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'. . . the Negro priest of longest service in the Episcopal Church is one of the most valuable social reformers of the day, the Rev. H. L. Phillips of Philadelphia.'

THE NEGRO CHURCH: Report of a Social Study made under the direction of Atlanta University;together with the Proceedings of the Eighth Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems,held at Atlanta University, May 26th, 1903, EDITED BY W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE CONFERENCE, The Atlanta University Press, Atlanta, Ga.1903

After his ordination Henry Phillips served for a little over a year at the Curch of St Thomas, near 5th and Walnut Streets. He describes it as an 'aristocratic' church, and DuBois said it represented 'the most cultured and wealthiest of the Negro population and the Philadelphia born residents'. He began his first service at the Church promptly at 10.30 am, only to be told by the organist afterwards that should have waited until she played a voluntary when there were enough people in the congregation for the service to start. Phillips said that his Fairfield training could not accept that, and the congregation happily accepted services that started on time thereafter. He only stayed at St Thomas for about 17 months, and was married in the Church in December 1875.

He had hoped to be able to go as a missionary to Liberia, or Haiti, but neither proved possible. He received offers of cures in the South, one in New Orleans, but he was not prepared to accept them. For a time he ran a school, which did well, but soon the opportunity turned up which decided his future. It was suugested to him that he should inquire about the possibility of becoming rector of the Church of the Crucifixion, the other 'Colored' Episcopal church in Philadelphia at the time. He was well-known to the 12 White members of the church vestry, as he had been a Sunday school teacher and lay-reader there while he was an ordinand. So he met with the rector's warden, who explained that the church owed money to the previous rector, and that there was no money to pay him; he immediately accepted the job, and remained at the Church of the Crucifixion as rector for 25 years. (Church and parish when he became rector)

In The Philadelphia Negro W.E.B. DuBois wrote in 1899 of the Church of the Crucifixion and its rector:

'The oldest of the churches is St. Thomas. Next comes the Church of the Crucifixion, over fifty years old and perhaps the most effective church organization in the city for benevolent and rescue work. It has been built up virtually by one Negro, a man of sincerity and culture, and of peculiar energy. This church carries on regular church work at Bainbridge and Eighth and at two branch missions; it helps in the Fresh Air Fund, has an ice mission, a vacation school of thirty-five children, and a parish visitor. It makes an especial feature of good music with its vested choir. One or two courses of University Extension lectures are held here each year, and there is a large beneficial and insurance society in active operation, and a Home for the Homeless on Lombard street. This church especially reaches after a class of neglected poor whom the other colored churches shun or forget and for whom there is little fellowship in white churches.'

Archdeacon Phillips and his wife visited Jamaica on several occasions, certainly in 1902, 1911 and 1922, though little reference to their visits appear in the Daily Gleaner.

  (I will only be able to complete the next page when I have more

  material on Archdeacon Phillips' career after 1902.)

'. . . the Reverend Phillips of the Church of the Crucifixion, which had become since its modest beginning half a century earlier one of the great cultural and spiritual forces among black Episcopalians in South Philadelphia'  Marian Anderson: A Singer's Journey by Allan Keiler, 2000