Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-07-24

tinctness as any of the actssof their lives
That Brutus was among the conspirators
against his life, was the cardinal consid-
Grafton with Caesar when Senate drew
their daggers against him. 1t is said that
after Casca had stabbed him in the neck,
this greatest of the ancients nobly resist
ed. When Cassius, with furious rage,
wounded him in the head he still cOntin-
ued to struggle. But when he saw Brutus
aim dagger at his heart, the hero ceased
to contend with his assassins. "And
thou, Brutus,'' he muttered, as he cover
ed his face with his hands, and fell. 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 the muir
der. Cicero, when, after the formation
of the Second Triumvirate, and the tri-
umph OF their party, he found his name
on the bloody list of prescription, did not
that firmness in the face of death which
a man of war from youth, such as Cesar,
is expected to possess. At first he meant
to kill himself in the house of Octavian-
us; but his courage failed him He was
not made of such stuff as his contempora-
ry Cato, who fell on his own sword, and
who, when his friends, taking advantage
of his fainting, replaced the intestlnes
that had fallen out, and sewed up the
wound, tore them open upon coming to
himself He fed. Still in the final cri-
sis he comported himself with dignity.
When the assassins rushed at the litter
upon which he was being carried, he
stretched out his neck and exclaimed,
"Strike." with more eloquence than he
had ever before exhibited, and received
the fatal stroke without shrinking.
In all history, modern as well as an
cient, profane as well as sacred, innumer-
able instances are found of men who have
exhibited what the First Napoleon called
"two O'Clock in the morning courage in
the presence of the assassin. On the
evening of that December day, in ITO,
when the courtiers of Henry II. arrived
at Canterbury and found Thomas a'Beck-
ct at Vespers in the Cathedral, the pre-
late's last words were in keeping with
his life. AS the assassins advanced tow
ard him, with their drawn swords, he eX-
claimed that he died for the cause Of God
and in defense of the rights of the church,
and he added, 81 charge you, in the
name Of the Almighty, to do no hurt to
any other here, for none have any con-
Germ in the late transactions Perhaps
the most noble last words ever spoken
were those uttered by William the Silent,
the founder of Dutch liberty Unlike
Count Esmond and Hoorn, he escaped the
scaffold and persisted by the hand of
mean assassin. When Balthazar Gerard,
after having obtained an introduction on
the plea Of being messenger of mercy,
suddenly turned and shot the Prince with
a pistol loaded with three bullets, Will
liam fell calculating, "My God! have
mercy upon me and Thy poor people!"
Taken by surprise and sent to his reckon
ing without warning, his concern was
yet with the country to which his life had
been devoted and whose liberties he had
secured When the cause of indepen-
dence was precarieus, when it had been
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 q progress through
Holland and Friesland, was received by
the peasants as ;'Father William