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

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TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD 7 he pledged himself to labor for the cause of Christian unity all the days of his life. I His Philippine Islands ministry was frequently interrupted by trips back to the United States. Bishop Brent always enjoyed the rest and leisure of these long sea-voyages which gave him opporttmity for reading, meditation, and writing. The young missionary leader was sought as their leader by many home dioceses during these years. In 1908 he declined a call to become Bishop of Washington. Two times more he was called and two times more he refused. He was also elected to and declined the bishopric of New Jersey. It was during the first decade of the new century that Bishop Brent rose into national and international prominence. The priest, who not so many years before had seriously considered entering the monastic life, was at this time, equally at home in the hut of a Moro savage or a diplomatic embassy. And it was during this period that we witness Bishop Brent more than winning his spurs as a diplomat and statesman. The greatest evil in Filipino society, Bishop Brent and the government soon discovered, was opium, and to its extirpation Bishop Brent directly bent his efforts. Within a year after the official party of the island governor-general had assumed their duties, a commission had been appointed to investigate the use of and traffic in opium and the laws regarding such use and traffic in Japan, Formosa, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Burma, Java, and the Philippine Islands. Major E. C.Carter, U.S. Army, Dr. Jose Albert and Bishop Brent comprised the commis- sion. The commission assembled August 13, 1903, at Manila and gathered data until February 5, 1904. Then, from February 8, 1904 until March 15, 1904, the committee sat daily from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m., and finally presented its report. Briefly, the plan recommended was for opium to become a government monopoly immediately, this to become prohibition, except for medical pur- poses, after three years. But the work of this opium commission was but introductory to the great International Opium Conference at Shanghai during February 1909, over which Bishop Brent sat as president, which was dominated by his leadership and vision, and which was by him singlehandedly brought to a happy outcome. Bishop Brent also acted as chief commissioner of the American delegation to this meeting. He again served as chairman of a United States delegation to an international opium conference in 1911 and 1912 at The Hague. First World War By the outbreak of the World War, Bishop Brent was a world- renowned figure, a friend of national leaders in many countries, a citizen of the world, a foremost leader in the affairs of his Church. Though he was an ardent lover of peace, he accepted

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6 TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD It was in June 1901, by the way, that his name came up for prominent consideration as Bishop-Coadjutor of Minnesota. Bishop Henry Codman Potter in recommending Doctor Alsop and Charles Henry Brent said of the latter: His traditions are those of a modern high churchman with singularly large and noble conceptions of the relation of the church to humanity. I know no man in the American Church who is, in some of the highest respects,-character, competency for leadership, enthusiasm, directness, personal attractiveness, and high spiritual qualities,-Mr. Brent's superior. No more words are needed to emphasize the man Charles Henry Brent had become by 1901 and to indicate the high regard in which he was held by high dignitaries and leaders of the Church at that time. In the summer of 1902 the young Bishop sailed out to his island diocese, joining at Suez, the Governor-General, William Howard Taft. It was to a big and pioneer task that he set forth. The next few years in the Philippines clearly made manifest to all the caliber of the young missionary bishop the Church had sent out to the new island-empire of the United States. As a matter of fixed policy, Bishop Brent confined his work inthe Philippines to the Army, official circles, and the Moros and Igorots. His was a hard assignment, but in short order he was vxdnning men to goodness and to Christ on the basis of their com- pelling beauty and by the contagion of his 'own manly idealism. General John J. Pershing and General Leonard Wood were con- firmed by Bishop Brent in Manila, but two of a host of Army and government officials who were led into the Church's fellowship by Bishop Brent. In the Philippines, Bishop Brent not only gave: he also re- ceived. He tells us that it was among the pagan peoples that I learned that equality before God of all men, which I count to be the chief treasure I have honestly made my own in my life time. His experience with the Moros and Igorots was simply an ad- vanced course in what he had begun to learn in the slum-sections of Boston. Expanding Interests The strength of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines be- fore the recent war, during it, and the surety of its revived vigor in the years at hand is testimony to the inspired leadership and energetic labors of Bishop Brent. During the years of his episco- pate 11901-19183 hospitals, churches, schools for boys and girls, mission-stations, and a great cathedral-center were established, the Bishop always building boldly for a large future. It was while resident in the Orient, on the frontier of Chris- tianity, that the desperate need for a united Christendom impinged forcibly on Bishop Brent's still forming mind. Here it was that

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S TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD General Pershing's invitation to act as Chief-of-Chaplains of the American Expeditionary Force. His war career is really a separate story by itself. To him, the war was an unmitigated disaster and tragedy. Popularly-known as the khaki-colored bishop, Bishop Brent was all through the dark days of war a pillar of idealism and a tower of moral strength. He was frequently employed as a good- will ambassador smoothing-out friction between organizations en- gaged in war work or on a high diplomatic errand ironing out friction between nations. He was a constant and constructive interpreter between the United States and Great Britain, and it was entirely natural and fitting that General Pershing should choose him to deliver his message in 1918 to the men of the British and American ships in the North Sea. He used all the prestige of his position to secure action from the French Government in suppressing the organized vice which threatened the morality of the army. His war years were for him a soul-searching experience. If into the war Bishop Brent went a priest, he came out of it a prophet. Deeply- baptized in suffering, more international than ever before in his outlook and influence, he now added one more cause to those which he served-the cause of permanent peace. He struggled for it all the rest of his days. The war ended a chapter in his life, as it did for many an- other man. He did not return to his missionary bishopric in the Orient, but came to Western New York over which diocese he served as diocesan bishop until his death. He was accorded a huge acknowledgment service in St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, on February 7, 1919, in the church where years before he had served as curate. The diocese granted him an assistant the next year when The Rev. David Lincoln Ferris, D.D., of Rochester was consecrated his suffragan. Bishop Brent gave his best to his diocese, faithfully fulfilling his episcopal duties and discharging the myriad tasks that fell to his hand. He made his home in the See House, Buffalo, and took care of the western half of the diocese, while Bishop Ferris lived in Rochester and took care of the eastern half of the diocese Know the Diocese of Rochester.J In one sense the diocese paid a penalty for having so eminent a leader for its head: the Bishop was continually called away from the diocese on some mission: but the diocese was proud to have its bishop a man of such stature and devoting himself to the causes to which he pledged all his energy during these years. Church Unity Among the many calls that came to him during these years of residence in Buffalo were: giving the Duff Lectures in Edin- burgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow, in 19213 serving actively as a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard Universityg acting