Let us not attempt to interpret the words; they teach us that his Christian heart was overflowing with gratitude to God. He was dying in a good old age, his children around him, his people near him. He was gathered to his fathers after a long, faithful, heroic, and noble life. He leaves with us a most precious and a most blessed memory. Our hearts, too, are full of gratitude to God for the life of Elijah Kellogg on earth.
[Illustration: FRANK GILMAN KELLOGG. Son of Elijah Kellogg.]
[Illustration: MRS. MARY KELLOGG BATCHELDER AND BABY ELEANOR BATCHELDER. Daughter and granddaughter of Elijah Kellogg.]
It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dewdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed.
In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre a band of gladiators were crowded together,--their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their brows,--when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus addressed them:--
“Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and has never yet lowered his arm. And if there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If there be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody sand, let them come on!