"O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home;"
was sung. Copies of it had been distributed among the people. Three
cornetists led the singing.
It was an hour never to be forgotten. Eyes unused to tears were wet that
day.
The funeral procession of fifty carriages then moved towards Mount
Auburn, across Harvard Bridge, through a line of thousands of people.
Places of business throughout the city were closed, and the bells upon
the churches and public buildings in Boston and other cities were
tolled.
When the head of the procession reached Beck Hall, Cambridge, the
university bell began tolling, with the old bell in Harvard Hall, and
the bells of Christ Church, chiming,--
"Heaven's morning breaks
And earth's vain shadows flee."
Two thousand college students, standing several deep, with heads
uncovered, were formed in two lines from the University building to the
West Gate. Through their ranks, entering from Harvard Street, the body
of their beloved preacher was borne. "Never in all our college life,"
writes Dr. McKenzie, "has there been a burial like his."
From the college grounds the procession moved to Mount Auburn, where the
brothers, John and Arthur, conducted the services. Flowers, which the
dead bishop loved, lay everywhere upon the pure, white snow,--lilies,
roses, carnations, and sheaves of wheat. The fence about the family lot
was hung with ivy and violets tied with purple ribbon.
The crowd drew aside to let three weeping women look into the open
grave, before the dirt fell upon the coffin. They were three
sisters,--servants who had long ministered in the bishop's home, and
whose devotion had been repaid by constant appreciation and kindness.
The world went back to its work, but we are never the same after a great
life has touched our own. Phillips Brooks said in his sermon on
"Withheld Completion of Life," "The ideal life is in our blood, and
never will be still. We feel the thing we ought to be beating beneath
the thing we are. Every time we see a man who has attained our human
ideal a little more fully than we have, it awakens our languid blood and
fills us with new longings."
All who ever knew or heard Phillips Brooks will forever strive after his
unselfishness, his courage, his thoughtfulness, his eagerness to make
the world better.
Bishop William Lawrence, who succeeded Phillips Brooks, wrote of him in
the March-April, 1893, _Andover Review_, "When all has been said about
his eloquence, his mastery of language, and his tumult of thought, we
are turned back to the thought that the sermons were great because the
man was great. His was a great soul. He stood above us; he moved in
higher realms of thought and life; he had a wider sweep of spiritual
vision; he was gigantic. And yet he was so completely one of us, so
sympathetic, childlike, and naturally simple, that it was often only by
an effort of thought that we could realize that he was great. Kingly in
character, we buried him like a king."
Memorial services were held in scores of churches; in Boston, in Lowell,
in Worcester, in New York, in Maine, in Rhode Island, and elsewhere. At
the old South Church in Boston, Protestants and Roman Catholics united
in the service.
The Rev. Dr. Philip S. Moxom of the First Baptist Church well said of
Phillips Brooks, "He was a loyal Episcopalian in the very best sense in
which a man can be loyal to the church of his choice; but he was not and
could not be confined in the Episcopal Church. He belonged to no church
or party or sect; rather he belonged to all churches and parties and
sects in so far as they represent elemental truths and express elemental
sympathies. The Congregationalists claimed him, the Unitarians claimed
him, the Baptists claimed him, the Methodists claimed him; and the
claims of all were just, because beneath all these names and party
badges is the common human heart and the one universal church of God;
and to that human and that church of God, Phillips Brooks belonged." The
next generation will not remember the rush of his voice in the pulpit,
or the warm clasp of his hand, or his kindling eye, but his influence
will go on forever.
As he himself said, "He whose life grows abundant grows into sympathy
with the lives of fellow-men, as when one pool among the many on the
seashore rocks fills itself full, it overflows, and becomes one with the
other pools, making them also one with each other all over the broad
expanse."
For such a life there are no seashore limits; no limits of time or
space. His words will have fulfilment. We shall "see him in the
morning."
Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton's Famous Books.
"_The most interesting books to me are the histories of individuals
and individual minds, all autobiographies, and the like. This is my
favorite reading._"--H. W. Longfellow.
"_Mrs. Bolton never fails to interest and instruct her
readers._"--Chicago Inter-Ocean.
"_Always written in a bright and fresh style._"--Boston Home
Journal.
"_Readable without inaccuracy._"--Boston Post.