CHAPTER I.

TRANSITION-PARTING WORDS OF GREAT MEN.

The feeling of unrest that is being felt all over the land can not be accounted for in any other way, except that a wave of spiritual powers is now sweeping with great force from one end of the earth to the other. So visibly is this power felt that the hardy yeomanry are susceptible to its influence.

The poor ask for higher wages, in order that they may provide better food and clothes for their wives and children. They are doing all they can to organize themselves into a brotherhood of working men. When this is accomplished, and they become in harmony with themselves, and have full confidence with their leaders, we may look for a crash to come that may startle the world from center to circumfer

ence.

The working-man feels that he is not paid in proportion to the amount of money his employer is hoarding up from his daily toils. Now this is all easily enough proven from the fact that there is a large accumulation of wealth in all civilized parts of the land. The ones that labor are the ones that fill the rich man's pockets with gold. The fruits of toil support the idler in ease, fine clothes, and high living. Champagne and Havana cigars are bought and paid for by the sweat of the laboring man's brow. Wine and rich food

excite the animal nature of man, and the result is that virtue is sold at a discount.

The priest chews fine tobacco and smokes the best Havana cigars. He buys the best champagne, and excuses himself by saying, "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake."

The public schools of this country are of a divine nature, and should be held sacred by every American citizen. Catholicism, carried out as the Pope intends it shall be in this country, would cast a moral blight upon the people, and in the course of time we would, as a nation, become barbarians, and the days of progression would come to an end.

This great effort that they are making to get laws enacted that they shall not be taxed to support public schools, has the stamp of h―l upon it, and plainly shows to what length they will go to carry out their damnable principles. To say they are actuated by any good motives, would be giving credit for being better than they are.

Knowledge, or progressive thought, is just what they do not intend-if they can help it—the people of this country shall enjoy. The height of priestly cunning is to keep the people, or at least the masses of them, ignorant of law and theology.

In the days of slavery in this country the negro was told he was far better than the poor white people. He was not allowed to associate with them.

Catholic priests first settled in Florida and Louisiana. They had everything their own way. The best thing to do was to keep the people in ignorance, in order to keep them good Catholics.

This they effectually carried out, and to this day a majority of them can neither read nor write. The man in priestly garb, who will under the instruction of the Pope in any way try to stop the wheel of progress in this free America, should be looked upon as a moral blight, and be deprived the privilege of being a citizen of this country.

Eternal progression is God's holy law, and the man who

dares to oppose it is guilty of a base crime, and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Diligent studies in the arts and sciences are what fit man for life beyond the grave. The priest that teaches that ignorance is bliss, should be held responsible for all the crimes committed in America.

If the people were educated as they should be, crime would be among the things of the past, and virtue, honor, and chastity would be upheld in every town and city. Catholicism and Christianity have held dominant sway long enough to have educated the people up to so high a standpoint that they would not think of crime in any form.

If the people had been instructed by the high priests of the land that for man in any way to do his brother bodily harm, was doing himself a greater harm, he would have been taught the true way to live in this life, and to enjoy true happiness in the next life.

Ingersoll once remarked, "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights." "We cry a'oud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word, but in the night of death Hope sees a star, and listening Love can hear the rustle of a wing."

Some of the greatest men the world has ever seen—men who have startled their fellow-men by their power, have been known to melt to tears on the approach of death. Others are pleased and delighted at the memories of their lives and how much they have to be thankful for.

Generals have been known to be fighting their battles over again; statesmen uttering incoherent remarks regarding their last public duties; judges summoning up some charge to a jury; lawyers arguing some case. Washington, calmly reviewing the past and forecasting the future, with his finger on his pulse awaiting the summons of the grim messenger, answered, ""Tis well."

Napoleon, the greatest General the world has ever seen, an exile upon the dreary rock of St. Helena, unattended and

alone, deprived even of the consolation of his brother exiles, save the friendship of a priest sent there by his enemies, shortly before his death, saw a beautiful image of his deserted wife, Josephine, which seemed to forgive him the many pains he had caused her. But his last thoughts were of the army. A few moments before his death he raised himself up in his bed and savagely uttered the words: "Tete d armee," and then lasped into unconsciousness.

While William Pitt, his greatest enemy, realizing that some of his plans had miscarried, expired with the ominous words, "My country, how I love my country," upon his dying lips. They fly, they fly," were the words that Wolf, he hero of Quebec, heard one of his lieutenants exclaim as he lay mortally wounded upon the field of battle, and bravely replied, "God be praised, I shall die happy."

While Montcalm, the unsuccessful French General, having been told that his end was near, slowly uttered, "So much better, I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." "I think," said the great Nelson, "that I have done my duty," as the guns were thundering over his head proclaiming the victory of Trafalgar.

Some have been known to be jolly and even witty in their last moments. Thus, Sir Thomas Moore, observing the weakness of the scaffold upon which he was to be executed, remarked, "I pray thee, see me safe. But for my coming down, I can shift for myself." "I have heard it said that the execution is very good, and I have a little neck," said that brave little woman, Anne Boleyn, as she put her hands around her neck and laughed most heartily. "God bless you," were the dying words of Dr. Johnson, who addressed them to a handsome young layd at his bedside.

Wadsworth and Edmund Burk are also credited with the same parting expression. "Wonderful, wonderful, this death,” said Etty, the painter, shortly before he expired. Hogarth, another celebrated artist, portrayed the end of all things and then destroyed it, remarking, "I have finished."

"Dying, dying," said Thomas Hood, just before the end,

and it is said that he thus expressed gratitude for coming rest. "I am going on a long journey," said Frank Buckland, the great naturalist, as he was dying, "and I shall see many strange animals by the way." How touching were Douglas Jerrold's last words, "I feel as one who is watching and waiting."

Mozart wrote his requiem with a conviction that he was creating a monument to his genius as well as his own remains: "Did I not tell you truly that it was for myself that I composed this death chant," were the words that he uttered as he mused over it while dying. And Berrick, the famous wood engraver, was last employed upon a presentation of the old horse waiting for death.

Some have thought of the scenes that last agitated them. "Remember," was the last word of the unhappy Charles the While Foster exclaimed, "No home rule."

First.

And the actor Rabelais lowly murmured, "Drop the curtain, the farce is played out." "I die learning," was the noble utterance of J. R. Greene on his death-bed. Goethe was heard to murmur something about a beautiful face and exclaim, "More light," as he was dying.

And the Earl of Beaconsfield, shortly before his death, raised himself in bed and took the position he was accustomed to take while speaking, but his lips moved in silence, as he was dying. "Happy, supremely happy," Lord Lyndhurst exclaimed, when he was dying, and Swift said, "I am what I am; I am what I am," as he passed away. "Sleep, I am asleep already; I am talking in my sleep," was the expression of Daniel Webster on the night of his death.

Some have recited and even composed verses in their last moments. So De Witt uttered an ode in one of the books of Horace amid the severe agonies received at the hands of his executioners. And it is said that Licien, when his veins were opened by the cruel order of Nero, recited a passage from one of his poems in which he had described the wounds of a dying soldier. Waller was heard to repeat some lines of Virgil.