Trinity College School - Record Yearbook (Port Hope, Ontario Canada)

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4 TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD CHARLES HENRY BRENT Ambassador of Christ By FREDERICK WARD KATES Vlfhen we recall some of the greatest modern builders of the reign of God upon earth, the name of Charles Henry Brent flashes instantly upon our attention. All who knew this rare spirit, re- fined in the furnace of God, recognized one who had offered up his life, as a living sacrifice, on the altar of the service of God in this world. At first a rather shy, diffident clergyman quietly exercising his ministry as an inconspicuous priest in a South Boston slum- area parish, Charles Henry Brent developed during the years into one of the most intrepid and gallant ambassadors of Christ the world has known for many years. When he died, the night of March 27, 1929, in Lausanne, Switzerland, a city which had be- come a symbol of his life, the Christian world mourned the pass- ing of a tall, somewhat austere, often deeply lonesome man who had grown during his lifetime into one of modern Christendom's foremost leaders, prophets, and seers. ' A consecrated Christian' spirit, mind, and willg a friend of hu- manity, a servant of God, a gifted writer and commanding preach- er, a missionary statesman, a Christian gentleman, a prophet of world unity, and the 20th century's greatest champion and apostle of Christian unity-Charles Henry Brent has been fitly called Everybody's Bishop. At home at different times in Canada, Western New York, Massachusetts, the Philippines, the Orient, Europe's battlefields, no corner of the world can claim him as its own. Though born a Canadian, Charles Henry Brent was an Ameri- can citizen for almost forty years, combining a deep devotion to British ideals and customs with a militant patriotism for the United States of America. He was born in Newcastle, Ontario, Canada, on April 9, 1862, the son of The Reverend Canon Henry Brent and his wife Sophia, in a parish where his father was rec- tor for forty-two years. From his earliest memory his mind was set on the ministry. At one time he said, I do not recall an instant of my life when I aspired to any vocation excepting that of the Ministry, but on one brief occasion when I faced the possi- bility of becoming a musician. As a boy at school the Ministry seemed to me the one vocation worth considering .... Were I again on the threshold of life I would choose as I have chosen. DU Preparation His education was carried out with a view to his calling. He prepared for college at Trinity College School, Port Hope, Ontario, one of Canada's great boys' schools, and in 1884 he was graduated from Trinity College, Toronto, with classical honors. In school

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TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD 3 the boys themselves are choosing their own leaders and thus they have no cause to resent the boys of their own choice. This voting for privileges is another instance where the co-operation of the boys is needed to run the School and keep it functioning properly. There are here as elsewhere certain boys who have little spirit of co-operation, but want only to get away with as much as possible and to get as much as they can out of the School while giving nothing in return. One big advantage of boarding school is that boys are not required to attend by law and thus it is not necessary for a boarding school to keep this type of boy. This seems the only sensible way to look at the problem for if the boy has no thought for the School but only fo-r himself he is not doing himself or the School any good. It is this essential and basic idea of living in close com- munion with others and co-operating for the good of every- one which a School like T.C.S. teaches a boy and so pre- pares him in no small way for his future life in society. -.J'.B.F. 4 Ax , El J X if I .Jimi - 'iii rag -1... g . . fa , 1 ' 1' ' : 5' - ' 1 , ' 115, 1 Q 'J:i'LL '1s fc l.:t -.LS Q . T' 'a7ln'12.

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TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD 5 and in college he distinguished himself not only as a gifted and apt scholar but as a formidable athlete. The Right Rev. Dr. Sweatman, the Bishop of Toronto, ordain- ed him to the diaconate in 1886, the next year elevating him to the priesthood. His first position was curate and organist at St. John's Church, Buffalo, where he remained a year. Then he became curate on the staff of St. Paul's Church tnow Cathedral: in Buffalo, in charge of St. Andrew's Mission which at that time was located on Spruce Street. He attempted to place candles on the altar and Bishop Coxe objecting, he departed for Boston where he remained from 1888 until 1891. During the Boston years he lived at the mission-house of the Cowley Fathers where, under the guidance of Fathers Hall, Osborne and Torbet, he learned the lessons of the ordered life. One of his duties was to minister to St. Augustine's Colored Mission. In 1891 Bishop Phillips Brooks placed Father Torbet and the future Bishop Brent in charge of an abandoned church in the south end of Boston which they revived under the name of St. Stephen's Church. Brent was at this time 29 years old. For ten years he remained at St. Stephen's with Father Torbet, serving as rector only the last two months. The years at St. Stephen's were important and valuable ones for the young churchman. His humble, inconspicuous work in a struggling parish in a crowded neighborhood of underprivileged people proved good schooling for his naturally aristocratic mind. These years deepened not only his ideas of religion but also his insight into human character. It was in these years that he began tc learn a truth which undergirded his whole life, thought, and activity, namely, the essential value of every man, of whatever race or color or creed. Mingling with the loafers on Boston Com- mon helped his heart to grow deeper and his blood to flow warmer.. He came to know people, all sorts of people. It was during these hidden years that Charles Henry Brent forged him- self into the man who received one day in the autumn of 1901 a tele- gram from San Francisco informing him of his election by The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church as Missionary Bishop of the Philippine Islands. Missionary Bishop It is interesting to note that only a few days before receiving notification of his election as Bishop of the Philippines, W. S. Rainsford was considering Charles Henry Brent as the best man for the associate with himself at St. George's Church, New York City. He is, of course, a High Churchmanf' said Rainsford to his senior warden, J. Pierpont Morgan, but he is not as high as when he sought 'the order! He is a man of God. He is in sympathy with the present time. His eyes are in the front of his head, and not in the back. He can preach. He loves men and understands them. And he is a democrat .