16 Facts About Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks was an American Episcopal clergyman and author, long the Rector of Boston's Trinity Church and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts.

Phillips Brooks wrote the lyrics of the Christmas hymn, "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

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 AD Club.

Phillips Brooks worked briefly as a school teacher at Boston Latin, but, upon being fired, felt that he had failed miserably.

Phillips Brooks wrote that his only ambition was "to be a parish priest and, though not much of one, [I] would as a college president be still less".

Phillips Brooks preferred to preach his legendary sermons from a modest lectern near the rector's stall on the south side of the chancel.

Phillips Brooks preached there Sunday after Sunday to large congregations until he was consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891.

Phillips Brooks had previously declined an election as assistant bishop of Pennsylvania in 1886.

Phillips Brooks was for many years an overseer and preacher of Harvard University.

Phillips Brooks died unmarried in 1893, after an episcopate of only 15 months.

Phillips Brooks's death was a major event in the history of Boston.

In 1877, Phillips Brooks published a course of lectures upon preaching that he had delivered at the theological school of Yale University, and which are an expression of his own experience.

Phillips Brooks introduced Helen Keller to Christianity and to Anne Sullivan.

In 1961, Raymond W Albright published another biography of Brooks entitled Focus on Infinity.

The Brooks family founded a Brooks Memorial School in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1874 in memory of Phillips' brother, the Rev Frederic Brooks, who died in an accident in Cambridge.

Phillips Brooks is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.