"Champion of the Kingdom: The Story of Philip Mauro"
Fall 2021
by Gordon Gardiner
In the compass of only fifty pages, Rev. Gordon Gardiner recounts the remarkable life, sound conversion, and faithful ministry of Rev. Philip Mauro. Gardiner was only thirteen years old when he had the privilege of hearing Rev. Mauro for the first time. Mauro’s powerful preaching of Christ made a lasting impression upon the young Gardiner.
Philip Mauro was born in St. Louis, Missouri on January 7, 1859. His parents died while he was still a boy; therefore, he and his older brother, Lewis, were sent to live with an uncle in Washington, D.C. There, they had the advantage of a fine education. Philip obtained his law degree from the law school of George Washington University and soon entered a successful career winning cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was so popular in the nation’s capital that his Alma Mater hired him to teach aspiring attorneys how to prepare legal briefs to be presented to the high court.
Philip married Emily Rockwood in 1882 and the happy couple was blessed with two lovely daughters. Brought up in the Presbyterian tradition, they became members of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in D.C. Mauro owned homes and offices both in D.C. and in New York City.
His life, success, wealth, influence, homes, and family were the envy of multitudes of Americans. But Philip was a very unhappy man. He had listened to hundreds of sermons, yet he was in gross darkness regarding the meaning of life.
In 1898, an event occurred that shook the earth beneath him. His law partner, Anthony Pollok, took his wife and children on vacation to Paris. They begged Mauro and his family to go with them. For some unknown reason Philip said, “You folks go ahead and in a short time we will come and join you in Paris.” Not many days after, he read the shocking news that on July 4 his partner’s ship sank drowning all 562 passengers! Thus, in the Providence of God the Mauro family was spared. But why?
Philip was spending his life merely for pleasure and accumulating wealth. Not being satisfied, he was prone to depressing and gloomy thoughts. The prospects before him were unspeakably dark and forbidding. Such was his condition on “the never-to be-forgotten-evening” which he experienced in New York City during the spring of 1903. He wrote, “I strolled out in my usual unhappy frame of mind to seek diversion at a theatre on Broadway Street. This purpose carried me as far as the ticket line, but an unseen hand turned me aside, and the next thing that I remember was hearing a faint sound of singing fully a mile away. The sound emanated from a plain and unattractive building bearing the sign ‘Gospel Tabernacle.’ I took a seat and remained through the meeting. I was not much impressed by the service, but as I was leaving several people greeted me with pleasant words and one man inquired about my spiritual condition.”
Although these people were on a social grade below him, Mauro felt irresistibly drawn to the preaching of the Presbyterian minister, A. B. Simpson. On the evening of May 24, 1903, with counsel from the man that had asked about his soul, Philip was compelled by the Holy Spirit to fall upon his face in prayer where he remained until midnight. Upon leaving, Philip was a man changed forever.
Mauro was converted in a meeting that was greatly influenced by dispensationalism, but his careful study of the Bible gradually delivered him from those errors. Like his contemporary A. W. Pink, having authored many books he was compelled by his conscience years later to largely revise some of them. The Lord used both Pink and Mauro to deliver multitudes from the blindness of Arminian dispensationalism.
Philip Mauro became a champion of the faith. With his legal and scientific background, he became a prolific writer and conference speaker. One of his most notable feats was preparing the brief used at the Tennessee-Scopes trial in 1925 to prohibit evolution being taught in schools. He was also able to share the gospel of Christ to a wide range of people, including Thomas Edison, whom he met in Edison's eightieth year.
Although we cannot endorse every fine point of this man of God, we can rejoice in Mauro's powerful books exposing evolution, supporting the King James Version, and a biblical understanding of holiness.
This out-of-print book can be freely read at: philipmauro.net or purchased at Rare Christian Books for $6.99 (rarechristianbooks.com).