my flesh, I will endeavour, when I rise out of my bed, to remember that some day others shall raise me never more to return to it. And when I go down the stairs of my house, I will say, " A day will come in which others will carry me down these stairs never more to get up." And when I go in the street, or enter into the church, I will imagine, that shortly I shall be carried through that street, and shall enter into that church, never more to come out Then will I consider with what company I am carried to my grave, some singing, others weeping, and many following me with piety to honour me; and yet how little it will avail my body whether they do it much or little honour, much less my soul if it be in hell: rather this honour would torment it the more, if it knew it
Then will I consider how they cast me into the grave and cover me with earth, laying a stone upon me, where my body shall be eaten with worms and turned to dust, and suddenly I shall be forgotten of all, as if I had never been in the world. And though there remain of me very great and honourable memory, little will it avail my soul if it enjoy not God; as it little availed Aristotle or Alexander the Great to be magnified in the world, being in hell in terrible torments; for as a holy saint says, "Woe to thee, Aristotle, that art praised where thou art not, and art tormented where thou art!"
2. Out of these considerations I will gather some correctives, persuading myself to make no account of the vain honours of this life, but to humble myself, and in my own estimation to put myself under the feet of all like " a worm," [1] or dust, that of all is trodden upon and cast out; as also not to contemn the poor and little ones, seeing in death I shall soon be equal with them, and speaking to my soul, I will say to her: —
- ↑ Ps. xxi. 7.
