Phillips Brooks was a generous man, with both money and time. He helped many a boy through college. On one occasion he received a check for one hundred dollars from a parish where he had preached, and immediately sent it to a poor clergyman. To a chapel in a suburban town he gave five hundred dollars towards paying its debt.
He did not like to have his photograph taken and sold; but when informed by those who were holding a fair for St. Andrew's Mission that they would probably make fifty dollars through such sale, he immediately sent a check for that amount.
He was finally prevailed upon to sit for his picture in 1887. In the following eight months more than three thousand photographs were sold. Four years later an arrangement was made whereby a royalty was paid on each picture, and the proceeds used in mission work.
A lady desired some instruments for a medical missionary about to start for Japan. She applied to Phillips Brooks, with the thought that some of his wealthy parishioners might provide them. "A good set will cost one hundred dollars," she said; "but an inferior one can be bought for fifty dollars."
"Would you send your son to the war with an old-fashioned musket," he said, "instead of a rifle? The man who goes to fight Satan in his strongholds must have the best appliances that can be obtained." And Dr. Brooks paid the money from his own pocket.
A printer, the husband of a woman attending Dr. Brooks's church, became ill, and the men in the office raised money to send their fellow-workman to California. The preacher heard of it, and called at the building. The cashier spoke through the tube to the foreman in the composing-room, saying that a gentleman wished to see him. "Send him up," was the reply. And up four flights walked Phillips Brooks, and quietly slipped twenty dollars into the foreman's hands, though refusing to allow his name to be put on the subscription paper.
He gave his time generously. When his private secretary, the Rev. William Henry Brooks, DD., said to him that in using so much time for others he had none left for himself, he replied, "I have plenty of time." Being asked "Where?" he answered, "In the railroad cars."
Soon after Phillips Brooks became bishop he was urged to have office hours, but refused. He said, writes his secretary, in a sketch of the great leader, "A clergyman may come from a distance to see me, and be compelled to return very soon. Not knowing my office hours (should there be such), he might fail of the accomplishment of his errand, and so have his journey to no purpose. Or a layman, leaving his business to consult with me, not knowing of the observance of office hours, might find his time wasted, and be disappointed of the desired interview. No, I am not willing to have office hours. If people wish to see me I ought to and will see them."
When some one expressed fear that these numberless calls would wear him out, he said, "God save the day when they won't come to me."