Montgomery County sentinel., 1888-06-22
DEATH OF A GOOD EMPEROR.


days. His long sufferings, his patient bear
ing, his steadfastness to duty and his truly
heroic mould have drawn the whole civil
lized world as watcher at his bedside during
more than year while an incurable disease
was making its way to the seat OF life. He
died as he had lived, a brave, upright man,
performing his duties TO the last, earning the
love of his subjects with his latest breath, and
leaving to his country and his children the
priceless legacy of lofty character in all
the great stations to which he was called.
He discharged with supreme fidelity all his
duties as man, a soldier, prince and hus-
band. His hot youth had its faults, but they
were few, repented, recanted, forgotten and
forgiven.
With the possible exception of the En-
peror of Brazil, he was the only one of the
four or Eye score of royal personages in the
last fifty years who has had the modern
spirit. King Leopold, of Belgium, shared
some of it, but he was small and trivial char
acter by the side of the moral hero who has
just succumbed to the slow torture of the most
painful death known to men. Frederick
William, of Prussia, stood and stands alone
in the Royal European caste, to which he
belonged, as the only man whose sense of
royal duty and responsibility to which many
of them have been faithful, was touched and
inspired by the opportunity and privilege of
modern times. He felt the field their chang
ing and restless state offers to those high in
place, to widen knowledge, to better the
work and frame work of government, to
ameliorate, elevate and ennoble society by
directing its energies to the solution of the
higher problems Of life.
To this great task he dedicated himself.
His years were spent in preparation for it.
He brought to 1t a will and character equal
to Its discharge. His life meant peace to
Europe, peaceful development to Germany,
a check to militaryism and an impulse to all
the powers of the German nation. Yet he
died last week, the best pitied man in Europe,
his life cut short before his usefulness began
and his work undone. After years of hard
waiting, in which he had perforce to see the
power and policy of his house turned to
ends for which he had no heart, rule came
TO HIM too late for use in the good end for
which he had set himself apart and gain his
strength.
AS soldier he had won great renown
but he was no lover of war In the great
crisis at Sadowa he had decided his coun-
try's fate by an immense service and had in
scribed his name among the greatest o
Germanys military commanders, and this
renown had been confirmed in other fields
in the greater war which followed after
Sadowa. Yet he so abhorred bloodshed
that his accession to the throne was heralded
in all the capitals of Europe as guarantee
OF continued peace.
Words cannot add to the tragic sorrow ol
such life closed by death of such linger-
ing painful circumstances. This man, who
manfully set himself to do such a share as
he could of his life task while he drew fol
weeks together this short and panied breath
through silver tube, would have been
had fate been kind-one of those good men
whose work gives great lands new lease
of Joy and peace, even If he could have
wrought no great change in the deep drift
of the mighty German machine slate. While
in all other lands the modern spirit has turn
ed the able men Of each people to the new
task of civilization, in Germany the ablest
men still serve the state or fill the army
The Prussian system has drawn to the work
of the realm the best in the land. In other
countries this age will be known by other
names in science, letters or wealth, but in
Germany it is Bismarck and Won Moltke
and the rest is not in the running This is
true all the way down. There are no men
in Prussia outside Of its wonderful civil ser.
vice or its matchless army equal to those
in it.
OF the successor into whose hands the
sceptre of the greatest power in Europe
passes little is known, but it is known that
Bismarck is Chief of Germany, and that nc
government will be possible without him sc
long as his lie and bodily vigor are spared
to him. But he is now past seventy, and
infirmities are advancing upon the man o.
blood and iron. The future seems dark, and
because it is dark so much the more do the
minds of men turn to the great Chancellor
for light and guidance-Bsmarck has free
hand.