Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1863-09-02
"He Died Rich. I"

People said this everywhere, when the
morning papers announced the death of
John Russell, President of the - Bank.
They said 1t on Wall street, where they
count wealth by hundreds of thousands,
and they said it in elegant parlors, and
by luxuriant breakfast tables, all over the
squares and avenues .the great city !;
they SAID it. too, in dark alleys and saualid
homes where all his thousands could not
buy back to the millionaire one hour of
he life that was to them burden and a
misery. Everywhere it was the same
story, - He died rich" $500. -...--.
His family and his friends thought so
as they gathered around the bedside OF
the dying man and you, reader, would
have thought SO, too, if you could have
looked around that chamber, into which
death was entering with his footballs and
CHASTITY presence.
Oh, it was princely room. Rare pic
lures flushed the walls that winter day
with the glory OF Areadian summer, the
! fairest blossoms of Southern Mays were
piled thick upon the costly carpet and
the daintily embroidered drapery fell
in soft, crinkled clouds from the massive
bedstead. And the owner of all magnif-
cenee lay there dying; and on through
all his life of more than threescore years,
he had toiled and struggled for this-to
die rich !! He had bought lands and sold
them he had sent richly freighted ships
to foreign ports he had owned shares in
railroads and stocks in the banks and
now . -.s-f 11.
All there was an angel who stood mt
the bedside of John Russell in that dying
hour, and the man had nothing out of his
life to give; no generous, noble, self-sac-
riteing deeds, which would have been
pearls and gold and all precious jewels in
the hands OF the angel so he wrote down
the last chapter of John RusselTs life,
- He DIED Poor"
And John Russell saw the words as his
soul followed the angel on that Journey,
which, sooner or later, we must take, and
he knew then for the first time, that all
the labor and toll, and struggle for life on
the earth, had only this verdict at the bar
of the kingdom of Heaven. HE DIED
Poor" .....,
He died poor" Very few persons
said this of an old man who lay in back
chamber of a small dilapidated building,
whose solitary window looked out on the
back garden of John RusselPs residence.
The floor was bare, and there were only
few chairs, table and low bed in the
room. By its side stood an old black wo-
man, whom the dying man had occasion
| ally furnished with an armful of wood, or
loaf of bread. She moistened his lips
with water, or held the tallow candle
close to his dim eyes, so that he might
once more see the dim light of the world.
He had not dollar upon the earth his
wife and children had gone before him.
his friends had deserted OF lost sight oil
him, but the grateful old black woman
whom he had saved from starvation, 3d..
But the angel with the book stood there,
too and looking over the old mans life,
he saw how many good, and gentle, and
generous deeds frightened every year;
how he had been kind to the suffering,
and forgiven such wrongs as make men
fends, and striven through all the trials
and temptations of his long. sad, life, to
be true to God and himself 80 the angel
wrote under the last chapter of this mans
life, and every letter shown like some
rare setting ofdiamonds, HE DIED Rich"
And the old man knew it too, when he
stood at the silver gates of the Eternal
City, and they led him in and showed
him the inheritance TO which he was
heir"
There was the house not made with
hands, with its columns of pearl, and its
ceilings of jasper, with its pleasant rooms
and its lofty halls, and its mighty organs,
from which peal forever the notes of
praise to our God,
There, too was the pleasant landscape,
with its green avenues, its golden pavil-
lions. its trees waving in the JOY Of eter-
nal leaves, and its silver meadow lands
sloping down to the river of eternal wa
tiers. He was heir to all these things, for
he had laid up for himself crown OF
glory in the kingdom above. where,
''moth and rust doth not corrupt"