Page:Devotions - Donne - 1840.djvu/128

 away ; and therefore am I cast down, that I might not be cast away. Thou couldst take me by the head, as thou didst Abacue, and carry me so; by a chariot, as thou didst Elijah, and carry me so; but thou carriest me thine own private way, the way by which thou carriedst thy Son, who first lay upon the earth, and prayed, and then had his exaltation, as himself calls his crucifying, and first descended into hell, and then had his ascension. There is another station (indeed neither are stations, but prostrations) lower than this bed; to-morrow I may be laid one story lower, upon the floor, the face of the earth; and next day auother story, in the grave, the womb of the carth. As yet God suspends me between heaven and carth, as a meteor; and I am not in heaven because an earthly body clogs me, and I am not in the earth because a heavenly soul sustains me. And it is thine own law, O God, that if man be smitten so by another, as that he keep his bed, though he die not, he that hurt him must take care of his healing, and recompense him. Thy hand strikes me into this bed; and therefore, if I rise again, thou wilt be my recompense all the days of my life, in making the memory of this sickness beneficial to me; and if my body fall yet lower, thou wilt take my soul out of this bath, and present it to thy Father, washed again, and again, and again, in thine own tears, in thine own sweat, in thine own blood.

MOST mighty and most merciful God, who, though thou have taken me off of my feet, hast not taken me off of my foundation, which is thyself'; who, though thou have removed me from that upright