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

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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

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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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TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD 9 as delegate to the League of Nations Conference on Narcotics in 1923 and 19249 acting as chairman of the subcommittee on inter- national affairs at the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work in Stockholm in August, 19253 functioning also as bishop-in-charge of the American Episcopal churches in Europe 1926-1928g and, finally, presiding over the First World Conference on Faith and Order in Lausanne in 1927. The causes of permanent world peace and Christian unity lay especially close to his heart in these postwar years. Repeatedly he preached on these subjects and more and more his public utter- ances became less sermons and more prophecies and fragments of visions. The greatest claim laid upon him during these years, which proved to be the last ten years of his life, was the necessity for a re-united Church. The unity of Christendom, he declared, is not a luxury, but a necessity, and the world will go limping until Christ's prayer that all may be one is answered. From every angle he saw its dire urgency. As a missionary, he saw that a divided Church could not succeed in its task of the conversion of great nations. He had witnessed at first-hand the waste of energy, money, personnel, and the confusion and weakness of competing Christian bodies. As a statesman, he realized that until the Church could give its united witness to the problems of education and mo- rality, social and international justice, the greatest force for righteousness would be lacking in modern life. As a mystic, he saw the matter of Christian unity in terms of the mind of God and set the aim for complete organic unity. His work for Church unity, through the World Conference on Faith and Order, became the major interest in his life. It pos- sessed him and permeated him. It seemed to many during these years that his zeal for unity was leading him to minimize funda- mentals of Christian doctrine. He was criticized for the breadth of his definition of the Catholic Church and especially for his latitudinarianism with regard to Holy Orders. The high point of his life and ministry was, Without any doubt, the First World Conference on Faith and Order convened in Lausanne in 1927, where, as President, he won not only the approval but the admiration and love of the delegates who had assembled from 40 different countries and represented 70 auton- omous Christian communions. His Death The Bishop's last great sermon was delivered in Canterbury Cathedral in November, 1928. It was, prophetically enough, on the subject: The Way to Peace. He was in England at the time to attend the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. After the ceremony, on the advice of his physician, Sir Thomas Barlow, he did not return to America. He spent the next three months at the American Embassy in London, the guest of Ambas-