BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR.
By J. W. Smith, D.D.,
Editor Star of Zion, Official Paper of the A. M. E. Zion Church.
IT affords me extreme pleasure to introduce to the public generally one of the brightest ministerial stars in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America--Rev. C. H. Phillips, D.D. He was born in Milledgeville, Ga., January 17, 1858. His parents had twelve children, of whom he was the tenth. The two youngest died before they had reached ten years, leaving him the youngest of the family, a place which he has filled for more than a quarter of a century. His mother was named Nancy and his father George Washington. They were both converted when young, and thus were able to throw around their children a holy influence which shaped their lives for good and for fields of usefulness when they had reached manhood and womanhood. His father has been a gospel minister for more than fifty years. In June of 1890 his dear mother, at the age of seventy, laid down the cross, took up the crown, and went home. Of the ten children that grew up to mature age, four were boys, and all are now ministers of the gospel save the oldest brother, John, who died about six or seven years ago between the age of fifty and sixty, after having traveled about twenty-two years as an itinerant minister and member of the Georgia Conference.
At the age of seventeen young Phillips was happily converted, and joined Trinity C. M. E. Church, in which he had been reared, the Rev. Frank Ford, who has since died, and who during his lifetime was one of the leaders of the Georgia Conference, being his pastor. With his conversion began the unfolding of those avenues which have led him to his present position and status.
December 16, 1880, he was married, by Rev. J. Braden, D.D., President of Central Tennessee College, to Miss Lucy Ellis Tappan (a daughter of a prominent Baptist minister in Nashville), a graduate of Fisk University. Cultivated in mind and heart, and influenced by the Holy Spirit, she has ever been his helpmeet, and has done much to make the favorable impression he now enjoys.
Educationally Dr. Phillips is a ripe scholar. When a boy he always had a love for books, and received an elementary education at home while working on his father's farm. He would go to school after the crop was laid by during the summer and after the farm produce was gathered in the fall. Along this line he continued his education, making progress in the science of farming as well as in books. Having an insatiable thirst for a deeper education, whereby he might be the better prepared for the Christian ministry, to which honored position he felt a divine call immediately after his conversion, his father, after the holidays of 1875, sent him to Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., where he joined the Junior Preparatory Class, and continued in this institution until he had completed his Sophomore year in college.
In September, 1878, while Principal of the city schools of Barnesville, Ga., he was licensed to preach by Rev. R. T. White, the presiding elder at that time of the Barnesville District and still the acknowledged leader of the Georgia Conference. Thus was carried into consummation the impression made on him just after his conversion.
Two months after he had been licensed to preach he went to Nashville, Tenn., and entered Central Tennessee College, where be could study theology with his classical studies. He progressed rapidly. He never lost a year nor was he ever turned back. He read Latin and Greek with an ease that delighted his professors and astonished his classmates. On entering this college he found that he was behind his class (Junior Classical) in mathematics and ahead in the languages; therefore in mathematics he formed a class of one, and had to "wade through" this science all alone. Loomis' ten books in geometry, spherical trigonometry, surveying, analytical geometry, and differential and integral calculus, he studied alone, and he never received a mark below ninety, marking on a scale of one hundred as perfect. By this time he had caught up with his class in mathematics, and with them took up their last study in that science, a work on philosophy, by D. Olmstead, LL.D. He easily led his class in the languages, and in the absence of the professor would often hear his class recite in "Horace" and in "Odyssey."
In May, 1880, he graduated as Bachelor of Arts from Central Tennessee College. In this same school he received his theological training, and graduated from there in medicine in 1882. During the years of 1884 and 1885 he was Principal of Lane Institute, then known as the Jackson High School. He gave form to this school by grading the classes, creating its curriculum, and publishing its first catalogue. At the meeting of the Board of Trustees in May, 1885, he, by a motion made by himself and seconded by Rev. W. T. Thomas, of Alabama, had the name changed from Jackson High School to Lane Institute. Since that time the school has been named Lane College. In this year 1885 his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. In June, 1890, Philander Smith College, of Little Rock, Ark., and Wiley-University, of Marshall, Tex., almost at the same time (he being ignorant of the intentions of these two schools, which are among the best of the great M. E. Church), conferred upon him the degree of "Doctor of Divinity." Thus step by step, by assiduous study, which will accomplish almost anything, this promising young divine has climbed from the lowest to his present heights in the intellectual ladder.
He joined the West Tennessee Conference at Trenton in 1879. During his college days he served the Pilot Knob Circuit with great success. This was his first itinerant work. Here he held his first revival, which resulted in thirty-five accessions to the church. He made a splendid report at this Conference, and was ordained a deacon by Bishop L. H. Holsey.
In December, 1885, his Conference met at Memphis, and Bishop Lane appointed him to the pastorate of Collins Chapel, the leading appointment in Tennessee. At this Conference he was elected a delegate to the General Conference which met in 1886 at Augusta, Ga. He was not only the youngest man ever appointed to Collins Chapel up to that time, but also the youngest ever elected by his Conference a delegate to any preceding General Conference. His rising prominence in his denomination was evidenced by the fact that the bishops unanimously nominated, and his General Conference then in session at Augusta confirmed him as a proper person to go as a fraternal delegate to the General Conference of the great M. E. Church, South, which was in session in Richmond, Va. Bishop Holsey was the first delegate ever sent to this body, and Rev. Phillips was not only the second, but the first ever selected from the rank and file of his Church. His speech before that Conference was most favorably commented upon by the press of the country.
When he had rounded out two successful years at Collins Chapel, adding one hundred and forty persons to the church, finishing up its front, a part of which at that time was exposed, running up the brick work of the tower to its present height, and making round reports each year at the Conference, he was at Jackson, Tenn., in December, 1887, transferred to the Virginia Conference and stationed at Washington, D. C., as pastor of Israel Metropolitan C. M. E. Church. Here he entered upon a career that gave him a national reputation. Washington opened new fields and new facilities and opportunities for further development. He found the church embarrassed by a debt of $13,400, upon which the members were paying seven per cent. interest. The interest alone amounted to over $900 a year, yet he was able to keep it down and reduce the principal. The winter of 1889, just after the holidays, he began a revival which resulted in one hundred and five additions to the church. Some of the present trustees and stewards of Israel Church were converted in that revival.
Dr. Phillips has traveled extensively. In the spring of 1889 the Sabbath-School Union of the District of Columbia elected delegates to attend the first World's Sabbath-School Convention, which convened in London in July, 1889. He was not present at any of the Union meetings in Washington, but in his absence was one of the three delegates elected, Rev. W. H. Brooks and Rev. George Moore being the others. June 19, 1889, they sailed, having in their company Rev. A. Walters, who has since been elected to the bishopric of the A. M. E. Zion Church. He spent two months abroad, traveling through France, England, Ireland, and Scotland, visiting such cities as Liverpool, London, Manchester, Paris, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. He preached in several of these cities and lectured upon some phase of the negro problem. Returning to America, he met his Conference at Lynchburg, Va., in October, 1889, and was elected the second time as a delegate to the General Conference of his Church, which met in Little Rock in 1890.
In 1891 he was one of the delegates to the Ecumenical Conference, which met in Washington, D. C., in October; was the only representative of his Church on the program; and his able speech before that learned body elicited a most favorable comment. The Washington Evening Star said: "One of the most earnest and eloquent addresses of the day was the one on 'The Legal Prohibition of the Saloon,' by Rev. C. H. Phillips, D.D., of this city, a well-known preacher of the C. M. E. Church. When he left the platform he was presented with a handsome bunch of flowers from the W. C. T. U., and Bishop Wayman remarked that he had carried off the palm." The Washington Post said: "The speaker in his tribute to water indulged in a flight of florid rhetoric that captured the audience. Dr. C. H. Phillips was heartily applauded as he stepped down from the platform, and this demonstration was renewed as he received a bouquet of flowers, and Bishop Wayman remarked that he had carried off the palm."
Immediately after the adjournment of this great Conference, his church in Washington (Israel Metropolitan) gave him a farewell reception, at which Frederick Douglass, the lamented Dr. Price, Dr. I. B. Scott, of Texas, his classmate, now editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, Hon. John C. Dancy, and Dr. J. C. Waters made addresses. Nearly all the city pastors of color and the writer were present. He was pastor of this aristocratic church four years, being the only pastor of his Church who served there that length of time. He reduced the debt from $13,400 to $10,000, and the rate of interest from seven to six per cent., and added two hundred members to the church.
His Conference meeting in Petersburg, Va., October, 1891, transferred him to the Kentucky Conference, and stationed him at Center Street Church, Louisville, Ky. The first year he added sixty converts to the church, repaired and made it inside the most beautiful church in the city; increased the congregation considerably; raised in one collection $650, the largest ever known in the history of that church; and at the close of two years left the church in a much better condition than he found it. His ability as a preacher was quickly recognized, for the Louisville Courier-Journal and Louisville Commercial occasionally reported his sermons. The daily Commercial, after publishing his sermon on the necessity of establishing a refuge for colored girls, and also publishing his biography, closed with these words: "Dr. Phillips' sermons are attracting large congregations. Higher honors are waiting for him in his Church, and it is generally conceded that he will yet reach the goal."
At the Kentucky Conference, which met at Paducah September 27, 1893, he was the third time elected delegate to the General Conference, which met in May, 1894, at Memphis, Tenn.
At the Paducah Conference Bishop Beebe appointed him presiding elder of the Mt. Sterling District, which he improved financially and spiritually. He was a-visitor to the General Conference of the A. M. E. Zion Church, which met at Pittsburg, Pa., and made a rousing speech, which was loudly cheered. The Doctor is a popular man, and has a host of popular friends in Zion Church. He attended the Parliament of Religion in Chicago during the World's Fair, and he and Bishop Holsey were members of the Advisory Council. At the brilliant reception held in Chicago in the A. M. E. Zion Church he grandly represented the C. M. E. Church on the program.
In 1894, at his General Conference, he was elected editor of the Christian Index, after having come within three votes of being elected to the episcopal office.
In 1896 he represented his Church before the General Conference of the M. E. Church, which met at Cleveland, Ohio. His address received favorable comment from the religious and secular press.
In October of 1896 he was one of the invited speakers at the centennial celebration of the A. M. E. Zion Church, held in New York City. He spoke on "The Relation of the C. M. E. Church to the A. M. E. Zion Church."
At his Conference in October, 1897, he was elected for the fourth time a delegate to the General Conference of his Church.
As a man Dr. Phillips is modest, genial, dignified, sincere, liberal, and broad in his sympathies. These qualities are daily winning for him friends. As a preacher he is a splendid organizer, a shrewd financier, a successful revivalist, a bustling pastor, and a people-gatherer. As a speaker, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, he is impressive, forceful, thoughtful, suggestive, occasionally humorous, intensely earnest, his sermons and speeches often being graced by choice flowers of rhetoric and burning with fervid eloquence. This is an honest write-up of my friend, who in the fulness of his intellectual powers is strong, loyal, and influential in the grand denomination in which he is a pillar, an adornment, and a support. May his influence and his possibilities continue to shine with increasing luster as the days roll by!
Charlotte, N. C.
PREFACE.