Page:TheParadiseOfTheChristianSoul.djvu/669



The second Section of this last Part is intended to furnish various prayers and exercises for a happy death, suitable and profitable alike to the healthy, the sick, and the dying. Let none, then, despise or neglect them, as if they had no relation to themselves, but only to those who happen to be sick, or at the point of death.

But know rather that it is safest in health to begin to be conversant with practices by which it is thy wish to profit “in illness, and in death itself.

For it is they who take pleasure in such exercises when well, who will derive the most fruit from them when they are ill and dying. But it may be feared that those who disdain them when well and strong, will feel very little relish for them at the time of their death.

Therefore, read and meditate very frequently on these subjects. Nay, more, die occasionally whilst thow art yet alive ; assume, that is, in some degree the character of a dying man, whilst thy powers of body and mind are still unimpaired. Do what thou wilt do, or wilt wish done for thee, when at the point of death, What man has loved and cheerfully practised during life will, doubtless, readily recur to him when he ts going to die. But the remedies which have been little heeded or remembered tn prosperity will not be ready at hand in the time of need. The first edition of the Paradise contained in this place some very holy exercises, extracted from the sweet Soliloquies of Thomas &@ Kempis, for the healthy as well as the sick, most proper for lessening the love of their present life, and for quickening the desire of the life to come. But in this edition it has been thought proper to omit because I have lately published that little work, illustrated with notes, together with other very choice pieces by the same author in the