The Last Words Of Distinguished Men And Women Part 27

RAYMOND (John Howard, President of Va.s.sar College), 1814--. "_How easy--how easy--how easy to glide from work here to the work----_"

_there_, he evidently wished to add, but his voice failed him.

READE (Charles, author of "Peg Woffington," "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Very Hard Cash," "Griffith Gaunt" and "Put Yourself in His Place"), 1814-1884. "_Amazing, amazing glory! I am having Paul's understanding._" He referred to 2 Cor. xii. 1-4, which had previously been a subject of conversation with a relative. In the epitaph which he wrote for his own tombstone, he shows his complete reliance for future happiness on the merits and mediation of Christ:

HERE LIE, BY THE SIDE OF HIS BELOVED FRIEND, THE MORTAL REMAINS OF CHARLES READE, DRAMATIST, NOVELIST AND JOURNALIST.

HIS LAST WORDS TO MANKIND ARE ON THIS STONE.

"I hope for a resurrection, not from any power in nature, but from the will of the Lord G.o.d Omnipotent, who made nature and me. He created me out of nothing, which nature could not do. He can restore man from the dust, which nature cannot.

"And I hope for holiness and happiness in a future life, not for any thing I have said or done in this body, but from the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.

"He has promised his intercession to all who seek him, and he will not break his word; that intercession, once granted, cannot be rejected: for he is G.o.d, and his merits infinite; a man's sins are but human and finite.

"'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' 'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.'"

RENAN (Ernest, Orientalist and critic), 1823-1892. "_I have done my work. It is the most natural thing in the world to die; let us accept the Laws of the Universe--the heavens and the earth remain._"

Some authorities give his last words thus: "Let us submit to the Laws of Nature of which we are one of the manifestations. The heavens and the earth abide."

He began to study for the priesthood, but renounced that profession because he doubted the truth of the orthodox creed. He displayed much learning in his "General History of the Semitic Languages," was admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions in 1856, and was sent to Syria in 1860 to search for relics of ancient learning and civilization. Soon after his return he was appointed professor of Hebrew in the College of France, but was suspended in 1862, in deference to the will of those who considered him unsound in faith. He admits the excellence of the Christian religion, but discredits its supernatural origin and rejects the miracles.--_Lippincott's Biographical Dictionary._

REYNOLDS (Sir Joshua, celebrated portrait painter), 1723-1792. "_I have been fortunate in long good health and constant success, and I ought not to complain. I know that all things on earth must have an end, and now I am come to mine._"

RICHELIEU (Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and French statesman), 1585-1642. "_Absolutely, and I pray G.o.d to condemn me, if I have had any other aim than the welfare of G.o.d and the state_," in reply to the question whether he pardoned his enemies.

His last words are sometimes incorrectly given thus: "I have no enemies except those of the State."

RICHMOND (Leigh, a clergyman of the English Church, and author of "Annals of the Poor" and "The Fathers of the English Church"), 1772-1827. "_Brother, brother, strong evidences, nothing but strong evidences will do in such an hour as this. I have looked here and looked there for them, and all have failed me, and so I cast myself on the sovereign, free and full grace of G.o.d in the covenant by Jesus Christ; and there, brother, there I have found peace._"

RICHTER (Jean Paul Frederich, German author), 1763-1825. "_My beautiful flowers, my lovely flowers!_"

His wife brought him a wreath of flowers that a lady had sent him, for every one wished to add some charm to his last days. As he touched them carefully, for he could neither see nor smell them, he seemed to rejoice in the images of the flowers in his mind, for he said repeatedly, "My beautiful flowers, my lovely flowers!"

Although his friends sat around the bed, as he imagined it was night, they conversed no longer; he arranged his arms as if preparing for repose, which was to be to him the repose of death, and soon sank into a tranquil sleep.... At length his respiration became less regular, but his features always calmer, more heavenly. A slight convulsion pa.s.sed over the face; the physician cried out, "That is death!" and all was quiet. The spirit had departed.

ROBERTSON (Frederick William, an English clergyman of singular purity and depth of religious feeling, and of great ability), 1816-1853. "_I cannot bear it; let me rest. I must die. Let G.o.d do his work._"

A member of his congregation, a chemist, asked him to look at his galvanic apparatus. He took the ends of the wire, completed the circuit, experiencing the tingling. He then held the end of the wire to the back of the head and neck, without a single sensation being elicited. Then he touched his forehead for a second. "Instantly a crashing pain shot through, as if my skull was stove in, and a bolt of fire were burning through and through." In the same letter he writes, "My work is done."

Some hope might have been entertained if he could have had a curate to help him with his work. But the then Vicar of Brighton, rather an unsympathetic man, refused to let him have the curate on whom his heart was set. So he sank, unrelieved, into death. The dark secrets of the hospital of torture hardly reveal greater suffering than Robertson endured in those last hours. When they sought to change his position, he said, "I cannot bear it; let me rest. I must die. Let G.o.d do his work."

These were his last words.

He was only thirty-seven years old when he died; an age when he had not reached the climax of his powers, or the complete development of his character and views. It is an interesting circ.u.mstance that after his death an inhabitant of Brighton who had stood aloof from his teaching during his lifetime, read his sermons and was so struck with the beauty of his teaching that in grat.i.tude he placed a marble bust of the great preacher in the Pavilion.

_London Society._

For six years he continued to preach sermons, the like of which, for blending of delicacy and strength of thought, poetic beauty and homely lucidity of speech, had perhaps never been heard before in England.

Robertson was unhappily (for his comfort) not very "orthodox;"

consequently he was long misunderstood, and vilified by the "professedly religious portion of society;" but so true, so beautiful was his daily life and conversation that he almost outlived those pious calumnies, and his death (from consumption) threw the whole town in mourning.--_Chambers'

Encyclopaedia._

ROB ROY (whose original name was Macgregor, was a friend and follower of the "Pretender" in the Rebellion of 1715. He is the hero of one of Scott's novels), about 1660-1743.

Tradition relates that Rob Roy was visited on his death-bed by a person with whom he was at enmity, and that as soon as the visitor, whom he treated with a cold, haughty civility during their short conference, had departed, the dying man said, "Now all is over--let the piper play '_Ha til mi tulidh_' (we return no more)"--and he is said to have expired before the dirge was finished.--_Francis Jac.o.x._

ROYER-COLLARD (Pierre Paul, French philosopher and statesman), 1763-1845. "_There is nothing solid and substantial in the world but religious ideas._"

ROGERS (John, Vicar of St. Pulchers, and reader of St. Paul's in London.

He was burnt at the stake),--1555. "_Lord, receive my spirit._"

ROLAND (Marie Jeanne Philipon, Madame. "The Spirit of the Girondin Party"), 1754-1793. "_Go first; I can at least spare you the pain of seeing my blood flow._"

When she arrived in front of the Statue of Liberty, she bent her head to it, exclaiming, "Oh Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!"

At the foot of the scaffold she said to her companion, an old and timid man, whom she had been encouraging on the way, "Go first; I can at least spare you the pain of seeing my blood flow."

ROMAINE (William, English theologian, for thirty years rector of Blackfriars), 1714-1795. "_Holy, holy, holy, blessed Lord Jesus! to Thee be endless praise!_"

ROSA (Salvator, Italian painter), 1615-1673. "_To judge by what I now endure, the hand of death grasps me sharply._" Last recorded words.

ROSSETTI (Dante Gabriel, English painter and poet, leader in the Pre-Raphaelite movement), 1828-1882. "_I think I shall die to-night._"

These are his last recorded words.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti is buried near the waves of his beloved German Ocean in the churchyard of Birchington, a small village on the Isle of Thanet. He died in 1882 at his bungalow, on a cliff near by, and his grave is marked by a tall Celtic cross of stone, carved with designs by Ford Madox Brown. The head and arms of the cross are decorated with a spray ending in leaves, and two leafy branches right and left. The shaft has four panels, with reliefs. The upper compartment has a figure of Christ, fronting, and two figures right and left in profile. The panel below has a kneeling bull, with wings, to represent the Evangelist.

Below that is a kneeling painter, with canvas and easel before him and his palette on his arm. The lowest panel is filled with a decorative scroll. There is a stained-gla.s.s window to his memory in the little church.

ROUSSEAU (Jean Jacques, the famous author of "La Nouvelle Helose,"

"emile," "Du Contrat Social" and "Confessions"), 1712-1778. "_Throw up the window that I may see once more the magnificent scene of nature._"

RUTHERFORD (Rev. Samuel), 1695-1779. "_If he should slay me ten thousand times, ten thousand times I'll trust him. I feel, I feel, I believe in joy, and rejoice; I feed on manna. O for arms to embrace him! O for a well-tuned harp!_"

RUTHERFORD (Rev. Thomas), 1712-1771. "_He has indeed been a precious Christ to me; and now I feel him to be my rock, my strength, my rest, my hope, my joy, my all in all._"