The Marquis of Montrose, on the way to his execution, put his thoughts in verse. Pope attempted to write an essay on the immortality of the soul, and his last words were, "There is nothing which is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and friendship itself is only a part of virtue."

"I am so weary," remarked Lawrence, as he passed away. "Joy," was the last word of Mrs. Hannah Moor. "Happy," that of Sir James MacIntosh, the historian. "What is the square of twelve," Delazny, the great mathematician, was asked by one of his friends about his dying bed, when he had gone so far that he failed to recognize any one about him. But he mechanically answered, "One hundred and forty-four."

The instance of Lord Tenderden, a famous English Judge, is no less wonderful. He had been delirious for some time, and talking incoherently. But a few moments before his death, slowly raising himself in bed, and, as usual in summing up his charge in big jury cases, was heard to exclaim, And now, gentlemen, you may consider your verdict," and fell back dead. Justice Talfour performed his duties to the last. He died in the midst of delivering a charge to the grand jury at Stratford, defining the needs for a close connection between the rich and the poor. He was saying that which is wan'ed is to bind together the bursting bonds of the different classes of this country, is not kindness but sympathy, when he was struck with apoplexy. "Good day and adieu," said Boileau, who was seized by an attack of dropsy, to a friend who had called upon him, "It will be a long adieu," and then expired.

Dickens, while at work upon his last work, had the power come upon him which resulted in his death, and when his sister-in-law requested him to lie down, he uttered dist nctively; "Yes, on the ground," slid from her arms to the floor, and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" was never finished.*

*NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. Until he had been in the spirit world for some time, when he came back and finished it through a medium. The book, with the story completed, can be had by sending to the Banner of Light.

"Get me off, Charles," said the great actor, Edwin Kean, to his son, in a scene of his most famous play, “I am dying,” and the curtain fell upon him for the last time. "I am ready," remarked Charles Matthews, another actor, in answer to his final call, which reminds one greatly of the last words of Colonel Newcomb, put into his mouth by Thackeray. Phelps, another actor of renown, had a superstitious horror of the word farewell. While he was acting Wolsey and uttering the sentence continuing, "Farewell, a long farewell to al my greatness," he broke down and expired before the end of the play. "When I am dead, fire a gun over me, were the last words of a noted Indian chief who died at Washington, showing that vanity is not always forgotten.

Bill Poole, a famous pugilist was patriotic to the end, dying far away in Australia under the flag of another country, he said, "I die a true American." "My only reg et is that I have but one life to lose for my country," was the soulstirring words uttered by one of the bravest patriots that ever lived, Nathan Hale, a captain in the Continental Army in the war of the Revolution, who had been arrested as a spy within the British lines, spoke then in reply to the usual questions of the General commanding, if there was any reason why the execution should not go on. The latter immediately gave the order to string the rebel up. "Don't give up the ship," was the last command of Captain Lawrence in the memorable combat of the Chesapeake and Shannon, and although the ship had to he given up, these words served as a watchword to American seamen in many hard-fought battles afterwards.

"I am not going to die, am I?" Charlotte Bronte asked her husband, after a few short months of married life. "He will not separate us so soon; we have been so happy." Which seems all the more pathetic, when her former life is taken into consideration. "Is your mind at ease?" Oliver Goldsmith was asked by his doctor, and he replied, "No, it is not."

"I feel the flowers growing over me," was the beautiful

expression of Keats on his death-bed. Joseph Addison shortly before his death, called his desolate step-son to the bedside and said, "I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die." These were his last words on earth. "How grand these rays," said Humboldt, as the sun shore brightly in his room, "they seem to beckon earth to heaven." He expired shortly after he gave utterance to these beautiful words. "My days are passing like a shadow that returns not," said Richard Hooker a few moments before his death. But his regrets seemed to be because he was called before his labors were completed and not for wasted hours. Cowper was asked how he felt on his death-bed, and he replied, "Feel, I feel unutterable despair."

A consideration of the last moments of some noted infidels is also interesting. On the last day of Voltaire's life, some hours before his dissolution, he was approached by a cure of St. Subple, who spoke to him of Jesus Christ. The philosopher, still in a stupor, opened his eyes, and with a gesture waiving him away, said, “Let me die in peace." He lingered until late in the evening. A few moments before expiring he raised himself, pressed the hand of his valet and said, "Adieu my dear Morand, I am dying!" He never spoke again. Those of Thoinas Paine were very sad. Dying alone, forsaken by friends, beset by money troubles, persecuted by hypocrites, his dying was pitiful. All efforts to convert him, even with the shadow of death facing him, were unavailing. The last deputation was waived away from his bedside with the salutation, "Give me none of that Popish stuff. Good morning, good morning." But in answer to Dr. Manly, who by curiosity asked him the question, "Do you wish to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, he answered, "I have no wish to believe on the subject." He died as he lived, true to his convictions.

But we doubt whether the last words of one great man were more pathetic than those of the dying school-master, who exclaimed with his last breath, "It grows dark, boys, you may go home."

George D. Prentice, one of the most gifted writers that ever added luster to American journalism, said, “It can not be that earth is man's only abiding place. It can not be that our life is a bubble cast up by the oracle of eternity to float a moment upon the waves and sink into nothingness, else why these high and glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our hearts, forever wondering unsatisfied? Why is it that the rainbow and the clouds come over us with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off to leave us to muse upon their loveliness?" "Why is it that the stars, which hold their midnight festival around the midnight throne, are set above the grasp of our limited faculties, forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory?" And finally, "Why is it that the bright forms of human beauty are presented to our view and taken from us, leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts? We were born for a higher destiny than earth. There is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like the islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beautiful beings which pass before us will forever remain in our presence."

Death has no terror to the just and good man, and Modern Spiritualism is here for the express purpose of enlightening the people that so-called death is only a new birth up into a higher life.

The plan of salvation through nature's God is to lift up through the change called death into higher and purer elements. It has been my good fortune to have a number of callers from those that have once lived here on this earth. I had no difficulty in recognizing them, and I can truly say that the greeting was mutual, and that we congratulated each other that we could meet at the half-way house without the fate of being imprisoned, burnt at the stake, or hung by the neck.

We read in the Bible that angels rejoice when one sinner repents. No wonder at that. When a man resolves to lead

a better life, all of his departed friends understand it, and, without doubt, there is great rejoicing among them. The whole upper country is filled with people that have lived here, and doubtless they have all, at some time in their lives, made these same resolves. They may not have all lived up to their resolves. Circumstances and conditions may have had something to do to prevent their doing just as well as they tried to do, consequently they are forgiven, and there is more rejoicing in heaven.

He who hardens his heart against a criminal and is not willing to forgive him, commits as great a sin as the criminal has. The ones that are free from sin are the ones that should be the most forgiving.