That the newly chosen bishop looked forward with no little dread to the new life one soon sees in his letters. To Mr. Paine he writes from North Andover, August 17, 1891: "My dear Bob Paine: There are six weeks before the awful day comes which sends me bishoping to the far confines of the State. I dread the pageant of that day, but it will soon be over." And to Mr. Newton, rector of the church at Pittsfield: "It will break the shock a little to have one of my earliest visits to your church, and will let me feel as if I had not wholly said good-bye to the old life. You don't know how I cling to it."

The consecration of Bishop Brooks, October 14, 1891, was a State and civic as well as an ecclesiastical event. Long before the hour of service Copley Square was crowded with people anxious to share

in some measure in the great affair. Only on the sad day of his funeral, a little over two years later, did a larger throng ever gather in that Boston square.

The end came quickly. A short two years of full life as Bishop of Massachusetts, and then a cold, a brief illness, and the passing of his spirit. His last public address was at the Woodland Park Hotel, Newton, on the occasion of a choir festival. Five days after he was dead. The funeral was held, of course, in the Trinity he had helped to build and had loved as few men love anything. From eight o'clock people of all classes thronged the church to look for the last time upon his peaceful face. The whole city was in mourning. The stock exchange and all the shops were closed. When the service within the church was over another was said in the square for the vast crowd of people who com