He possessed, what he said impressed him most about Mr. Moody, "astonishing good sense."
He was consecrated with most impressive services, Oct. 14, 1891, in Trinity Church; Bishop Potter of New York preaching the consecration sermon.
It is said that the regular salary of the former Massachusetts bishop was six thousand dollars. As Phillips Brooks received eight thousand from Trinity, it was suggested that he be given eight as bishop, but this he would not permit.
Bishop Brooks took up his work with his wonted earnestness and zeal. "The amount of speaking that he did was appalling," says Bishop William Lawrence; "four to seven sermons and addresses on a Sunday, with sermons, addresses, and speeches in quick succession through the week."
"He was the most unselfish man I ever knew," says his secretary. "He was always sacrificing himself for others. Not only did he never speak of himself, but he never even thought of himself." He seemed never to waste a moment of time, and yet had time for everything. He was careful always to keep appointments promptly.
Bishop Brooks lived the frankness which he preached. "To keep clear of concealment," he said, "to keep clear of the need of concealment, to do nothing which he might not do out on the middle of Boston Common at noonday—I cannot say how more and more that seems to me to be the glory of a young man's life. It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding anything comes. The whole life is different thenceforth."
Phillips Brooks kept his warm heart through life. "Sentiment," he said, "is the finest essence of the human life. It is, like all the finest things, the easiest to spoil.... Let him glow with admiration, let him burn with indignation, let him believe with intensity, let him trust unquestioningly, let him sympathize with all his soul. The hard young man is the most terrible of all. To have a skin at twenty that does not tingle with indignation at the sight of wrong, and quiver with pity at the sight of pain, is monstrous." He thought a young man should "go responsive through the world, answering quickly to every touch, knowing the burdened man's burden just because of the unpressed lightness of his own shoulders, ... buoyant through all his unconquerable hope, overcoming the world with his exuberant faith.... Be not afraid of sentiment, but only of untruth. Trust your sentiments, and so be a man."
Phillips Brooks urged the joy which he always showed in his own life. "Joy, not sadness, is the characteristic fact of young humanity. To know this, to keep it as the truth to which the soul constantly returns,—that is the young man's salvation. Whatever young depression there is, there must be no young despair. In the morning, at least, it must seem a fine thing to live."
He loved his work better than all else on earth. He wrote a friend in England, "I have had a delightful life; and the last twenty years of it, which I have spent in Trinity Church, have been unbroken in their happiness."
Bishop Brooks was courageous. In his sermon, "The Man with Two Talents," he says, "To do great things in spite of difficulties, that is a very bugle-call to many men."