to Lincoln University, Chester County, Pa. He
remained there seven years, graduating in 1872, and then
entered a theological class for one year. During the second
year of his seminary life he was converted and became an
elder in the Presbyterian Church. He expected to become a
Presbyterian preacher, but in 1873 his ideas having made him
a subject to baptism, he joined the First African Baptist
Church of Richmond, Va.

For a short time he was a clerk in the postoffice at
Richmond, Va., but in 1874, having resigned his position, he
entered the service of the American Baptist Publication
Society in the State of Virginia. Having been ordained in
December, 1876, in April, 1877, he accepted the pastorship
of the Second Baptist Church of Richmond, Va., where he
succeeded in paying off the entire debt of the church. In
June, 1880, he was sent as a delegate for the Virginia
Baptist State Convention to the Baptist General Association
in session at Petersburg, and he was the first Colored
delegate received by that body. In September, 1880, he
resigned the charge of the church and went to New Orleans,
La., to commence work in the American Baptist Publication
Society's employ, but his wife's failing health caused him
to return to Virginia in 1882.

In November, 1882, he was called to the pastorship of the
Nineteenth Street Baptist Church of Washington, D. C., where
he has been ever since.

Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tenn., and State
University, Louisville, Ky., both honored him with the title
of Doctor of Divinity; while his alma mater, in June, 1883,
conferred upon him the degree of M. A.

Recently he was elected a trustee of the United Society of
Christian Endeavor, to represent the Colored Baptists of the
world.

Dr. Brooks has distinguished himself as a temperance
advocate, and for a number of years has been the Chaplain of
the Anti-Saloon League of the District of Columbia.

His article, printed some years since in the "National
Baptist" of Philadelphia, Pa., on "George Liele, the Black
Apostle," and his more recent paper on the "Beginnings of
Negro Churches in America," have won for him many praises.

For twenty-eight years Dr. Brooks has been in public life,
and his power as a speaker still gives him a