His last days were days of hope, not of despair. Sumner came
to his seat in the Senate Chamber as to a solitude. When
he was struck with death there was found upon his table a
volume of Shakespeare with this passage, probably the last
printed text on which his eyes ever gazed, marked with his
own hand:
Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
For what is in this world, but care and woe?
The last days of Samuel Adams were embittered by poverty,
sickness, and the death of his only son.
Daniel Webster laid wearily down his august head in disappointment
and sorrow, predicting with dying breath that the end had
come to the great party to whose service his life was given.
When John Quincy Adams fell at his post in the House of Representatives
a great newspaper declared that there could not be found in
the country another bold enough or bad enough to take his
place.
But Mr. Morrill's last days were filled with hope and not
with despair. To him life was sweet and immortality assured.
His soul took its flight
On wings that fear no glance of God's pure sight,
No tempest from his breath.
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