“The school of patience I am at is hard, long-continued, cruel; nay, barbarous. I have not been able to escape my lot. All that human foresight could suggest has been employed, and nothing has succeeded. If Fortune continues to pursue me, doubtless I shall sink. It is only she that can extricate me from the situation I am in. I escape out of it by looking at the universe on the great scale like an observer from some distant planet. All then seems to me so infinitely small, and I could almost pity my enemies for giving themselves such trouble about so very little.”
Poor blinded Frederick! He could not even see that his own selfish ambition had tempted him to commence an unjust war, and thus to bring upon his own head all these sorrows.
On the 24th of November, 1762, the belligerents entered into an armistice until the 1st of March. All were exhausted. On the 15th of February, 1763, peace was concluded. The bloody Seven Years’ War was over, and its immense result was, Frederick the Great had captured and retained Silesia.
The expense of the war had been eight hundred and fifty-three thousand lives, which had perished on the battle-field. Of the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who had died from exposure, famine, and pestilence, no note is taken. The population of Prussia had diminished five hundred thousand. The world had run red with blood. The air had resounded with wails and cries and groans. Prussia was laid waste by the ravages of the war; and what had been accomplished? Frederick had achieved his renown; he had made himself talked of. Silesia had been captured, and Frederick the Great had been placed in the foremost ranks of the world’s generals.
Compared with the achievements of Gustavus Adolphus, whose victories had laid the foundation for the success of the Reformation, how petty had been the prize! One, a Christian king, upholding liberty of conscience and religious freedom; the other, an infidel king fighting in an unjust war for his own glory and aggrandizement. But the world applauded. Berlin blazed with illuminations and rang with the shouts of rejoicing. For twenty-three years Frederick the Great still lived to bear his honors. He must have the credit of endeavoring, during the remainder of his life, to repair the terrible desolation and ruin which his wars had brought upon Prussia.
We have but space to glance at his last hours. Dark was the gloom which shrouded his closing days. His worst enemies were the scoffing devils of unbelief he had let loose within his own soul. No Christian hopes illuminated the vast unknown into which he must so soon pass. To him the grave was but the awful portal to the direful abyss of annihilation.
To his patient, cruelly neglected wife, he penned these last cold words: “Madam, I am much obliged by the wishes you deign to form, but a heavy fever I have taken hinders me from answering you.”
With no companions near him but his servants and his dogs, he awaited the coming of his last despairing end. And thus this lonely, hopeless old man fought his last battle of life; and on the 17th of August, 1786, the fight was ended, the battle lost, and Frederick the Second—Frederick the Great—was carried to the tomb, and laid by the side of his father. What a warning to the world! What a warning to parents! The inconsistent, brutal life of his father made him an infidel.
His own selfish ambition made him more of a curse than a blessing to mankind. In the eyes of the Great and Just Judge of the world, both lives were terrible failures.