Viii.
At half-past 2, the procession moved to King's Chapel. On entering, preceding the Mayor were four men who bore a massive cross nine feet in height, composed of calla lilies, camellias, lilies of the valley, violets and other exotics. At the base, in a bed of white violets, were the words: ‘A tribute from his native city and home.’ Impressive ceremonies were held. After the response from the choir, at the close of the special invocation— ‘Almighty and ever-living God, we fly to Thee as our eternal refuge; we rest ourselves upon Thee, the Rock of ages,’ etc.—they sang Montgomery's hymn, ‘Servant of God, well done.’ The benediction followed, and the services closed with the playing of the funeral march of Mendelssohn as the assemblage moved slowly from the church. Of the grand procession to Mount Auburn, the Daily Globe said: [535]The absence of any great military or civic display would have impressed an intelligent foreigner as a strange thing in a funeral ceremony of a great public character. What there was of these, however, was eminently appropriate for the obsequies of the great Senator whose efforts in the cause of peace were so well supplemented by his conflicts for the equality of human rights. The chiefs of the State in present and in former years, the men most eminent in its councils, and those who stand highest in intellect and culture, bore the pall of the most illustrious representative whom Massachusetts for many years has had in the assembly of the nation. Behind them came the representatives of the dusky race, for whom Charles Sumner battled and suffered, and in whose cause he laid down his life. No gorgeous display of military pomp and pride, such as signalized the obsequies of Napoleon, or Wellington, or Nelson, could have had a tithe of the significance of the presence of these representatives of an enfranchised race, mourning the loss of their friend and benefactor. As the procession passed from the capitol, in whose Doric Hall, hung with the torn and tattered flags of the conflict in which he was a martyr, the great Senator laid in state on his return to deliver up the trust confided to him by his beloved Commonwealth, there were sad yet glorious memories of how nobly his life-work had been performed. The old stone chapel, with its associations of colonial days, received, with fitting tribute of honor and love, the mortal remains of a kinglier nature than any with which its historic walls were ever associated, and the dirge of the band without, seemed the echo to the waiting populace of the solemn music that pealed through the venerable edifice. Fitting in their impressive simplicity were these funeral services, and when the tolling bells throughout the city heralded the passage of the procession to Mount Auburn, there was a sad significance suggested by the places through which it passed. By the fairest and the stateliest abodes of the city of his birth, whose social and intellectual attractions were, though so highly prized, less to him than the rights of the humblest negro; past the cherished scenes of his collegiate life and legal study, where he laid the foundations of the scholarship and culture which adorned his later life, the mortal remains of Charles Sumner were borne. His dear alma mater, for whom he had a scholar's affection and a filial love, may well have sighed as all that was mortal of her favorite son passed by her to the tomb. In the shades of Mount Auburn, he sleeps well; his earthly work all done, his memory a precious legacy to the people of the city of his birth, to the State, the nation [536] and the world, and his example a needed stimulus to carry on the work which he so worthily began.
