The child knew and loved him, and had always delighted to meet him. "O mamma!" she replied, "how happy the angels will be!"
On Thursday, Jan. 26, Bishop Brooks was buried. No other funeral was ever like it in Boston. At 7.45 in the morning the coffin was borne from the bishop's residence, at the corner of Clarendon and Newbury Streets, to the vestibule of Trinity Church, accompanied by a guard of the Loyal Legion, of which Phillips Brooks was chaplain. The colors of the Loyal Legion covered the coffin, on which lay some Easter lilies among palms.
It is estimated that from eight to eleven o'clock twelve or fifteen thousand persons passed by the body as it lay in state, and looked once more upon the face of the man they loved and honored. A heavy plate glass was over the face, and the coffin was hermetically sealed.
Rich and poor, children and adults, sobbed as they passed on. A gray-haired and very poorly dressed woman drew a cluster of roses from her bosom, and, with tears flowing down her cheeks, laid them reverently upon the casket.
A pale-faced woman, with a little boy scantily dressed for the winter weather, who could not enter the church for the crowd, begged a policeman to let her in. He replied brusquely, telling her to get into line.
"Oh, but I must see him once more!" she sobbed; "he paid for the operation which gave sight to my boy, and I must see him again."
The people about her were moved by her entreaty, and an usher quietly told the officer to allow the mother and her child to come in.
Meantime Trinity Church had become filled with the various delegations,—from Harvard College, Boston University, the Governor and Committee of the Legislature, clergymen from a distance, theological schools, officers of the Young Men's Christian Association and Young Men's Christian Union, and various other organizations.
The church was beautifully decorated. At the back of the chancel was an arch of laurel, fifteen feet high and nine feet wide, with a spruce-tree eight feet high on each side. In front of this was a tall cross of Easter lilies, and the baptismal font was filled with the same flowers. Roses and lilies sent by friends were heaped everywhere, although a request had been made that no flowers should be sent.