LAST WORDS OF DYING PERSONS
(From: Albany Poyntz 1845 A WORLD OF WONDERS)
(Investigator 214, 2024 January)
Are the last words of the dying to be considered prophetic? Is a supernatural intelligence vouchsafed to the last efforts of expiring nature? Examples are cited in substantiation of this belief; but the subject is one demanding the most serious consideration. Napoleon was of opinion that Hannibal was the greatest warrior of antiquity; founding his opinion upon the fact that the Roman historians, in describing his character, must have rather disparaged than aggrandised the great enemy of Rome. This luminous appreciation acquires to be constantly kept in view. Every historian is more or less biased with regard to the personages he describes. He relates events after their accomplishment, and occasionally miraculous incidents to enhance the value of his recital. The words spoken on death-beds may have been accidentally realized; as often occurs to the prophesies of the living. But this does not confer the gift of prophecy upon every death-bed. Ferdinand IV., King of Castille, having been cited by one of his victims to appear in the presence of God; died on the thirtieth day. But the most remarkable summons of this nature was that made by Jacques Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, to Philip le Bel and Clement V., to appear in the presence of God forty days before the end of the year. At the time specified, Clement was carried to the tomb; but Philip did not follow him until a year later, 1314, the martyrdom of the Templars having taken place in 1312. It is true that Ferdinand IV. condemned to death the Brothers Carvajal, unjustly accused of the murder of a Spanish gentleman; and that their citation to the King in their dying moments was accomplished to a day. But the health of the monarch was, at the time of their condemnation, much impaired by the excesses of the table; so that his approaching end seemed certain. As we observed respecting talismans, some imaginations are worked upon by encouragement, while others are affected in the contrary sense; and it needed no miracle for the menace of the Carvajals to hasten the end of the King of Castille Sometimes
a careless word or sentence acquires, by accident, a semblance of
importance. At the death of Louis XV., all France recalled to mind the
words the Bishop of Senez had pronounced before him: "In forty days,
Nineveh shall be destroyed." Louis XV. died on the fortieth day, and
the Bishop was thought a prophet; a mere figure of eloquence having
become metamorphosed into a prediction.
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