An Old Man That Was Willing to Put off Death
Reference: 0335
There goes a Story that Death call'd upon an Old Man, and bad him come along with him. The Man Excus'd himself, that T'other world was a Great Journy to take upon so short a Warning, and begg'd a Little time only to make his Will before he Dy'd.
Why (says Death) You have had Warning enough One would think, to have made Ready before This.
In truth, says the Old Man. This is the First Time that ever I saw ye in my whole Life.
That's False, says Death, for you have had Daily Examples of Mortality before Your Eyes, in People of All Sorts, Ages, and Degrees; And is not the Frequent Spectacle of Other Peoples Deaths, a Memento sufficient to make You think of Your Own? Your Dim and Hollow Eyes methinks, the Los of your Hearing, and the Faltering of the rest or your Senses, should Mind ye, without more ado, that Death has bid hold of ye already: And is This a time of day d'ye think to stand Shuffling it off still?
Your Peremptory Hour, I tell ye, is now come, and there's No Thought of a Reprieve in the Case of Fate.
The MORAL
Want of Warning is No Excuse in the Case of Death: For Every Moment of our Lives; either Is, or Ought to he a Time of Preparation for't.
REFLEXION
'Tis the Great Bus'ness of Life to fit our selves for our End; and no Man can Live Well that has not Death always in his Eye.
'Tis a Strange Mixture of Madness and Folly in One Solecism, for People to Say or Imagine that ever any Man was Taken out of This World without time to Prepare himself for Death: But the Delay of Fitting our selves is our Own Fault, and we turn the very Sin into an Excuse.
Every Breath we draw is not only a Step towards Death, but a Part of it. It was Born with us, It goes along with us: It is the Only Constant Companion that we have in This World, and yet we never think of it any more then if we knew Nothing on't.
The Text is True to the very Letter, that we Die Daily, and yet we Feel it not. Every thing under the Sun reads a Lecture of Mortality to us. Our Neighbours, our Friends, our Relations, that fall Every where round about us, Admonish us of our Last Hour; and yet here's an Old Man on the Wrong-side of Fourscore perhaps, Complaining that he is surpriz'd.