Phillips Brooks's sermons were wonderful, but his work among the sick and the poor was more wonderful still. He carried help and good cheer with him every day. The more good he did, the happier he grew himself. His laugh rang out like a boy's. By the time he was made Bishop, he was so merry that he could hardly contain himself. He helped poor men find work; he held sick children while their mothers rested; he coaxed young men away from bad habits, and, like his Master, he went about doing good. He did not look sober or bothered with all this, either. There was always a smile on his face. Phillips Brooks had no wife or children but several nieces. At his home, on Clarendon Street, he kept a doll, a music-box, and many toys for them to play with. Every little while, when he was all tired out with his preaching and his cheering-up work, he would take a long trip to some distant country, and from all these strange places he would write letters to these nieces which made them nearly explode with laughter when their mothers read them aloud. All the funny sights in Venice were described, and the stories about the children in India made the eyes of Susie and Gertrude Brooks open their widest. At the end of almost every letter he would charge the little girls "not to forget their Uncle Phillips." As if any one who had ever known Bishop Brooks _could_ forget him! But Christmas time was the best of all for these little girls. Their uncle Phillips took them right along with him to buy the presents for the whole family. This would be weeks and weeks before it was time for Santa Claus, so he would make them promise not to lisp a word of what was in the packages that arrived at the rectory. They loved sharing secrets with him and would not have told one for any money. That was a strange thing about Phillips Brooks--he made people trust-worthy. He always believed the best of every one, and no one wanted to disappoint him. Sometimes when the girls and their uncle started on one of these entrancing shopping tours, it did seem as if they would never reach the shops. So many passers-by wanted a word with the great preacher they had to halt every other minute. I have no doubt his smile was as sunny for the Irish scrub-woman who hurried after him to ask a favor as it had been for good Queen Victoria when she thanked him for preaching her a sermon in the Royal Chapel at Windsor Castle. Because his heart was filled with love and sympathy, Phillips Brooks left the world better and happier than he found it. Now, if every one who passes his statue at Trinity Church should say: "I really must do some kind, generous thing myself, each day in the week," there would be sort of a Christmassy feeling all the year round, and we should keep a little of the sunshine which the Bishop of Massachusetts shed, still shining. SAMUEL CLEMENS Better Known as MARK TWAIN