Phillips Brooks

The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but read more

The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 The Bible is like a telescope. If a read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked through, to see that which is beyond.

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, read more

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge of Him, is His servant -- the man who makes Christ a teacher of his intelligence and the guide of his soul -- the man who obeys Christ as far as he has been able to understand him... I would know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of what He could do.

It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that read more

It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith can do that for the world which the world needs. You say, "What can I do?" You can furnish one Christian life. You can furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor, perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what Christianity is.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do no pray for tasks equal to your powers. read more

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do no pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.