Arguing With his Maker.

Thames Star, Volume XXXX, Issue 10448, 20 September 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

Arguing With his Maker.

Once during the last terrible weeks of suffering (writes Mr W. T. Stead of the late Mr Cecil Rhodes) the dying iuiib was talking to God, and not' merely talking to. God, but himself assuming both! parts iiii the dialogue. The attendant in the sick chamber instinct tively recalled those- chapters im tlia book of Job mi which Joib and his friends discussed together the apparent injustice of the Governor of tha world. It was strange to hear Mm Rhodes stating first" his .case againsfr the Almighty, and then in reply stating what he considered his Maker's case against himself. But so the argument went on. '-Wharfs have I done," he asked, "to be tortured' thus.. If I must go hence, why should I be subjected to this insufferable pain?" And then he answered hlis own questions, going- over his own shortcomings and his own offences, to which he again in his own person replied!; and so the strange and awful colloquy went on, until at last the muttering ceased and there was silence once mare. Beyond this there is no record! of what he thoughlt or what he felt when he fared forth to make that pilgrimage which awaits us all through the valley of the ■shawod 1 of death. He had' far too intense vitality ever to tolerate the idea of extinction. "The world,." lie 3aid on one occasion, "is nearly all parcelled, out, and what, there is left) of it is being divided up, conquered, and colonised. To think of these stars/ he said, "that you see overhead' at night; —these) vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planetsif I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to .see them, so clear and yet so far." Since Alexander died at Babylon, sighing for fresh worlds to conquer, has there ever been such a cry fromi the-- heart of mortal mam?