man knoweth. Now teacheth us the wise man, Caton. Learn we, he sayeth, for to die. Depart we the spirit from the body. Oft so die the great philosophers, that this life so much hated, and this world so much dispraised — and so much desired the death, that they fell down by their own will: but that was to them little worth for they had not the grace nor the truth of Jesu Christ.
But these holy men, that loved and dreaded God, that out of three deaths hath passed. Twain, for they be dead unto sin, and dead unto the world; and they abiden the third death, that is departing of the body and the soul. Betwix them and paradise is not but a little wall, which they pass through thought and desiring. And if the body be on this half, the heart and the spirit is on the other half. There they have (the) conversation, as Saint Paul saith: their place, their joy, their comfort and their desiring. And therefore they hate this life that is but death, and desire the bodily death.
Death unto the good man is end of all evils, and entry and gates of all goods. Death is the running brook that departed from (the) life. Death is on this half, and life is on the other half. But the wise men of this world (that) on this half on the running brook see so clearly, and on that other half see not — and therefore Holy Writ clepeth them fools and blind. For this death they clepen life, and the death that these good men beginning of life, they clepen the end. And therefore they hate so much (the) death that they wot not what it is; nor beyond the run-
