Penitens was a busy, notable, and prosperous tradesman who died in his 35th year. A little before his death, when the doctors had given him over, some of his neighbors came one evening to see him and he spoke thus to them:
"My friends, I see by the grief that appears in your countenances the tender concern you have for me, and I know the thoughts that you now have about me. You think how melancholy a case it is to see so young a man, and in such flourishing business, delivered to death. And had I visited any of you in my condition, I should have had the same thoughts of you.
"But now, my friends, my thoughts are no more like your thoughts than my condition is like your condition. It is no trouble to me now to think that I am to die young or before I have developed my estate. These things are now sunk into such mere nothings that I have no name little enough to call them by. For in a few days or hours I am to leave this body to be buried in the earth, and then I shall find myself either forever happy in the favor of God or eternally separated from all light and peace. Can any words sufficiently express the littleness of everything else? Is there any dream like the dream of life which amuses us with the neglect and disregard of these things?
"When we consider death as a tragedy we think of it only as a tragic separation from the enjoyments of this life. We seldom mourn over an old man who dies rich, but we lament the young who are taken away in the progress of their fortune. You yourselves look upon me
with pity, not because I am going unprepared to meet the Judge of the quick and the dead, but because I am to leave a prosperous trade while I am in the flower of my life. What folly of the silliest children is as great as this? For what is there miserable or dreadful in death except the consequences of it?
"Our poor friend Lepidus died as he was dressing himself for a feast. Do you think he worries that he did not live until that entertainment was over? Feasts, business, pleasures, and enjoyments seem great things to us while we think of nothing else, but as soon as we add death to them they all sink into an equal littleness. And the soul that is separated from the body no more laments the loss of business than the loss of a feast.
"If I am now going into the joys of God, could there be any reason to grieve that this happened to me before I was forty years of age? Could it be a sad thing to go to Heaven before I had made a few more bargains or stood a little longer behind a counter? When you are as near death as I am, you will know that all the different states of life--whether of youth or age, riches or poverty, fame or oblivion--signify no more to you than whether you die in a poor or stately apartment. What happens after death makes all that goes before completely trivial.
"But, my friends, how surprised I am that I have not always had these thoughts! What a strange thing it is that a little health or the poor business of a shop should keep us so unaware of these things that are coming upon us so fast! If I now had a thousand worlds I would give them all for one year more that I might present unto God one year of such devotion and good works as I never before so much as intended.
"When you consider that I have lived free from scandal, and in the communion of the church, you perhaps wonder to see me so full of remorse and self-condemnation at the approach of death. But alas! What a poor thing it is to have lived only free from murder, theft and adultery--which is all that I can say of myself. It is true that I have lived in the communion of the church and generally frequented its worship and service on Sundays when I was neither too idle nor otherwise occupied with my business and pleasures. But my conformity to the public worship has been more a matter of course than any real intention of doing that which the church requires. Had that not been so, I would have been oftener at church, more devout when there, and more fearful of neglecting it.
"But the thing that now surprises me most is this: that I never intended to live up to the Gospel. This never so much as entered my head or heart, I never once considered whether I was living as the laws of God direct or whether my way of life was such as would know the mercy of God at this hour. What is the reason that I--who have so often talked of the necessity of rules, methods, and diligence in worldly business--have all this while never once thought of any rules, or methods, or managements to carry me on in a life of devotion? Had I only my frailties to lament at this time I should lie here humbly trusting in the mercies of God. But alas! How can I call a general disregard and a thorough neglect of all religious improvement a frailty or imperfection when it was in my power to have been as exact and careful and diligent in a course of devotion as in the business of my trade? I could have called in as many helps, have practiced as many rules, and have been taught as many methods of holy living as of thriving in my shop--had I but so intended and desired it."
Penitens was here going on, but his mouth was stopped by a convulsion, which never permitted him to speak any more.
-William Law, from his book entitled,
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life-
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"Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the daylong have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; UNTIL I WENT INTO THE SANCTUARY OF GOD: THEN UNDERSTOOD I THEIR END."--Psalm 73:12-17
