A Brief Notice of the Death and Character

Download or read book A Brief Notice of the Death and Character written by and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Brief Notice of the Death and Character: Of Gov; Hamilton, of South Carolina The tidings of the dreadful death of this great and good man, which fell from the telegraph upon his afflicted friends "like a thunderbolt from Heaven," are now too bitterly confirmed. In the stillness of the midnight waste of waters and in the deep hush of his quiet slumbers, this noble spirit was, without a moment's warning, by an act of murderous negligence, hurled, amid the tumultuous rush of waters, into the presence of his eternal Creator. What severity of punishment can be adequate to such atrocious dereliction of ordinary duty? What depth of grief in the mourning friends of the noble victim can assuage the agony of their tortured hearts? Well may we exclaim, in the language of the inspired prophet, "I say unto you one of the princes of the earth has fallen;" not a prince in earthly station, or in worldly wealth, but in the infinitely higher qualities of the exalted soul, the noble and magnanimous heart - a heart gifted with an expansive generosity and benevolence that knew no limits to its charity and philanthropy. The kindness of his heart, and the depth of feeling of his generous nature were indeed above the character of humanity; insomuch that few, very few men were capable of comprehending, appreciating, or believing the extent of his utter unselfishness in his every thought and action. The two great ruling maxims of his life, not merely uttered but practised, were, first, the noble Roman moral "Haud ignarus mali, miseris succurrere disco," and the "second was like unto it," "Homo sum, et nil humani a me alienum puto." With the sternest and most enduring fortitude of suffering for himself, the writer of this feeble tribute, (to whom his great and good heart was an open book, and none knew him so intimately from childhood, ) has again and again seen him moved to tears by the sufferings of the wretched and the unfortunate. In the service of his friends and of the distressed his utter forgetfulness of self was of the most extraordinary character. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.