Phillips, William (1). a Christian philanthropist, was born in Boston April 10, 1750. Owing to feeble health, he was prevented from receiving many education- al advantages. He entered upon mercantile pursuits with his father, from whom he received a large fortune at his death. In 1772 he made a profession of religion ; in 1794 he was made a deacon of Old South Church, Bos- ton, where he officiated until his death, May 26, 1817. He was highly respected by the community at large, and was influential in all the affairs of State and Church. He was at one time the lieutenant-governor of his na- tive state. He was also actively engaged in philan- thropic labors, and was at his death president of the Massachusetts Bible Society. His charities were very extensive, and during a scries of vears amounted to from $8000 to $11,000. He bequeathed $15,000 to Phillips Academy; $10,000 to the theological institution at Andover; to the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, the Massachusetts Bible Society, the Foreign Mission Board, the Congregational Society, the Educational Society, and the Massachusetts General Hospital, each $5000 ; to the Medical Dispensary $3000 ; to the Female Asylum, and the Asylum for Boys, each $2000. See Allen. Diet, of A mer. Biog. s. v.
Phillips, William (2), a minister of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, was born in Jessamine County, Ky., May 7, 1797. Even as a youth he exhibited tal- ents of a superior order. He received a carefid and pious training, but he did not as a young man make any out- ward profession of religion ; and after entering political life, and while engaged for several years as a successful teacher, he became even less considerate of his higher and immortal interests, and sought refuge from the accusations of conscience in the dark and cheerless regions of infidelity. His early impressions of relig- ious truth were, however, strong and abiding, and he was finally converted, and deeply impressed with the idea that he was called of God to enter the Christian ministry. Dec. 27, 1828, he was licensed as a local
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preacher. In the fall of 1831 lie was received into the Kentucky ( ionference. He was appointed consecutively t.i the Winchester • lircuit, Lexington < lircuit, and New- port ami Covington stations. He was also assistant editor of the Western Christian Advocate, serving for cue year by appointment of the Hook Committee, and then by vote of the I leneral Conference <>t 1836. Among his numerous contributions i<> thai journal was a series of articles on the peculiar tenets of Alexander Camp- hell, which excited very considerable attention. These were republished, by request of the Ohio Conference.
after Mr. Phillips's death, which occurred June 22, 1836,
onlv a few weeks after his election bv the General Con- ference. (J.H.W.)
Phillips, William Wirt, D.D., a Preshyterian divine, was born in Montgomery < Jounty, N. Y.. Sept 23, 1796. lie graduated at Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.,in 1812; completed a three years' course in the Associate Reformed Theological Seminary. New York. and afterwards spenl a year in the theological semina- ry at New Brunswick, X..I.. under the instruction of Eev. Dr. Livingston; was licensed by the New Bruns- wick Classis of the Reformed Dutch Church, and in April. 1818, was ordained and installed pastor of Pearl Street Presbyterian ( !hurch, New York ( !ity. From this church he was called to the First Presbyterian Church, New York. The congregation having disposed of their building and ground in Wall Street, in .May. 1844, the corner-stone of the building on Fifth Avenue, near Twelfth Street, was laid in the following autumn, and soon after completed. Dr. Phillips was their beloved pastor for a period of nearly forty years; he was active- ly engaged in the discharge of his ministerial duties until ah 'lit four weeks before his death, which occurred March 20, I860. Dr. Phillips was a man of the utmost simplicity of character; a sound and able preacher of the Gospel, whose aim in the pulpit was to hold forth the Word of Life in all its purity, and to impress it with solemnity U] the hearts of all his hearers. He was
moderator of the General Assembly which met at Pitts- burgh in 1835, and for many years previous to his death he was the presiding officer of the Hoard of Foreign Missions. IK- was also president of the Board of Pub- lication; a trustee of Princeton College ami Seminary; a director of the Sailors' Snug Harbor, and several other benevolent institutions. See Wilson, Presb. Hist. Alma- nac, L866,p. 160; Congreg. Quar. 1859, p. L33. (J. LS.)
Philfl ipotts, Henry, D.D., an English prelate of much note, was the son of a respectable hotel-keeper of Gloucester, and was horn in that city in 1777. At the age of fifteen he was elected to a scholarship at Corpus < Ihristi » lollege, < Oxford, and having taken the degree of B. A., gained the chancellor's prize for an English essay in 17!».*>. He was elected in the following year to a fel- lowship at Magdalen College, which he vacated on his marriage in 1804 with Miss Surtees, a niece of the late lord chancellor Eldon. In 1806 he became chaplain to Dr. Barrington, bishop of Durham, and in that capacity distinguished himself by a controversy which he main- tained against the learned |; an Catholic historian of