|
|
||
|
|
Hallo again to all. We suspect we were one of many Anglicans across the globe taking part in the Great Litany this morning, the first Sunday in Lent. The solemn petitions and stirring cadences (whether Elizabethan or exiguously modernised) marched us through the thickets of our mischief and the assaults of the devil, past inordinate and sinful affections, around false doctrine and schism, by plague and pestilence and privy conspiracy, until we prayed for deliverance from 'dying suddenly and unprepared'. The final petition rolls majestically:
The hour of death: by a gracious God, unpredictable
and unknown* to us mortals.
But as Christians, we're called to live with one eye on earth and one
on heaven, and our end should always be somewhat in view, even if on the
periphery of our vision.
Ah, Pitt the Younger and his death-bed appetite. Even if his last words weren't precisely 'I think I could eat one of Bellamy's pork pies', Disraeli rather thought they were†. But there is always a difficulty with last words, it seems: How does one know they are the last? Admittedly our forebears, living closer to serious illness, were more attentive to death's imminent arrival and apt to pay close attention to a loved one's last hours. What have come down to us as 'last words' may or may not be the actual last syllables, but we can assume they are very close. We sprint through some of the moving, the curious, and the pious: Henry Ward Beecher, a well-known American preacher
(1813-1887), is reputed to have said: 'Now comes the mystery'. Archbishop
James Ussher exclaimed 'Lord forgive me, especially my sins of omission'.
Leigh Richmond (1772-1827), author and poet, several times repeated: 'It
will be all confusion'. His wife asked him what would be confusion: 'The
Church! There will be such confusion'. (How prescient.) Others on their deathbeds seem quite truly occupied with grammar. Dominique Bouhours, a French grammarian, exhorted: 'Je vais ou je vas mourir, l'un et l'autre se dit ou se disent'. ('I am about to — or I am going to — die: either expression is correct'). Some seemed to have continued their professions as they went about the business of dying: Joseph Henry Green (1791-1863), a distinguished English surgeon, is said to have remarked, 'Congestion', after taking an especially raspy breath, then checking his own pulse, announced 'Stopped' — and died. Charles James Fox (1749-1806), prime minister and colleague (or foe, depending) of Pitt the Younger, exclaimed simply: 'I die happy'. And the fascinating Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) philosophically commented: 'It has all been most interesting'. John Henry Hobart (1776-1830), the great Bishop of New York and builder of the American church, after an excruciatingly painful illness of some 10 days, uttered at the last: 'I die at peace with all men, for I am sure I forgive all'. And GW Doane (1799-1859), second Bishop of New Jersey and perhaps Hobart's clearest successor in spirit, after a week's illness, proclaimed: 'I die in the faith of the Son of God, and in the confidence of his One Catholic and Apostolic Church. I have no merits — no man does — but my trust is in the mercy of Jesus'. Some manage to 'speak volumes' at their end without saying anything at all. We were charmed by this description of the death of an English spinster, whose life spanned a good deal of the 18th and early 19th centuries: 'Elizabeth Cust, an imposing and witty old dame whom no one would have described as unsophisticated, [was] found at the last, standing lifeless, but bolt upright, prayerbook in hand, against some London railings on her way to church'. Respice finem! See you next week. |
 This web site is independent. It is not official in any way. Our editorial staff is private and unaffiliated. Please contact editor@anglicansonline.org about information on this page. ©2008 Society of Archbishop Justus. Please address all spam to press@anglicansonline.org |
To that end, we took up some lighter Lenten reading
— what better than a classic English murder mystery?