Ponder These Truths Now Before The Hour of Death

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 O Christian soul, what will be your sentiments at the hour of death with regard to this world and all its perishable goods, vain honors, false riches and cheating pleasures.  Alas! The world must then end in your regard.  It will turn upside down before your eyes, and you will begin to see the nothingness of all those things on which you had here set your heart. 

 How will you then despise all worldly honors and preferences when you see yourself at the brink of the grave, where the worm will make no distinction between the king and the beggar.  How little account, will you then make of the esteem of men, who then will think no more of you. 

 How will you undervalue your riches, which now must be left behind you, when six feet of earth and a coffin and a shroud will be all your possession.  How despicable will all worldly pleasures seem to you, which at the best could never give you any true satisfaction, and now fly from you and dissolve into smoke in your sight! 

 Ah, my poor soul, enter now into the same sentiments, which you shall certainly have at the hour of your death!  Thus, and only thus, you shall be out of danger of being imposed upon by this deceitful world. 

 Bishop Richard Challoner