Charles H. Brent Quotes

       Charles H. Brent
       1862-1929
      
       Charles Henry Brent was an American Episcopal bishop who served in the Philippines and western New York.
      
       Born in Canada and educated at Trinity College, Toronto, Brent was originally stationed in a slum parish in Boston. In 1902, after the Philippines were acquired by the United States during the Spanish-American War, the Episcopal Church appointed Brent as Missionary Bishop of the Philippines and arrived on the same ship with the American Governor, William H. Taft. Brent focused on non-Christians, including the Igorots in Luzon, the Muslims, and the Chinese in Manila. He served on several international commissions to stop narcotic trafficking. During World War I, he was the Senior Chaplain for the American Armed Forces in Europe.
      
       He declined three elections to bishoprics in the United States in order to continue his work in the Philippines, but in 1918, he accepted the position of Bishop of Western New York. He helped to organize the first World Conference on Faith and Order, which met in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1927, and died in Lausanne in 1929. March 27 is the commemoration of Brent in the Episcopal Church. However, as this commemoration commonly falls during Lent or Easter Week in most years, the alternative date of August 25 (his arrival in the Philippines) was recently adopted by the Central Philippines diocese in the Episcopal Church in the Philippines at its 2008 Diocesan Convention.

The unity of Christendom is not a luxury, but a necessity. The World will go limping until Christ's prayer that all may be one is answered. We must have unity, not at all costs, but at all risks. A unified Church is the only offering we dare present to the coming Christ, for in it alone will He find room to dwell.     Topics: Christianity, Unity To be able to look into God's face, and know with the knowledge of faith that there is nothing between the soul and Him, is to experience the fullest peace the soul can know. Whatever else pardon may be, it is above all things admission into full fellowship with God.     Topics: Faith, Forgiveness, Fellowship There is no thirst of the soul so consuming as the desire for pardon. The sense of its bestowal is the starting-point of all goodness. It comes bringing with it, if not the freshness of innocence, yet a glow of inspiration that nerves feeble hands for hard tasks, a fire of hope that lights anew the old high ideal, so that it stands before the eye in clear relief, beckoning to make it out on its own.     Topics: Forgiveness, Fire It is appalling to think of a power so strong that it can annihilate with the irresistible force of its grinding heel; but it is inspiring to consider an Almightiness that transforms the works of evil into the hand-maidens of righteousness and converts the sinner into the saint. And it is this latter power which eternal Love possesses and exhibits. He persistently dwells in the sinner until the sinner wakes up in His likeness and is satisfied with it.     Topics: Holiness, Transformation, Righteousness It seems to me, as time goes on, that the only thing that is worth seeking for is to know and to be known by Christ -- a privilege open alone to the childlike, who, with receptivity, guilelessness, and humility, move Godward.     Topics: Humility, Christ Peace comes when there is no cloud between us and God. Peace is the consequence of forgiveness, God's removal of that which obscures His face and so breaks union with Him.     Topics: Peace The happy sequence culminating in fellowship with God is penitence, pardon, and peace -- the first we offer, the second we accept, and the third we inherit.     Topics: Peace, Fellowship A low standard of prayer means a low standard of character and a low standard of service. Those alone labor effectively among men who impetuously fling themselves upward towards God.     Topics: Prayer, Service Pray with your intelligence. Bring things to God that you have thought out and think them out again with Him. That is the secret of good judgment.     Topics: Prayer Repeatedly place your pet opinions and prejudices before God. He will surprise you by showing you that the best of them need refining and some the purification of destruction.     Topics: Prayer Just as in prayer it is not we who momentarily catch His attention, but He ours, so when we fail to hear His voice, it is not because He is not speaking so much as that we are not listening. We must recognize that all things are in God and that God is in all things, and we must learn to be very attentive, in order to bear God speaking in His ordinary tone without any special accent.     Topics: Prayer, Perseverance A man must not stop listening any more than praying when he rises from his knees. No one questions the need of times of formal address to God, but few admit in any practical way the need of quiet waiting upon God, gazing into His face, feeling for His hand, listening for His voice.     Topics: Prayer, Patience, Waiting