Perchance he for whom this bell tolls is too ill to know that it tolls for him.
And perchance I may think myself much better than I am even though those 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 the Church baptises a child that action concerns me for that child is thereby connected to that Head which is my Head too and engrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
And when the Church buries a man that action concerns me too.
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 Gods hand is in every translation. His hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
The bell that calls to a sermon calls not just on the preacher only but upon the congregations too.
And so this bell tolling now calls us all. But how much more me who am brought so near the door by this sickness.
There was a lawsuit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and esteem were mingled), about which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning. 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. It might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is.
The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth. He is united to God.
Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? 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?
Who can fail to hear that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
Continued
