Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/454

BROOKS.BROOKS. in his call to Trinity church in that citv in 1869. Having a very hearty love for his family, and for the city of his birth, he was nothing loath to accept the cJiarge, though it involved cert^iin sac- rifices on his ixirt, and he commenced a ministry which lasted for twenty years, during which he proved a true pastor to his flock, caring for and serving the humblest and lowliest among them. A new church editice was built for him at a cost of over .«ll,0t»0,OO0, where he preached to the largest congregation gathered in any single cluirch in Bos- ton. Many beautiful anecdotes are told of his ten- der ministrations, of his love for the children, and of his great-hearted humility. His influence was outreaching and extended farther than the limits of the church. He received the degree of D.D. in 1870 from Union college; in 1877 from Harvard university; in 1885 from Oxford university, Eng- land; and in 1887 from Columbia college. In 1886 he was nominated as assistant bishop of Pennsyl- vania, and was also offered the cliaplaincy of

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Harvard university, but he declined both offices. He was for some years one of the favorite preachers at Harvard; he held the keynote of sympathy -with young men, and his love for his alma mater was very deep and strong.

During his vacations he travelled both in Eng- land and on the continent, and he spent one winter in India. In England, where he became a close friend of Dean Stanley, he made a very deep impression, preaching many times in differ- ent churches and once before the Queen. Certain of the English clergy said of him that he was the greatest preacher the church had, in England or America. On October 14, 1891, he was conse- crated as bi.shop of Massachusetts in Trinity church, Boston. Some of the clergy thouglit that he was unfitted for the routine cares and duties of the episcopate, that he was too great a man; some were afraid that his large liberality, his broadness, would imperil the dignity and conser- vatism of the church. The high-church party

was opposed to him, questioning the soundness of his theology, and after his election in Mas.sa- chusetts a conflrming majority was barely reached in both the house of bishops and the standing committees of the dioce.ses. His epis- copate was a brief one, but it was, in its wLsdom, in its grand simplicity, a fitting termination, a crystallization of his whole life. In his sermon on Lincoln, he said: " The more we see of events the less we come to believe in any fate or destiny except the destiny of character." This was the de.stiny of his character — that he should be the greatest bishop Massachu-setts had yet known. His writings are characterized by their rhetorical excellence, their close reasoning, the tenderness of their poetic imagery, and their deep spiritual power. They are eagerly read by all cla.sses of people. Some f e%v of them were published after liis death. The following is the order of publication of his chief works: "Our Mercies" (1863); "Sermons" (1875); "Lectures on Preaching" (1877); "Influence of Jesus" (Bohlen Lectures, 1879); "The Pulpit and Popular Skepticism" (1879); " Alexander Hamilton Vinton," " Me- morial Sermon" (1881); "Candle of the Lord" and Other Sermons " (1881); " Sermons preached in English Churches " (1885); "Oldest School in America " (an Oration at the celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Latin School 1885); " Twenty Sermons " (1886); "Tolerance" (1887); "O, Little Town of Bethlehem "(Chri.stmas carol, 1887); "A Christmas Sermon" (1890); "The Light of the World, and Other Sermons" (1890); " The Spiritual Man and Other Sermons " (1891); "The Symmetry of Life" (reprinted 1892); "Christmas Once is Christmas Still" (1892, a carol); "The Living Christ" (an Ea.ster sermon); "Baptism and Confirmation" (1893); "Address" (with introduction by Julius H. Ward, 1893); "Letters of Travel" (1893); "PhilUps Brooks' Year Book" (1893); "Es- says and Addresses" (edited by John Cotton Brooks, 1894); "The Life Here and the Life Hereafter" (1894); "Sermons for the Principal Festivals and Fasts of the Church Year" (1895). He died in Boston, .Alass., Jan. 23, 1893.

BROOKS, Preston Smith, representative, was born in Edgefield district, S. C, Aug. 4, 1819. He was graduated at the South Carolina college in 1839, and in 1843 was admitted to the bar. In the following year he was elected to the South Carolina legislature, and in 1846 .served with dis- tinguished bravery in the Mexican war as captain of compan)- D. Palmetto regiment. He was elected a representative to the 33d Congress in 1852 as a state-rights Democrat, and was re- elected to the 34th and 35th congresses. Senator Sumner in his speech on " the crime again.st Kansas " in the U. S. senate. May 22, 1856, by a