Excerpt from Our Mercies of Re-Occupation: A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, November 26, 1863
I have selected this passage for our text to-day, because, as I stand and look back over these last two years, I can find no truer description of the mercy that has filled them than just this - that it is the mercy of re-occupation. You will not find one natural blessing that we have not enjoyed for years. There is not an acre of our country now that was not ours in 1860. There is no principle of public law or social duty that was not written in our books three years ago. We hold no theories Of virtue or of truth that our fathers did not hold and leave described for us most explicitly. There is no new realm of life; but yet I believe, and I shall try to Show, that all through these last years, and espe cially through this last year, there has been a great drawing back of all of us to resume and fully occupy realms of life, blessings and duties which were never but half-occupied before. I hope to make this simple thought more plain as I go on, and to prove that I am right in stating as our appropriate subject for today, Our Mercies of Re-occupation.
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Phillips Brooks was an American clergyman and author, who briefly served as Bishop of Massachusetts in the Episcopal Church during the early 1890s.
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 1877 Brooks published a course of lectures upon preaching, which he had delivered at the theological school of Yale University, and which are an expression of his own experience. In 1879 appeared the Bohlen Lectures on The Influence of Jesus. In 1878 he published his first volume of sermons, and from time to time issued other volumes, including Sermons Preached in English Churches (1883).
Today, he is probably best known for authoring the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem".
He was born in Boston in 1835 and educated at Harvard and at Virginia Theological Seminary. After ten years of ministry at two churches in Philadelphia, he returned to Boston in 1869 and was rector of Trinity Church there until 1891. He was then elected Bishop of Massachusetts, and died two years later.
Phillips Brooks is best known today as the author of "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Former generations, however, accounted him the greatest American preacher of the nineteenth century (and not for lack of other candidates). His sermons are still read.... Show more