THEIR

IMAGINARY

PIETY

C

CLEMENS, FERVIDUS, AND EUGENIA

He

LEMENS has his head full of imaginary piety. He is often proposing to himself what he would do if he had a great estate. He would outdo all charitable men that are gone before him, he would retire from the world, he would have no equipage, he would allow himself only necessaries, that widows and orphans, the sick and distressed, might find relief out of his estate. tells you that all other ways of spending an estate is folly and madness. Now, Clemens has at present a moderate estate, which he spends upon himself in the sine vanities and indulgences as other people do. He might live upon one third of his fortune and make the rest the support of the poor; but he does nothing of all this that is in his power, but pleases himself with what he would do if his power was greater. Come to thy senses, Clemens. Do not talk what thou wouldst do if thou wast an angel, but consider what thou canst do as thou art a man. Make the best use of thy present state, do now as thou thinkest thou wouldst do with a great estate, be sparing, deny thyself, abstain from all vanities, that the poor may be better maintained, and then thou art as charitable as thou canst be in any estate. Remember the poor

widow's mite.

Fervidus is a regular man, and exact in the duties of religion, but then the greatness of his zeal to be doing things that he cannot, makes him overlook those little ways of doing good which are every day in his power. Fervidus is only sorry that he is not in holy orders, and that his life is not spent in a business the most desirable of all things in the world. formation he would make in the world if he was a priest or a bishop. He would have devoted himself wholly to God and religion, and have had no other care but how to save souls. But do not believe yourself, Fervidus; for if you desired in earnest to be a clergyman, that you might devote yourself entirely to the salvation of others,

He is often thinking what re

you

almost

why then are you not doing all that you can in the state that you
are now in? Would you take extraordinary care of a parish or a
diocese, why then are you not as extraordinary in the care of your
family? If you think the care of other people's salvation to be
the happiest business in the world, why do you neglect the care
of those who are fallen into your hands? Why do you shew no
concern for the souls of your servants? If they do their business
for which you hired them, you never trouble your head about their
Christianity. Nay, Fervidus, you are so far from labouring to make
those that are about you truly devout and holy that
put it out of their power to be so. You hire a coachman to carry
you to church, and to sit in the street with your horses whilst you are
attending upon divine service. You never ask him how he supplies
the loss of divine service, or what means he takes to preserve him-
self in a state of piety. You imagine that if you was a clergyman
you would be ready to lay down your life for your flock, yet you
cannot lay aside a little state to promote the salvation of your
servants. It is not desired of you, Fervidus, to die a martyr for
your brethren; you are only required to go to church on foot, to
spare some state and attendance, to bear sometimes with a little
rain and dirt rather than keep those souls, which are as dear to
God and Christ as yours is, from their full share in the common
worship of Christians. Do but deny yourself such small matters
as these, let us but see that you can take the least trouble to make
all your servants and dependants true servants of God, and then
you shall be allowed to imagine what good you would have done
had
you been devoted to the altar.

Eugenia is a good young woman, full of pious dispositions; she is intending if ever she has a family to be the best mistress of it that ever was, her house shall be a school of religion, and her children and servants shall be brought up in the strictest practice of piety; she will spend her time and live in a very different manner from the rest of the world. It may be so, Eugenia; the

piety of your mind makes me think that you intend all this with sincerity. But you are not yet at the head of a family, and perhaps never may be. But, Eugenia, you have now one maid, and

She dresses you for the

you do not know what religion she is of. church, you ask her for what you want, and then leave her to have as little Christianity as she pleases. You turn her away, you hire another, she comes, and goes no more instructed or edified in religion by living with you than if she had lived with any body else. And all this comes to pass because your mind is taken up with greater things, and you reserve yourself to make a whole family religious, if ever you come to be head of it. You need not stay, Eugenia, to be so extraordinary a person; the opportunity is now in your hands, you may now spend your time and live in as different a manner from the rest of the world as ever you can in any other state. Your maid is your family at present, she is under your care; be now that religious governess that you intend to be, teach her the Catechism, hear her read, exhort her to pray, take her with you to church, persuade her to love the divine service as you love it, edify her with your conversation, fill her with your own notions of piety, and spare no pains to make her as holy and devout as yourself. When you do thus much good in your present state, then are you that extraordinary person that you intend to be; and till you thus live up to your present state, there is but little hopes that the altering of your state will alter your way of life (p. 416).

Other Characters

JUSTUS, TITIUS, LYCIA, SICCUS, SILVIUS, CRITO, TREBONIUS,

EUTROPIUS, URBANUS.

CHARACTERS IN THE SERIOUS CALL'

PENITENS

ENITENS was a busy, notable tradesman, and very pros-
perous in his dealings, but died in the thirty-fifth year of

PENIT

his age.

A little before his death, when the doctors had given him over, some of his neighbours came one evening to see him, at which time he spake thus to them: I see, says he, my friends, the tender concern you have for me, by the grief that appears in your countenances, and I know the thoughts that you have now about me. You think how melancholy a case it is to see so young a man, and in such flourishing business, delivered up to death. And, perhaps, had I visited any of you in my condition, I should have had the same thoughts of you. But now, my friends, my thoughts are no more like your thoughts than my condition is like yours. It is no trouble to me to think that I am to die young, or before I have raised an estate. These things are now sunk into such mere nothings that I have no name little enough to call them by. For if in a few days or hours I am to leave this carcass to be buried in the earth, and to find myself either for ever happy in the favour of God, or eternally separated from all light and peace, can any words sufficiently express the littleness of everything else? Is there any dream like the dream of life, which amuses us with the neglect and disregard of these

Q

A NOTABLE
TRADESMAN,
ON HIS
DEATHBED

things? Is there any folly like the folly of our manly state, which is too wise and busy to be at leisure for these reflections? When we consider death as a misery, we only think of it as a miserable separation from the enjoyments of this life. We seldom mourn over an old man that dies rich, but we lament the young that are taken away in the progress of their fortune. You yourselves look upon me with pity, not that I am going unprepared to meet the Judge of quick and dead, but that I am to leave a prosperous trade in the flower of my life. This is the wisdom of our manly thoughts. And yet what folly of the silliest children is so great as this? For what is there miserable or dreadful in death but the consequences of it? When a man is dead, what does anything signify to him but the state he is then in ?

Our poor friend Lepidus died, you know, as he was dressing himself for a feast; do you think it is now part of his trouble that he did not live till that entertainment was over? Feast, and business, and pleasures, and enjoyments, seem great things to us whilst we think of nothing else; but as soon as we add death to them they all sink into an equal littleness, and the soul that is separated from the body no more laments the loss of business than the losing of a feast. If I am now going into the joys of God, could there be any reason to grieve that this happened to me before I was forty years of age? Could it be a sad thing to go to heaven before I had made a few more bargains or stood a little longer behind a counter? And if I am to go amongst lost spirits, could there be any reason to be content that this did not happen to me till I was old, and full of riches? If good angels were ready to receive my soul, could it be any grief to me that I was dying upon a poor bed in a garret? And if God has delivered me up to evil spirits, to be dragged by them to places of torments, could it be any comfort to me that they found me upon a bed of state? When you are as near death as I

am, you will