Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1884 — The Last Match. [ARTICLE]

The Last Match.

Old soldiers who remember the picket line and the rifle pit, old hunters and even the experienced picnicker, know well what it is to be reduced to the last matfib. That sole occupant of the pocket match-safe ft the last chapce for a fire, for a torch in the thick darkness, for a savory meal or a dish of tea, for a flash of light on a watch-face or a compass. So, too; it may be all that interposes between the destruction and the deliverance of a lost or shipwrecked band. _ Few incidents of the famous Greely expedition to the northern seas make so vivid an impression upon the mind as one recorded by Sergt. George B. Bice, who did not live to return to his home and friends. A slfidge parly was ’ detailed to visit and examine Hall’s Rest, on the coast of Greenland. In the course of this expedition the stock of matches that the men had brought was reduced to one. It was a miserably cold evening, when the shivering group of men gathered in their damp tent to watch the attempt to ignite, by this single match, the spirit lamp upon which their lives depended. The lamp once lighted, there was warmth and warm food at their command; the lamp unlighted, there was not vital force left in the party to resist the fatal chill of the arctic night. With what breathless interest the experiment was watched we can scarcely imagine. “The match/’ wrote Sergt. Rice, in his diary, “ snapped, crackled, and showed a little flame which, by dextrous management, vyas communieate<l to the wood and triumphantly applied to the wick of the spirit lamp. But the wick is wet- from the falling moisture of the tent! It sputters—fizzles—the match itself is burned tipto the benumbed finger of the holder, when one of the agonized spectators springs from his bag, and, with admirable presence of mind, withdraws from his breastpocket a document, which he holds to the expiring match in time to perpetuate its fire. They are saved!” But this is not all the story. The Sergeantintimates that the “document” that saved their lives was far more precious than anything documentary. It ■was the last fond and tender epistle which its owner had received from his sweetheart before sailing. He had worn it as an amulet next his heart, and would have died rather than surrender it at any ordinary call. To save his comrades he drew it forth, and gave it to nourish the flame which alone could warm them back to life. Sergt. Bice concludes the day’s entry by expressing the. wish that the burning of the letter to assist the match made oil earth may conduce to the consummation of the “match made in dieaven.” Who-wiUmot lament that the worthy and witty soldier did not survive to witness the realization of his de-sire?—-Sunday Mail;