Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill

as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I

may think myself so much better than I am, as that they

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 she baptizes a child, that action concerns me;

for that child is thereby connected to that body which is

my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a

member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns

me: 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 God's hand is in every translation,

and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves

again for that library where every book shall lie open to

one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon

calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation

to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me,

who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There

was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and

dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of

the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the

morning; and 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, in that application,

that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is.

The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though

It intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion

Wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not

up his eye to the sun when it rises? but 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? But who

can remove who it from that bell which is passing a piece

of himself out of this world? ? No man is an island, entire

of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of

the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as

if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any

man's death diminishes me because I am involved in

mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a

begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we

were not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in

more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery

of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness

if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man

hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is

not matured and ripened by it and made fir for God by

that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in

a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current

money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels.

Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not

Current money in the use of it. except we get nearer and

Nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick

too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his

bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but

this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and

applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of another's

danger I take mine own into contemplation and so

secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is

our only security.