Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day, the first Friday in Lent: he had notice of it, and had in his sickness so prepared for that employment, that as he had long thirsted for it, so he resolved his weakness should not hinder his journey; he came, therefore, to London some few days before his appointed day of preaching. At his coming thither many of his friends (who with sorrow saw his sickness had left him only so much flesh as did only cover his bones) doubted his strength to perform that task, and did therefore dissuade him from undertaking it, assuring him, however, it was like to shorten his life; but he passionately denied their requests, saying," He would not doubt that that God, who in so 66 many weaknesses had assisted him with an unex"pected strength, would now withdraw it in his last " employment," professing an holy ambition to perform that sacred work. And when, to the amazement of some beholders, he appeared in the pulpit, many of them thought he presented himself not to preach mortification by a living voice, but mortality by a decayed body and dying face; and, doubtless, many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel, "Do these bones live? *

46

or can that soul organize that tongue to speak so "long time as the sand in that glass will move towards

* Ezek. xxxvii. 3.

[ocr errors]

"its centre, and measure out an hour of this dying "man's unspent life?" Doubtless it cannot; and yet, after some faint pauses in his zealous prayer, his strong desires enabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his preconceived meditations, which were of dying, the text-being, " To God the Lord belong the issues "from death;" many that then saw his tears, and heard his faint and hollow voice, professing they thought the text prophetically chosen, and that Dr. Donne had preached his own funeral sermon.

Being full of joy that God had enabled him to perform this desired duty, he hastened to his house, out of which he never moved, till, like St. Stephen, he was carried by devout men to his grave.

The next day after his sermon, his strength being much wasted, and his spirits so spent as indisposed him to business or to talk, a friend that had often been a w tness of his free and facetious discourse, asked him, Why are you sad? to whom he replied, with a countenance so full of cheerful gravity as gave testimony of an inward tranquillity of mind, and of a soul willing to take a farewell of this world, and said,

"I am not sad, but most of the night past I have "entertained myself with many thoughts of several "friends that have left me here, and are gone to that "place from which they shall not return; and that "within a few days I also shall go hence, and be no "more scen; and my preparation for this change is

"become my nightly meditation upon my bed, which " I my infirmities have now made restless to me: but "at this present time I was in a serious contemplation "of the providence and goodness of God to me, who "am less than the least of his mercies; and looking "back upon my life past, I now plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporal employment, and it was his will that I should never settle "nor thrive till I entered into the ministry; in which "I have now lived almost twenty years, (I hope to his

glory) and by which, I most humbly thank him, I "have been enabled to requite most of those friends "which shewed me kindness when my fortune was 66 very low, as God knows it was; and (as it hath oc"casioned the expression of my gratitude) I thank "God most of them have stood in need of my requital. "I have lived to be useful and comfortable to my good "father-in-law Sir George Moor, whose patience God "hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal 66 crosses; I have maintained my own mother, whom "it hath pleased God, after a plentiful fortune in her younger days, to bring to a great decay in her very "old age; I have quieted the consciences of many "that have groaned under the burthen of a wounded "spirit, whose prayers I hope are available for me. I "cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my 66 youth; but I am to be judged by a merciful God, "who is not willing to see what I have done amiss:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

er and though of myself I have nothing to present to

him but sins and misery, yet I know he looks not 66 upon me now as I am of myself, but as I am in my "Saviour, and hath given me, even at this time, some "testimones by his holy Spirit, that I am of the num"ber of his elect: I am therefore full of joy, and shall << die in peace."

I must here look so far back as to tell the reader that at his first return out of Essex to preach his last sermon, his old friend and physician, Dr. Fox, a man of great worth, came to him to consult his health; and that after a sight of him, and some queries concerning his distempers, he told him, "That by cor"dials and drinking milk twenty days together, there 86 was a probability of his restoration to health;" but he passionately denied to drink it. Nevertheless Dr. Fox, who loved him most entirely, wearied him with solicitations, till he yielded to take it for ten days; at the end of which time he told Dr. Fox, " he had "drunk it more to satisfy him than to recover his "health; and that he would not drink it ten days "longer upon the best moral assurance of having

twenty years added to his life, for he loved it not; * and that he was so far from fearing death, which is "the king of terrors, that he longed for the day of his * dissolution."

It is observed, that a desire of glory or commenda

tion is rooted in the very nature of man, and that those of the severest and most mortified lives, though they may become so humble as to banish self-flattery, and such weeds as naturally grow there, yet they have not been able to kill this desire of glory; but that, like our radical heat, it will both live and die with us; and many think it should do so; and we want not sacred examples to justify the desire of having our memory to outlive our lives, which I mention, because Dr. Donne, by the persuasion of Dr. Fox, easily yielded, at this very time, to have a monument made for him; but Dr. Fox undertook not to persuade how or what it should be; that was left to Dr. Donne himself.

This being resolved upon, Dr. Donne sent for a carver to make for him in wood the figure of an urn, giving him directions for the compass and height of it, and to bring with it a board of the height of his body: these being got, then, without delay, a choice painter was to be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken as followeth---Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study, he brought with him into that place his winding sheet in his hand, and having put off all his clothes, had his sheet put on him, and so tied with knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed as dead bodies are usually fitted to be shrowded and put into the grave: upon this urn he thus stood with his eyes shut, and with so much of

« AnteriorContinuar »