CHAPTER XXI.How We Should Learn to Die,And of The Nature of An Unprovided Death The Servant.
--Eternal Wisdom!if any one were to give me the whole earth for my own,it would not be so agreeable to me as the truth and the advantage which I have found in Thy sweet doctrines.Therefore,do I desire from the very bottom of my heart that Thou,the Eternal Wisdom,wouldst teach me still more.Lord,what is that which belongs,above all things,to a servant of Eternal Wisdom,who is desirous to live for Thee alone?Lord,I should like to hear about the union of pure reason with the Holy Trinity,when,in the true reflection of the eternal birth of the Word,and in the regeneration of her own Spirit,reason is ravished from herself and stands face to face with God.
Eternal Wisdom.--Let not him ask about what is highest in doctrine,who still stands on what is lowest in a good life.I will teach thee what will profit thee more.
The Servant.--Lord,what wilt Thou teach me?
Eternal Wisdom.--I will teach thee to die and will teach thee to live.
I will teach thee to receive Me lovingly,and will teach thee to praise Me lovingly.Behold,this is what properly belongs to thee.
The Servant.--Eternal Wisdom,if I had the power to fulfill my wishes,I know not whether,in this temporal state,I ought to wish anything else,as to doctrine,than how to die to myself and all the world,how to live wholly for Thee,to cherish Thy love with all my heart,to receive Thee lovingly,and to praise Thee lovingly.O God,how blessed is that man who is able to do this,and who consumes in it his whole life.But,Lord,dost Thou mean a spiritual dying or a bodily dying?
Eternal Wisdom.--I mean both one and the other.
The Servant.--What need have I,Lord,of being taught to die bodily?
Surely it teaches itself when it comes.
Eternal Wisdom.--He who puts his teaching off till then,will find it too late.
The Servant.--O Lord,it is still somewhat bitter for me to hear about death.
Eternal Wisdom.--Behold,even this is the source of those unprovided and terrible deaths whereof the towns and convents now are full.Behold,death has often bridled thee secretly,and had fain ridden thee from hence,in the same way as he does the countless multitude,one of whom I will now show thee.Open,therefore,thy interior sense,and see and listen;see what grim death is like in the person of thy neighbour,do but mark the lamentable voice thou wilt hear.
The Servant heard with his understanding the voice of an unprepared dying man cry aloud and speak as follows:The sorrows of death have surrounded me.[11]Woe is me,Thou God of Heaven,that ever I was born into the world.The beginning of my life was with crying and weeping,and now my departure from it is also with bitter crying and weeping.Alas,the sorrows of death have surrounded me,the pains of hell have encompassed me!O death,O furious death,what an unwelcome guest thou art to my young and joyous heart!How little was I prepared for thy coming!Thou hast attacked me from behind,thou hast run me down.Thou leadest me away in thy chains like one that leads a condemned man bound and fettered to the place where he is to be slain.I clasp my hands above my head,I wring them with anguish in each other,for gladly would I escape from him.I look around me into all the ends of the earth to see if any one will give me advice or help,and it cannot be.Death I hear thus fatally speaking within me:Neither learning,nor money,nor friends can avail thee;thou art mine by right.Alas,and must it be so?O God,and must I then depart from hence?Is a last separation really at hand?Woe is me that ever I was born!O death,what art thou going to do with me?
The Servant.--Dear man,why dost thou take it so hard?This is the common lot of rich and poor,young and old.Many more have died in their youth than in their old age.Or wouldst thou,perhaps,alone escape death?
This would prove a great want of understanding in thee.
The unprepared dying man.--O Lord,what bitter consolation is this!I am not without understanding.Those are without understanding who have not lived for Him,and who are not frightened at death.Such persons are blind;
they die like cattle;they know not what they have before them.I do not complain that I must die;I complain that I must die unprepared.I do not merely lament the end of my life,I lament and weep over the delightful days which are so utterly lost and vanished without any profit.For truly I am like an untimely and rejected abortion,like a blossom torn off in May.My days have sped swifter than an arrow from the bow.I am forgotten as though I had never been,like a track which a bird makes through the air,which closes behind it and is unknown to all men.Therefore are my words so full of bitterness,therefore is my speech so full of woe!Oh,who will enable me to be as I once was,to have again those pleasant times before me,and to know then what I know now!When those times were mine I did not rightly estimate them;I,foolish man,let them pass swiftly away;now are they vanished from me;I cannot recall them,I cannot overtake them.No hour so short but I ought to have valued it more preciously and thankfully than a poor man about to receive a kingdom as a gift.Lo,this is why my eyes shed salt tears,because they cannot restore what I have lost.Woe is me,O God;
that I should have feasted so many day away,and that it profits me now so little.Why did not I learn to die all the time?O ye blooming roses,that have still your days before you,look at me and learn wisdom;turn your youth to God,and with Him alone occupy your time,so that what has happened to me may not happen to you.Ah,me!how have I consumed my youth!No one would I believe;my wayward spirit would listen to no one.Alas,now am I fallen into the snare of bitter death!My days have vanished,my youth has sped.Better were it for me had my mother's womb become my grave than that I should so have squandered away my time.
The Servant.--Be converted to God;repent of thy sins;if thy end be well,then will all be well.
