Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1881 — Last Dying words. [ARTICLE]

Last Dying words.

The London Globe says: “Help.me!” are melancholy words. Uttered by the man whoae wMMnnoment before was paramount in the largest Empire on earth, and to whom more than 85,000,000 of fellow-creat-were in subjection. Yet these were, We are told, the last words of the late Emperor, after the rat al bomb had ddne the work disigned Tor it, on the banks of the Catherine, canal. What words were last spoken Sy men who died in the field, or on the scaffold, or in bed, have been sufficiently noted by history. Many suefe n< doubtless owe to the seal of frtehds auxious for the final utterance in apcord with the churaa|ar of. Che deceased. Even when, last words are beyond questfohwuthperishes on the scaffold; the Mirabeau ft the Goethe who dies In his bed; ffe|en #ie SiiQUip Sydney or the Bfr Thomas Picton who Is killed in battle, J meets fatewith some degree PysMepnnot be said to have reached their Md unexpectedly. In the case of those to whom death comes Jn the

| shaj'O of an assassin there is, on the contrary, an element of surprise xh&dr ; .gives to the last words, often uttered , In a stupefied and unconscious state, c peculiavtatereat. . The cry for help of the dead Emperor was a cry natural and not surprising. It proved kindred between an autocrat and the humblest peasant in Russia. There have, however, been menin ancient and in modern times whose last words In similar circumstanoes have shown the character of the speaker with as much distinctness as any of the acts of their lives. That Brutus was among the conspirators against his life, was the cardinal consideration'- with Caesar when a Senate drew their daggers against him. It is said that after Casca had stabbed him in the neck, this greatest of the ancients nobly resisted. When Cassius, with fori<m< rage, wounded him in the head, hi still continued to struggle. Rut when he saw Brutus aim a dagger at his heart, the hero ceased to contend with his assassins. “ And thou. Brutus!” he muttered, as he c«v«redhie face, and fetiL Have not these last words indescribable pathos for all time. The concern of the man who through life had been true to friends was not that he was to die, but that one of his friends should participate in his murder. Cicero, when, after the formation of the 8 cond Triumvirate, and the triumph of their party, he found his name on the bloody list of proscrition, did not show, nor could he be expected to show, that firmness in face of death which a man of war from youth, such as Cesar, is expected to possess. At first he meant to kil* himself in the house of Octavianus; but his courage failed him. He was not made of such stuff as his contemporary Cato, who fell on his own sword; and who, when his friends, taking advantage of his fainting, replaced the intestines that had fallen out, and sewed up the wound, tore them open on coming to himself. He fled. Still in the final crisis, he comported himself with dignity. When the assassins rushed at the litter in which he was being carried he stretched out his neck and •xalaimed, “Strike,” with more eloquence than he had ever before exhibited, and received the fatal stroke without shrinking.

In all history modern as well as. ancient, profane as well as sacred, innumerable instances found of men who have exhibited what the First Napolton called “two o’clock in the morning courage” In the presence of the assassin. On the evening of that Dereinbß- di/, InXITD, when the oomtiers of Henry 11. arrived at Canterbury, and found Thomas a’Becket at vespers lu the cathebrahttfe prelate's last words were in keeping with his life. As the assassins advanced towards him with their drawn swords, he exclaimed th 4. he died for the cause of God, and in defense of the rights of the church; and, he added, “1 charge y°u> in the name of the Almighty, to-do no hurt to any other here, for none have any concern in the late transactions.” Perhaps the most noble last words ever spoken were those uttered by William the Bflent, the founder of Dutch liberty. Unlike Counts Egmond and Hoorn, he eseßped the scaffold and perished by the hand of a mean assassin. When Balthazar Gerard, after having obtained an introduction, on the plea of being a messenger of mercy, suddenly turned and shot the Prince with a pistol loaded with three bullets, William fell, ejaculating, “My God! have mercy upon me and Thy poor people!” Taken by surprise and sent to his reckoning without warning, his concern was yet With the country to which his life had been devoted and whose liberties he had secured, and when it had to be left to the care of others, his thought was of his country, and “my God! have mercy upon me and Thy poor people” were the very words that might have been expected from the great benefactor who, when the Prince made a progress through Holland and Friesland, was received by the peasants as “Father William.’.’