CHAPTER XVIII

OF THE REMEMBRANCE OF DEATH

If a man had ever before the eyes of his mind the remembrance of death and of the final eternal judgment, and of the pains and torments of the lost souls, certain it is that he would never have a will to sin or to offend God. And if it were possible for a man to have lived from the beginning of the world until now, and in all that time to have endured every kind of adversity, tribulation, grief, sorrow and affliction, and so to die, and then his soul go to receive the eternal bliss of heaven, what harm would he have received from all the evil which he had endured during all that time past?

Again, if for the same space of time a man had enjoyed every king of earthly pleasure and consolation, and then, when he came to die, his soul were to fall into the eternal torments of hell, what would all the good things profit him which he had enjoyed in the time past?

A begger man said once to Brother Giles: “I tell thee, I would right gladly live a long time in this world, and have great riches and abundance of all things, and be held in great honour.” To whom Brother Giles made answer: “My brother, wert thou to be lord of the whole world, and wert thou to live therein a thousand years in every kind of temporal enjoyment, pleasure, delight and consolation, tell me, what guerdon or what reward couldst thou look for from this miserable flesh of thine, which thou wouldst so diligently serve and cherish? But I say to thee, that he who lives according to the will of God, and carefully keeps himself from offending God, shall receive from God, the Supreme Good, and infinite eternal reward, great and abundant riches and great honour, and long eternal life in that perpetual celestial glory; unto which may our good God, Lord, and King, Jesus Christ, bring us all, to the honour of the same Lord Jesus Christ, and of his poor little one Francis.”