end for which war is waged is to gain a victory over the enemy; the same victory is the motive or reason which fills the soldier with courage and urges him to venture boldly into the field and to fight bravely. The end that the sick man has in view is the recovery of his health; the same health is the motive that impels him to take the most bitter medicines readily, no matter how disagreeable they are to him naturally. The end of a business is gain; the same gain is the motive that impels the merchant to undertake the most dangerous journeys by land and sea, and to spare himself no trouble or inconvenience. So, too, death is the end of all things; but the same death can and must be the motive that impels us to do good works during life, that our death may be a happy one. Such is the sense in which King David speaks to God: “I spoke with my tongue: O Lord, make me know my end, and what is the number of my days, that I may know what is wanting to me.”[1] Never allow me, O Lord, to be unmindful of my last end; keep my memory always occupied with the number of days that still remain to me, that I may know what is wanting to me, and prepare properly for death. Thou knowest, O Lord, how faulty are my works; I will try to amend them by the daily consideration of death. There are many days that passed by without fruit, although I might have gained much merit in them; I will try to make good that loss by the constant recollection of my last end.
How one can thus impel himself to do good. Such are the thoughts that the consideration of death must suggest to any Christian who desires to die well and to make sure of his salvation. I must die, he says to himself; I know not when; it may be to-day or to-rnorrow. As long as I am in this life, so long does the period of combat last for me; if I do not gain the victory before death I shall never gain it for all eternity. Now is the time for me to do business, as far as my soul is concerned; what I do not gain before death I must do without for all eternity. Therefore I must and will now heap up merit by the practise of good works, so that I may have something to live on forever in heaven. Death will, in a moment, take from me the money and other things that I have amassed with so much trouble; be it so! I care little for such goods. But it cannot take from me the alms I have given and the other works of Christian charity I have performed. These
- ↑ Locutus sum in lingua mea: Notum fac mihi, Domine, finem meum, et numerum dierum meorum quis est, ut sciam quid desit mini.—Ps. xxxviii. 5.
