Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die
Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris
by
PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it
tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as
that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for
me, and I know not that.
The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her
actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that
action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is
my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she
buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one
volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but
translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God
employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by
sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation,
and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library
where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that
rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation
to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so
near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in
which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of
the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was
determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand
aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be
glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be
ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks
it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion
wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when
it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who
bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove
it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a
part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as
well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine
own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as
though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from
the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were
an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce
any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured
and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure
in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his
treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the
nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get
nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and
sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine,
and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs
out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I
take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse
to my God, who is our only security.
