Charles Phillips

Charles Phillips was a member of the Church Mission Society (CMS) based in the Lagos Colony who became Bishop of Ondo. Early career Charles Phillips was the son of an Egba former slave also called Charles Phillips who returned from Sierra Leone to work as a catechist at Ijaye. Phillips gained his secondary education at the CMS Training Institution at Abeokuta. He was taught by G.F. Buhler, who served from 1857 to 1864. For twelve years Phillips was catechist at Breadfruit Church in Lagos. Phillips was ordained as a Native deacon on 5 March 1876, with Daniel Coker and Nathaniel Johnson. In 1873 Captain Glover, the Governor of Lagos colony, helped to restore the deposed king of Ondo to his throne. In gratitude, the king invited the CMS to establish a mission in his city. The mission was opened two years later. In January 1877 Phillips took charge as pastor at Ondo. Pastor Conversion of the "heathen" Yoruba was helped by similarities or analogies between Christianity and the traditional Yoruba religion. In 1878 Phillips wrote of an old woman who became convinced that "prayer is more efficacious than sacrifice" after her husband and her brother recovered from illness. On the other hand, Phillips reported that "the generality of our Lagos young men begin to think that polygamy is not opposed to the principles of Christianity".