into the room, raised him from the floor, and attempted to bind up and
stanch the wound. Cato would not permit them to do it. He resisted them
violently as soon as he was conscious of what they intended. Finding
that a struggle would only aggravate the horrors of the scene, and even
hasten its termination, they left the bleeding hero to his fate, and in
a few minutes he died.

[Sidenote: Folly of his suicide.]

The character of Cato, and the circumstances under which his suicide was
committed, make it, on the whole, the most conspicuous act of suicide
which history records; and the events which followed show in an equally
conspicuous manner the extreme folly of the deed. In respect to its
wickedness, Cato, not having had the light of Christianity before him,
is to be leniently judged. As to the folly of the deed, however, he is
to be held strictly accountable. If he had lived and yielded to his
conqueror, as he might have done gracefully and without dishonor, since
all his means of resistance were exhausted, Caesar would have treated
him with generosity and respect, and would have taken him to Rome; and
as within a year or two of this time Caesar himself was no more, Cato's
vast influence and power might have been, and un doubtedly would have
been, called most effectually into action for the benefit of his
country. If any one, in defending Cato, should say he could not foresee
this, we reply, he _could_ have foreseen it; not the precise events,
indeed, which occurred, but he could have foreseen that vast changes
must take place, and new aspects of affairs arise, in which his powers
would be called into requisition. We can _always_ foresee in the midst
of any storm, however dark and gloomy, that clear skies will certainly
sooner or later come again; and this is just as true metaphorically in
respect to the vicissitudes of human life, as it is literally in regard