Phillips Brooks (December 13, 1835-January 23, 1893) was an American writer and speaker. He attended Harvard while James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow taught there.
He pastored in Philadelphia before becoming the rector of Trinity Church in Boston, and later the bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Massachusetts. In 1867, he wrote the song, O Little Town of Bethlehem:
<O little town of Bethlehem!
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.> 1835PB001
In his sermon Going Up to Jerusalem, Phillips Brooks wrote:
<Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.>
Phillips Brooks reasoned:
<I do not know how a man can be an American, even if he is not a Christian, and not catch something with regard to God's purpose as to this great land.>
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1835PB001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Phillips Brooks, 1867, wrote his famous song, O Little Town of Bethlehem. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 619.
1835PB002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Phillips Brooks, in his sermon, Going Up to Jerusalem. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 619.
1835PB003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Phillips Brooks. Our American Heritage (NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1970), p. 53.