Then they clothed the dead man in his richest robes, heavy with gold and jewels. They put his pontifical staff in his hand and set him on his throne in his palace, and for three days all the world thronged to see him. There were foreign consuls, come to do honor to the wise statesman, Protestant missionaries who esteemed the great Catholic for his honesty and courage, careless young people drawn by news of the strange spectacle, and thousands upon thousands of Butrus’ beloved poor, who kissed his cold hand and prayed to him with absolute confidence that he would still be their friend and protector.
On a bright, beautiful Easter Sunday I watched his funeral procession pass through the streets of Beirut. In a way, this last journey was typical of his life and character. For the first time in many long centuries, all sects ignored their differences so that they might together do honor to the prelate who was greater than his church. Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Maronite and Armenian marched together; and as the cortège passed the little Protestant Church, its bell was tolled “in order that,” as its pastor said, “the Turkish soldiers in the barracks yonder may know that, after all, we Christians are one.”
The dead Patriarch being driven through the streets of Beirut in his gilded chariot
A summer camp in Lebanon
First came three companies of Turkish soldiers and sixty gorgeously dressed consular guards; then children from the church schools, black-robed Jesuits, humble mourners from the patriarch’s native town of Zahleh, men bearing wreaths and banners sent from sister churches; then more children singing a plaintive Arabic hymn. There were present two patriarchs of other communions, more than a dozen bishops and three hundred and fifty priests, and the solemn dignity of the procession, so different from the loud, hysterical wailing at most Syrian funerals, seemed to impress even the Moslem spectators on the housetops along the line of march.
Last of all came Butrus himself, not lying within a black-draped hearse but, as if in triumphal procession, seated in a gilded chariot hung with bright banners and wreaths of flowers. The patriarch sat upright in his gorgeous robes, his staff grasped firmly in one rigid hand and a crucifix in the other. I stood within ten feet of the chariot as it passed by, and there was nothing in the least harrowing in the sight; on the contrary, it was wonderfully dignified and impressive. I could hardly realize that the patriarch was dead; he sat there so naturally with his long gray beard resting upon his golden vestments, and his large, calm features seemed still to be animated by the vital power of his dauntless spirit.
Afterwards there were long addresses lauding the character and good deeds of the dead man; the bishops who had shortened his life said masses for the repose of his soul; and then, still clothed in his robes of state, they placed him on a throne in a vault under the pavement of the cathedral choir. There he sits in solemn, lonely grandeur, like some Eastern Barbarossa waiting for the time when the spirit of the Christ shall be re-born in the church which he so loved, for which in his own earnest way he so unceasingly labored, and for which at last he died.