Rhodes left Marietta College in Ohio to attend Cornell. He was a member of the Chi Phi fraternity, Order of the Red Cloak and the Philalatheian Society, a literary society. He served as class President for the first semester and was valedictorian at graduation.

He would go to the Philadelphia Divinity School for his Doctor of Divinity degree, graduating in 1874 and then return to Cincinnati to serve briefly as pastor at St. Paul’s church before becoming Rector of the Church of Our Savior, a position he would hold for twenty years. This was followed by another brief stint in St. Paul, Minnesota at St. John the Evangelist church before returning to his role in Cincinnati in 1901 to finish his career in ministry.