O Little Town of Bethlehem - The Song, The Place, and the History

Phillips Brooks (12/13/1835 - 1/23/1893) was an American clergyman and author, who briefly served as Bishop of Massachusetts in the Episcopal Church during the early 1890s. In the Episcopal liturgical calendar he is remembered on January 23.

Brooks was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1835. Through his father, William Gray Brooks, he was descended from the Rev. John Cotton; through his mother, Mary Ann Phillips, a very devout woman, he was a great-grandson of Samuel Phillips, Jr., the founder of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. Four of the couple's six sons - Phillips, Frederic, Arthur and John Cotton - were ordained in the Episcopal Church.

Phillips Brooks prepared for college at the Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard University in 1855 at the age of 20, where he was elected to the Alpha Delta Phi. After a brief period as a teacher at Boston Latin, he began in 1856 to study for ordination in the Episcopal Church in the Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia.

In 1859 he graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary, was ordained deacon by Bishop William Meade of Virginia, and became rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia. In 1860 he was ordained priest, and in 1862 became rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, where he remained seven years, gaining an increasing name as preacher and patriot. In addition to his moral stature, he was a man of great physical bearing as well, standing six feet four inches tall.

During the American Civil War he upheld the cause of the North and opposed slavery, and his sermon on the death of Abraham Lincoln was an eloquent expression of the character of both men. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston; today, his statue is located on the left exterior of the church.

"My only ambition", Brooks once wrote "is to be a parish priest and, though not much of one, would as a college president be still less". Under his inspiration, architect Henry Hobson Richardson, muralist John La Farge, and stained glass artists William Morris and Edward Burne Jones created an architectural masterpiece in Trinity Church, Boston, among the notable features of which was the first free standing liturgical altar in the United States in an overall chancel design that attracted attention for its Liturgical Movement influence even in British architectural magazines. Behind the free standing altar there was another revival from the early church chancel, a great synthranon for priests which surrounded the apse. Because Massachusetts had two bishops then the bishops chairs were placed within the altar rail to either side of the holy table. There were no choir stalls to distract from the central altar, which was hardly recognized as an altar in a period when most altars were backed up on to elaborate carved screens. There was also, until 1888, no pulpit. Brooks preferred to preach his legendary sermons from a modest lectern near the rector's stall on the south side of the chancel. There was also an eagle lectern on a balustraded ambo in the center at the chancel steps.

Such was the magnificence of Trinity Church that, in his chapter on Phillips Brooks' chancel in Ralph Adams Cram: An Architect's Four Quests, Douglass Shand-Tucci calls it "an American Hagia Sophia", a reflection of Brooks' architectural and liturgical tastes, disclosed in his travel writings, where in Germany for instance he referred to "thrilling music" and "thrilling incense" in respect to a liturgy he attended there in the Roman Catholic cathedral. Holy Week in Rome also greatly moved him, especially the papal high mass on Easter. Although he despaired of Anglo-Catholic ritualism, he championed many aspects of the liturgical movement including congregational singing at the liturgy. At the eucharist, for instance, he would preach, not from the pulpit, but from the chancel steps, and although he liked to preach in a black academic gown he never failed to appear in a comodious white surplice and priests stole when he officiated at the office or eucharist.

In 1877 the building of Trinity was completed, but the Venetian mosaics Brooks and Richardson wanted they could not then afford. It was not until the magnificent new altar and sanctuary of Maginnis and Walsh in 1938 that Trinity's chancel reflected that aspect of their dreams for Trinity, which Brooks called "America's glory forever". Here Phillips Brooks preached Sunday after Sunday to great congregations, until he was consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. In 1886 he had declined an election as assistant bishop of Pennsylvania. He was for many years an overseer and preacher of Harvard University. In 1881 he declined an invitation to be the sole preacher to the university and professor of Christian ethics. On April 30, 1891 he was elected sixth Bishop of Massachusetts, and on the 14 October was consecrated to that office in Trinity Church.

He died unmarried in 1893, after an episcopate of only 15 months. His death was a major event in the history of Boston. One observer reported: "They buried him like a king. Harvard students carried his body on their shoulders. All barriers of denomination were down. Roman Catholics and Unitarians felt that a great man had fallen in Israel."

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Phillips Brooks, click the picture above.