The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-29

! New Englend culture that seemed always
| 10 be in touch with conservatism in poll
tics. or worse indifferentism to humanity,
voiced by Everett, Bancroft, Cushing.
Hiliard, FELTON,, Hawthorne, Otis,
| Choate.
In his youth Bishop Brooks was the
friend of the gifted Thomas Starr King,
whose pulpit eloquence filled all San
Francisco with his fame. and whose thrill.
ing stump" speeches for the Union did
much TO keep the Pacific coast true to the
flag. Among his classmates at Harvard
were Mai. Gen. Francis c. Barlow. the first
scholar of the class, who became the finest
volunteer general in the Army OF the
Potomac. and Col. Theodore Lyman.
gallant soldier of the Sixth corps under
Gen. John sedgwick. He studied theology
at the Alexandria, Va, Seminary. As
student he preached his first sermon
to mission of poor whites and
| negroes, and captured his congregation
from the first by his fresh and
| glowing earnestness; his simple evansei-
| ical fervor and intense feeling. The sue
cess of his mission excited lawless opposi-
ton, but young Brooks quelled it in its
birth in a searching. sarcastic, scathing
| rebuke, whose effect was to bring all the
hostile persons save one to baptism and
confirmation. When he went to Phila-
| delphia to take parish in January, 1852,
he found that the people in Philadelphia
socially prescribed the negro. They drew
the line at the horse cars and said that the
colored people should go afoot. Mr.. Brooks
was one of the first to point out and rebuke
their inconsistency, and he was SO bold
| and earnest about it that Philadelphia
society was compelled to change its rule.
In defense of the war for the Union he
made his pulpit famous for the fervor Of
his patriotic eloquence. When Harvard
celebrated the end of the war Phillips
! Brooks was asked to make the prayer for
| Commemoration day. As If by ipspira-
ton he rose so completely to the feeling Of
the hour that Col. Henry Lee, the Har-
ward marshal for the day, thus speaks of
it and him: 1.-THE services on that occa.
| sion were not equal to what men felt.
| EVERYTHING fell short and words seemed to
be too weak, Phillips Brooks prayer was
an exception. That was free speaking to
God. and it was the only utterance of that
day which filled out its meaning TO the
full extent. Lowell's Commemoration
| Ode was great, and so was Gen. Devens'
speech, but Brooks surpassed them both"
| That magnificent prayer called Phillips
Brooks to the rectorship of Trinity
| church, Boston, and on October 81. 1869,
| he preached his first sermon to his Boston
church. He was then in his 34th year and
in the freshness of his strength. When
his new church was completed, in 1877 to
take the place of his old church. destroyed
the galleries must be free, and. that if par
ishione-s did not occupy their own seats
the public must have the use of them.
Nowhere else in Boston has a church
been more fully open to all sorts
and conditions of men. Phillips Brooks
himself exercised his preaching function
in all parts of Massachusetts,. At the
conservation Of Trinity church he invited
prominent Unitarian clergymen, and at
| least one layInan, TO receive the commun-
ion. They were representatives. except
ing President Eliot, of the old and con-
seryative Unitarian and Trinitarian par
| ishes in Boston, and whatever might have
been the difference between their beliefs
and his, he put the Christ ian interpreta-
ton on their position and accepted them
personally as baptized members of the
| Church of Christ.
| In 1883 he was invited to preach to the
| Harvard students, with whom he became
| at once a favorite. He was true
| preacher: his sermons are fairly described
| as not argumentative. but fresh and in
| spring appeals to the emotional and spir-
| ituai nature of man. He stood in America
for that liberalism whose seed was planted
in the English church by Maurice and by
| Dean Stanley.
1t is a noteworthy fact that Bishop
Brooks was first urged for election to the
episcopate OF Massachusetts, by the Bos-
| ton Herald, a great and influential
secular newspaper which on the 22d of
March, 1891, published in its Sunday edi-
| ton an editorial advocating on the broad
| est and highest grounds the wisdom of
| choosing DR.. Brooks as the next bishop of
| Massachusetts,. The feeling in his favor
became SO intense that almost the en-
tire secular press Of Massachusetts
urged his appointment. He was elected,
but an attempt was made to de-
feat and prevent his confirmation by
persistent attacks upon his ecclesiastical
position and supposed beliefs, and only
bare majority was finally obtained in his
favor. He was consecrated the l4th OF Oc-
tober, 1891. and all Liberal Christians in
all denominations rejoiced. An Albany
clergyman wrote as follows of the effect
that the choice of DR.. Brooks might have
upon the church at large:
II would give a new and significant start to
our church progress not only here, out all
through the church to have his manly, broth
cry Idea OF wholesome, everyday Christianity
proclaimed from bishops chair-a living
towering cathedral, bodily, mentally spiritu-
ally.
Last week the sad news came that this
great and good man. who had spent his
life praising God with sweetest looks. lay
dead among his books. The quality of
Bishop Brooks mind was voiced in his
recent speech before the dinner of the
New England Association of the Alumni