e
his only comfort remained in his home, in the step-children, whom his
wife had brought thither. His step-daughter was his tender and
attentive companion, for since his wife's death Lessing's health had
declined, and he required care. Though no trace of impaired vigour
appears in his writings of the period, which indeed are animated by an
exhilarating vitality, yet too evident traces of impaired vigour
appeared in himself. He grew languid, an excessive inclination to sleep
overpowered him; he suffered from attacks of vertigo. Yet as long as he
could hold a pen he should write, he told his brother,--write in the
cause of what he firmly held to be the truth.

A small pamphlet, consisting of a hundred propositions, entitled 'The
Education of the Human Race,' was his next production, a work pregnant
with thought that opens out wide vistas of knowledge and progress to
mankind. Lessing indeed was the first man of his century to formulate
the modern doctrine of progress; he preached a true millennium of
toleration, love, and knowledge; he distinctly proclaimed his faith in
the immortality of the soul. 'The Education of the Human Race' is a
splendid disavowal of his enemies' calumnious assertions. It was a
glorious swan-song, wherewith he lulled himself into eternal peace.

On one of his official visits to Brunswick, Lessing was overtaken by a
paralytic stroke. On the 15th of February, 1781, he passed away. He
died as he lived, nobly, in a reverent assurance that he had fought a
good fight on earth in the cause of truth and enlightenment, progress
and humanity.

Time, the true criterion of human fame, has not only left his glory
undiminished, but has augmented it, as popular intelligence has
gradually arisen to the comprehension of its many-sided significance.
It will be long before we have outgrown Lessing, if indeed that time
can ever come. And even if some things in his writings may seem narrow
or antiquated to our vision, we may readily pass them over to arrive at
matters eternally true, exalted, sublime. Truth was the main purpose of
all he wrote, and truth is for all ages and all time. Lessing was one
of the truly great ones of this earth, and petty cavillers should lay
to heart the words of another wise man, the author of 'The Imitation:'

"All perfection in this world has some imperfection coupled with it,
and none of our investigations are without some obscurity."