Writing about Phillips Brooks in 1930, William Lawrence, who had known him as a young man, began, “Phillips Brooks was a leader of youth…His was the spirit of adventure, in thought, life, and faith.” To many who know him only as the author of “O little town of Bethlehem,” this part of Brooks’ life and influence is little known.

Born in Boston in 1835, Phillips Brooks graduated from Harvard University and began his career as a teacher at Boston Latin School. He was soon fired, however, and grappled with despair over finding his true vocation. He wrote: “I do not know what will become of me and I do not care much… I wish I were fifteen years old again. I believed I might become a stunning man, but somehow or other I do not seem in the way to come to much now.” This vocational struggle ultimately led him to offer himself for ordained ministry, and he went to study for the priesthood at Virginia Theological Seminary.

Brooks began his ordained ministry in Philadelphia, where his impressive personality and his eloquence immediately attracted attention. After ten years in Philadelphia, he returned to Boston as rector of Trinity Church, which was destroyed in the Boston fire three years later. It is a tribute to Brooks’ preaching, character, and leadership that in four years of worshiping in temporary and bare surroundings, the congregation grew and flourished. The new Trinity Church was a daring architectural enterprise for its day, with its altar placed in the center of the chancel, “a symbol of unity; God and man and all God’s creation.”

Brooks was regarded as one of the greatest preachers of his generation, and many of his sermons have continued to stand the test of time. These have passages that still grasp the reader, even though they cannot convey the warmth and vitality which so impressed his hearers. James Bryce wrote, “There was no sign of art about his preaching, no touch of self-consciousness. He spoke to his audience as a man might speak to his friend, pouring forth with swift, yet quiet and seldom impassioned earnestness, the thoughts of his singularly pure and lofty spirit.”

Brooks died in Boston on January 23rd, 1893.