History of King Charles the Second of England by Abbott, Jacob, 1803-1879

They performed over the now helpless monarch the rites which the Catholic Church prescribes for the salvation of the dying sinner. These rites, though empty and unmeaning ceremonies to those who have no religious faith in them, are full of the most profound impressiveness and solemnity for those who have. The priest, having laid aside his Protestant disguise, administered the sacrament of the mass, which was, according to the Catholic views, a true and actual re-enacting of the sacrifice of Christ, to inure to the special benefit of the individual soul for which it was offered. The priest then received the penitent's confession of sin, expressed in a faint and feeble assent to the words of contrition which the Church prescribes, and this was followed by a pardon--a true and actual pardon, as the sinner supposed, granted and declared by a commissioner fully empowered by authority from heaven both to grant and declare it. Then came the "extreme unction", or, in other words, the last anointing, in which a little consecrated oil was touched to the eyelids, the lips, the ears, and the hands, as a symbol and a seal of the final purification and sanctification of the senses, which had been through life the means and instruments of sin. The extreme unction is the last rite. This being performed, the dying Catholic feels that all is well. His sins have been atoned for and forgiven, and he has himself been purified and sanctified, soul and body. The services in Charles's case occupied three quarters of an hour, and then the doors were opened and the attendants and company were admitted again.

The night passed on, and though the king's mind was relieved, he suffered much bodily agony. In the morning, when he perceived that it was light, he asked the attendants to open the curtains, that he might see the sun for the last time. It gave him but a momentary pleasure, for he was restless and in great suffering. Some pains which he endured increased so much that it was decided to bleed him. The operation relieved the suffering, but exhausted the sufferer's strength so that he soon lost the power of speech, and lay afterward helpless and almost insensible, longing for the relief which now nothing but death could bring him. This continued till about noon, when he ceased to breathe.

THE END.