t and the Church. Some testimony was given against him by men
who, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it was
false and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence,
but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On that
day Jose Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then
the sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness of
purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent
on her knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewell
to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the
wanderings of its fancy. He received the ministrations of a Jesuit
priest. He was perfectly calm. "What is death to me?" he said;
"I have sown, others are left to reap." At dawn he was shot.

The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was the
following:

MY LAST THOUGHT.

Land I adore, farewell! thou land of the southern sun's
choosing!
Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden!
Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far
brighter,
Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would
I give it.
Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle,
Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in
the giving.
What matters way or place--the cyprus, the lily, the laurel,
Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture,
When 'tis the hearth and the country that call for the life's
immolation?

Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl
of the darkness,
Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway?
Here is my blood, on the hour! pour it out, and the sun in
his rising
Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of
his glory.

Dreams of my childhood and youth, and dreams of my strong
young manhood,
What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean!
Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet
forehead.

Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and
consumed me!
Greeting! my parting soul cries, and greeting again!... O
my country!
Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to
fulfilment,
Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in
the death-throe;
Sweet to eternally s