THE END OF THE GREAT

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 6, 1860

THE END OF THE GREAT.

THE four great personages who occupy the most conspicuous places in the world's history, were Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and Bonaparte.

Alexander, after having climbed the dizzy heights of his ambition, and with his temples bound with chaplets dipped in the blood of countless thousands, looked down upon a conquered world, and sighed that there were no more worlds for him to conquer—set a city on fire, and died in a scene of debauch.

Hannibal, after having, to the astonishment and consternation of Rome, passed the Alps, and having put to flight the armies of the mistress of the world, and stripped three bushels of golden rings from the fingers of her slaughtered knights, and made her foundations quake, fled from his country, being hated by those who once exultingly united his name to that of their god, and called him Hanni Baal, and died at last, by poison administered by his own hand, unlamented and unwept, in a foreign land.

Caesar, after having conquered eight hundred cities, and dyeing his garments in the blood of one million of his foes, after having pursued to death the only rival he had on earth, was miserably assassinated by those whom he considered his nearest friends, and in that very place the attainment of which had been his greatest ambition.

Bonaparte, whose mandates kings and popes obeyed, after having filled the earth with terror of his name, after having deluged Europe with tears and blood, and the world with sackcloth, closed his days in lonely banishment, almost literally exiled from the world, yet where he could sometimes see his country's banner waving o'er the deep, but which could not bring him aid.