MORTALITY OF MAN. 209 MORTALITY OF MAN. "We spend our years as a tale that is told." "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." "What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." LIKE as the damask rose you see, E'en such is man ;-whose thread is spun, Like to the grass that's newly sprung, Or like the pearlèd dew of May, D D RIVALRIES FORGOTTEN IN DEATH. "The reconciling grave Swallows distinction first, that made us foes: To mute and to material things New life revolving Summer brings; E'en on the meanest flower that blows; For ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wondrous men the dust. Theirs was no common party race, Till through the British world were known Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, 'T will trickle to his rival's bier : O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound, The solemn echo seems to cry, "Here let this discord with them die." LOVE OF LIFE IN THE AGED. 2II LOVE OF LIFE IN THE AGED. O MY COevals! remnants of yourselves! When in this vale of years I backward look, I still survive and am I fond of life, LIFE CONSUMMATED BY DEATH. THE approach of death seems often to concentrate into man's last hours the characteristic tendencies of his life. When Wycliffe was thought to be dying the monks gathered round his bed, striving to draw from him a recantation. For some time he listened to them in silence. At length, bidding his attendants support him in. bed, he raised his hand and exclaimed: "I shall not die but live, again to proclaim the evil deeds o, the Friars." And live he did, not only in the sense of being restored to life long enough to renew his battle with the monastic orders, but in surviving, so to speak, his own death, in the books which lived after him, and which for many generations dealt heavy blows against the power of Rome. Even more characteristic was the death of the Venerable Bede. He was intently engaged upon a translation of the Gospel of St. John; and urged his amanuenses to make all possible speed, saying: "Go LIFE CONSUMMATED BY DEATH. 213 on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out." As the end drew nearer, his anxiety to complete the work grew ever stronger; till at last they said that only one chapter remained, and asked him whether his weakness was too great to proceed. He answered: "Take your pen, and write quickly." With brief interruptions, he continued dictating till the scribe said, "Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written." Again the dying man replied, "Write "The sentence is now quickly." Soon after the scribe said, He commanded them he was used to pray; Son, and to the Holy Happy the men who can feel that the business of their lives would not be an unseemly occupation for the chamber of death, and who can pass into their Maker's and their Master's presence fresh from that service which had engaged the brightness of their youth, the vigour of their manhood, and the maturity of their old age. |