle had passed
over in silence, we need not here discuss for what reason, the
strongest man in history. There is one passage in his writ-
ings where one would have expected at least some allusion
to the Founder of Christianity, but it is not made. The
passage may be given as indicating the point where Phillips
Brooks made his departure from the famous teacher. It is
a passage significant also as showing how men were content
with talking about a situation without explaining it :
How did Christianity arise and spread abroad among men?
Was it by institutions and establishments and well-arranged system
of mechanism ? Not so ; on the contrary, in all past and existing
institutions for those ends, its divine Spirit has invariably been
found to languish and decay. It arose in the majestic deeps of
1 Cf. Essays and Addresses, p. 75.
jet. 43] THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS 211
man's soul; and was spread abroad by the "preaching of the
word," by simple, altogether natural and individual efforts, and
flew, like hallowed fire, from heart to heart, till all were purified
and illuminated by it; and its heavenly light shone, as it still
shines, and as sun or star will ever shine, through the whole dark
destinies of man. 1
It is interesting to note at how early a period Phillips
Brooks fastened upon the truth which was to underlie and
control his thinking. He had begun his studies for the
ministry with some grave misgivings as to whether the
preacher could wield the power which the times demanded.
He soon came to the conclusion that the preacher's influence
depended on his character as a man, that truth was conta-
gious through personality. Thus in a sermon preached so
early as 1861, at the age of twenty-five, on the text, St. John
xiv. 6 : " I am the way and the truth and the life," he had
expressed his conviction that the defect of the age was its
tendency to seek after abstract truth divested of personal
relations :
I maintain that all such impersonal truth, when it is acquired,
however much it may do for the sharpening and stocking the
brains and improving the outward conditions of mankind, is as
bad as useless as far as any immediate effect upon the character
and temperament is concerned. All truth must be brought, in
order to be effective, through a personal medium. Which of us
can dare to say that he would hold the most effective truths that
he believes in just as much and just in the same way as he does
now, if they had come to him anonymously, if they had reached
him so that he could not doubt their truth, but resting on no fellow
man's authority; if some night the stars had spelt out the story
in their ordered courses, or it had woven itself in the filmy tissues
of a dream, or the morning winds had awaked us with it, as they
blew their message across our sleep? We have some personality
behind them all; a mother's voice yet trembles in them, a father's
authority makes them solemn, a teacher's enthusiasm will not let
us count them trivial, and so they first have gained and so they
still hold their great power over us.
Yes, it is the personal power that is mighty in the world. It
is not merely a difference between different orders of minds, that
the higher are more moved by abstract truth, while the lower, the
1 Carlyle, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 242.
212 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1879
great mass of mankind, are open only to the more palpable touch
of personal power. That is the conceit of culture. All men are
influenced mostly by embodied truth, by truth coming to them
through some relation of a fellow man. . . .
The trouble which so many have in finding any power in the
truths that they believe is, that strange as it may seem, Chris-
tianity is to multitudes of people a purely abstract system. It
has lost its personal aspect. But Christianity is what? The
service of Christ. Its very essence is its personality. It is all
built about a person. Take Him out and it all falls to pieces.
Just because He has been taken out of the religion which many of
us call our Christianity, just for that reason is our Christianity
a poor thing of the remote brain, bringing no peace to our hearts,
and no strength to our hands, no comfort to our sorrows, and no
benediction to our joy. 1
With such a conviction in his mind he had rejected the
conception of Christ offered by Strauss in his " Leben Jesu,"
where the Christ-idea was presented as the essential thing,
and His personality of no account ; so that it would have made
no difference in the result if Christ had been the product of
a mythical tendency, not an actual personage, but a creation
of the human mind, at a moment when the tides of human
aspiration were flowing strongly. All this now seems remote.
It has become hard to understand that such a view should
have been put forth by a serious thinker. But the work
of Strauss, in its first form, and translated by George Eliot,
had great vogue in the middle period of the nineteenth cen-
tury.
Again, Phillips Brooks felt repugnance for the conception
of Christ in Kenan's "Vie de Jesu," where Christ is drawn as
an amiable creature, full of soft and tender sentiment, with
no strong definite purpose of a mission to the world, acted
upon from without, changing His attitude, involving himself
in contradiction and inconsistency, full of charming naive
impressions, but in his softness possessing strength. It is
said of the author that when the Germans were at the gates
of Paris, he stood at a window watching the careless people
1 Cf. The Message of Christ to Manhood, being the William Belden Noble
Lectures for 1898, p. 12, where this passage is referred to in a study of Phillips
Brooks.
jet. 43] THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS 213
as they came and went, and remarked, " Voila ce qui nous
sauvera, c'est la mollesse de cette population."
It was in 18G5 that the book " Ecce Homo " appeared, by
the late Professor J. R. Seeley, to which no one gave more
earnest welcome than Phillips Brooks. It may be called the
English " Life of Jesus " as compared with the works of
Renan and Strauss. It took English ground in discussing
the subject, rendering the verdict of cool common sense by
an inquirer who brushed aside as irrelevant the difficulties
created by Biblical criticism. The author refused to discuss
the actuality or the possibility of the miracles, or whether
John wrote the Fourth Gospel, whether Luke or Matthew
borrowed from Mark, or what were the sources of Mark, or
when exactly these narratives were written. He simply
assumed that they were in the main trustworthy, and that
the disciples believed that Christ worked miracles. This
assumption was sufficient for his argument. One element in
the strength of the book lay in this, that when the author
had presented the picture of Christ, it so explained and
justified the Christ of history that difficulties about the nar-
ratives and sources no longer embarrassed. A strong man,
the strongest man in history, with a clear view of His purpose
from the moment He began to teach ; no mere teacher uttering
placidly His sentiments, but from the first assuming the posi-
tion of an authoritative lawgiver, enforcing His word by
the most powerful of sanctions, calling into existence a society,
legislating for that society to the end of time, this was in
outline the Christ in the pages of " Ecce Homo." " The
achievement of Christ in founding by His single will and
power a structure so durable and so universal is like no
other achievement which history records. The masterpieces
of the men of action are coarse and common in comparison
with it, and the masterpieces of speculation flimsy and unsub-
stantial. When we speak of it the commonplaces of admi-
ration fail us altogether." 1
The welcome which Phillips Brooks gave to " Ecce Homo "
did not mean that he accepted its presentation of Christ as
1 Cf. Am. ed. p. 354.
2i 4 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1879
complete or final. We shall see that the total picture of
Jesus in his mind after years of reflection was quite different.
But it included at least the conception of strength and
authority, and also the method, which waived the questions
raised by Biblical criticism in regard to the genuineness and
authenticity of New Testament writings, as having no practi-
cal bearing upon the final issue or on the work of the
preacher. He followed the conflicts of scholarship on these
points, but never allowed them to embarrass his mind.
When Phillips Brooks came to Boston in 1869 he found
that the New England Transcendentalists had left their in-
fluence on the public mind. This brilliant group of scholars
and thinkers were asking the question, What is truth, and
what are the canons for determining its authority? The
answer uniformly given was that the authority was within
the soul, and faith was the direct vision of the truth. This
was positive teaching, but it was accompanied by large nega-
tions. No special unique authority was accorded to the books
of Scripture or to the person of Christ. Christ was spoken
of with respect and even reverence as a great teacher, but
it was one of the conventionalities ' of transcendental speech
to associate Him with others, more particularly with Socrates
or Plato. It became a sort of commonplace among them to
speak of " Socrates and Jesus and Mohammed." It is said of
one of those eminent among this brilliant school of thinkers
and talkers that on a certain occasion, speaking before a
small audience, he ventured to place himself in the same
category, " Socrates, Jesus, and myself." He even de-
clared that he was willing to make the words of Jesus his
own, and to proclaim, " I am the resurrection and the life."
When one of his audience demurred, querying whether he
would be believed if he made such a proclamation, his reply
was that such a demurrer could only come from an unregener-
ate Calvinist.
The Transcendental school had found its chief religious
exponent in Boston in Theodore Parker (1860). He ac-
cepted its principle to the fullest extent, that the inward,
individual assurance of truth was its highest and sole author-
xt. 43] THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS 215
ity. He was a courageous man, fighting his way through
great difficulties in heroic fashion. But he became entangled in
controversy ; his tone grew more aggressive and vehement as
he assumed the position of an iconoclast. Pie made no effort
to appreciate his opponent's attitude. He did not recognize
that sober combination of the transcendental principle with
historic Christianity which gave distinction and influence to
Coleridge, marking a new era in the theology of the Church
of England. In his vehement desire to enforce the truth he
saw he made utterances which did him injustice, and taken
without qualification did injury to others. Here are passages
from his famous sermon on " The Transient and the Per-
manent in Christianity" which reveal at once his strength
and weakness :
That pure ideal religion which Jesus saw on the mount of his
vision and lived out in the lowly life of a Galilean peasant ; which
transforms his cross into an emblem of all that is holiest on earth ;
which makes sacred the ground he trod and is dearest to the best
of men, most true to what is truest in them, cannot pass away.
Let men improve never so far in civilization, or soar never so
high on the wings of religion and love, they never can outgo the
flight of truth and Christianity. It will always be above them.
Yet in this same sermon he denies that the truth which
Jesus taught depended on His personality for its propagating
power in the world :
Almost every sect that has ever been makes Christianity rest
on the personal authority of Jesus, and not the immutable truth
of the doctrines themselves or the authority of God who sent him
into the world. Yet it seems difficult to conceive any reason why
moral and religious truths should rest for their support on the
personal authority of their revealer, any more than the truths of
science on that of him who makes them known first or most
clearly. It is hard to see why the great truths of Christianity
rest on the personal authority of Jesus more than the axioms of
geometry rest on the personal authority of Euclid or Archimedes.
The authority of Jesus, as of all teachers, one would naturally
think, must rest on the truth of his words, and not their truth on
his authority. 1
1 Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 244, Boston, ed. 1S42.
2i6 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1879
Even Parker's friends and sympathizers were disturbed by
this last statement. Mr. Martineau called it a " painful para-
dox," intimating that he used language in other places incon-
sistent with it. But Parker was on fire with his conviction
that every soul should be the judge and arbiter of truth in
virtue of the gift of immediate vision. Painful though the
paradox might be, he repeated it in his later " Discourse of
Religion," and in more intense and aggravated form, " If
Christianity be true at all it would be just as true if Herod
or Catiline had taught it."
Phillips Brooks sought to avoid controversy, and his book
on the " Influence of Jesus " is impersonal, reviewing the
religious situation of his time, yet mentioning no names or
treatises, although familiar with them all. But the following
passage from its opening pages, where he states his purpose,
shows that he felt called upon to resist the disintegrating
tendency in the popular mind, springing from the belief that
the personal character of the teacher may be disconnected
from the message :
What is the power of Christianity over mankind, its source, its
character, its issue? That is the question which I wish to study
with you in these four lectures I have been invited to deliver.
... I have been led to think of Christianity and to speak of it,
at least in these lectures, not as a system of doctrine, but as
a personal force, behind which and in which there lies one
great and inspiring idea, which it is the work of the personal
force to impress upon the life of man, with which the personal
force is always struggling to fill mankind. The personal force is
the nature of Jesus, full of humanity, full of divinity, and power-
ful with a love for man which combines in itself every element
that enters into love of the completest kind. . . . Every man's
power is his idea multiplied by and projected through his per-
sonality. The special actions which he does are only the points
at which his power shows itself. . . . The power of Jesus is the
idea of Jesus multiplied and projected through the person of
Jesus. . . . The message entrusted to the Son of God when He
came to be the Saviour of mankind was not only something which
He knew and taught; it was something which He was. . . .
The idea and the person are so mingled that we cannot separate
them. He is the truth, and whoever receives Him becomes the
son of God. 1
1 Influence of Jesus, pp. 12, 13.
jet. 43] THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS 217
And again, in another passage, he makes this more definite
allusion, " Not from simple brain to simple brain, as the rea-
soning of Euclid comes to its students, but from total charac-
ter to total character, comes the New Testament from God to
man." 1
We are admitted behind the scenes, as it were, when we
turn to the note-book, in which Mr. Brooks is seen making
the preparation for his book on the "Influence of Jesus."
He rarely changed his plan when he had once fixed upon it ;
but in this case he made a notable change. He had intended
to call his subject " Faith and Life." The respective lectures
were to be entitled (1) " Faith and Morals ; " (2) " Faith
and Society ; " (3) " Faith in Relation to Pain and Plea-
sure ; " (4) " Faith and the Intellectual Life." He drew up
a synopsis of each lecture, rich in spiritual suggestiveness.
His object was a defence of the spiritual interpretation
of life. Then suddenly, and as it would seem at the last
moment, he changed his subject, and hastily modified the
plan of treatment. He may have felt that this first scheme
was weak in that it put him in controversial or defensive
attitude, not the most effective method of accomplishing
his aim. As he came closer to his task the real motive which
inspired him was growing more clear and definite. Behind
the Christian faith and life stood the Christ. To give
the portrait of Him anew to the world was better to accom-
plish the end in view. Here are some of the sentences from
his note-book which betray first the working of his mind :
For centuries the Christian faith has been and still is making
life. We have Life from which to tell what the faith is and
Faith to tell what the life must be. What is Christianity that
it makes such men as these?
How far may we legitimately think that the present condition
of the social and personal life of Christendom is due to Christian
Faith? Very largely. Point to church, Bible, uniqueness of
Christendom, and unwillingness of all men to disown first Chris-
tian ideas.
The Faith and the Man, then, we want to trace in relation to
one another. The Faith we find in the Book to which the heart
1 Influence of Jesus, p. 234.
2i 8 PHILLIPS BROOKS [1879
of man has always returned more truly than it thinks. The man
we find in History. Observation and consciousness. There are
two questions What has Christianity made of man ? and What,
when it is freed from all hindrance and given its full power, can it
make of him ?
Such an inquiry, it will be seen, was too vast, and almost
beyond human capaci
