Termination

“ If life had not to finish, in fulfilment of a solemn, universal, and inevitable decree, the constraint that I have put upon myself might at length become oppressive, and my yoke prove somewhat heavy. But all that will finish soon, for all undertakings come to an end. ”

“ We may will one thing as leading to another, and that to a third, and so on; thus one wills study for learning, learning for examination purposes, examination for a commission in the army, and the commission for glory. That end in which the will rests, willing it for itself without reference to anything beyond, is called the last end.
3. An end is either objective or subjective. The objective end is the thing wished for, as it exists distinct from the person who wishes it. The subjective end is the possession of the objective end. ”

“ And if the end were attained, if at last you emerged from the trial ever beautiful and ever young, defying time and evil, and lifted above the natural decay of flesh and intellect, who shall say that the awesome change would prove a happy one? ”

“ But I would not press the matter upon you too severely; the reparation shall be left to your own discretion; but you must decide upon what it is to be, before the Court break up.
LATITIA.
⁠Decide so soon! Will not to-morrow do, or the day after to-morrow, or the day after that?
BRIGHTLY.
⁠No, neither to-morrow nor any following morrow will do; you must pronounce your own sentence before the Court break up.
LATITIA (going about in a bewildered manner) .
⁠O, dear! what can I do? what can I say? how shall I decide? ”

“ The end crowns all, / And that old common arbitrator, Time, / Will one day end it. Troil. and Cress., iv. 5.
The end of all opposition is negation, and negation is nothing. Goethe.
The end of all right education of a woman is to make her love her home better than any other place; that she should as seldom leave it as a queen her queendom; nor ever feel entirely at rest but within its threshold. Ruskin.
The end of doubt is the beginning of repose. 10 Petrarch.
The end of labour is to gain leisure. Arist.
The end of man is an action, not a thought, though it were the noblest. Carlyle. ”

“ Life, he says, if you understand by it the season of preparation for eternity, is more than half gone;—life so far as it presents opportunities and facilities for penitence and pardon,—so far as it bears on the formation of character, and is to be considered as a period of probation,—is unquestionably more than half gone, to those who are between fifteen and twenty. ”

“ In the First Part of this work, the means to man’s Last End were spoken of in a general way; the features that are common to all good acts—that they be human, morally deserving, directed according to law and conscience—were treated. In the present Part the means to the Last End will be discussed in particular, and we shall consider in turn the kinds of duties that are owed by all men and those owed by persons in special states of life. ”

“ Every development, I have said, implies the negation of its point of departure. The basis or point of departure, according to the materialistic school, being material, the negation must be necessarily ideal. ”

“ The contemplation of the final judgment, and the sentence to be passed upon the wicked, is truly a solemn one, and should startle every mind, But oh, how few, comparatively, seem to stop and reflect upon this momentous subject? And yet all are rapidly hastening on to their final doom. Few are aware of the vast numbers that are passing from time into eternity—even each year, each month, each day each hour, or each minute. ”

“ With punishment barred Sin’s broad, tempting way.
And so our Father in Heaven doth wait,
Lovingly, patiently; once and again
Calling us back from the broad, gilded gate
Which leads down to death, through sorrow and shame.
His love, strong and tender to help and to bless,
Though stern and unyielding, is love no less
When it bars the way with punishment sore,
Than when it waits at the Open Door. PART THIRD. I.
FARMER VANCE.
“Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.” ”

“ This is the commonsense verdict. When the work of a man is done and ended; when, except indirectly and invisibly, he affects the living world no more, the book is closed, the sentence is passed, and there he may be allowed to rest. ”

“ Thou hast deserved death, and I could compel thee to undergo the punishment; but in my clemency I place thy fate in thy own skillful hands. He who is the master of his destiny cannot complain that his sentence is a severe one. ”

“ Gladly shall I to thee resign,
Let me but know thy gracious will."
"Is it a promise?" "Yea, I swear
So long as I have breath and life
To give thee all thou wilt." "Beware!
Rash promise ever ends in strife." ”

“ The anguish of suspense, at least, is ended, and even if it be to undergo an operation, and to blow one’s own brains out, men will become composed, and sometimes even cheerful, as the coroner’s inquest discovers, when once the way and the end are known. ”

“ On death,—'It is appointed for man once to die, and after that the judgment.' This thought should oblige me to live always in the state in which I wish to be found when the last moment shall arrive. Then, death may come suddenly, but not unprovidedly. My resignation will be much easier, the thought of the last hour sweeter, and the inevitable consequences less to be feared. ”

“ Let there be at once also the end of the world! O God! if that is to be my punishment, I swear I will go away, never to see her again in life,—only save her! ”

“ If one drooped In the lovely Court—her dark glance dim, her feet Faint in the dance—the guiltless criminal Passed forth an exile from that Paradise, Lest he should see and suffer at her woe. Bright-eyed intendants watched to execute Sentence on such as spake of the harsh world Without, where aches and plagues were, tears and fears, And wail of mourners, and grim fume of pyres. ”

“ After pleading nine years, if they still puff cigars,
It is time you began to conclude.
Ye Lawyers, who aim to reform all the land,
And your statutes forever intrude,
If five thousand lost years have not worked as you planned,
It is time to begin to conclude.
Ye Lovers, who sigh for the heart of a maid,
And for forty-four years have pursued,
If two scores of young years have not taught you your trade,
It is time you began to conclude. ”

“ True resignation consists in a thorough conformity to the whole will of God; who wills and does all (excepting sin) which comes to pass in the world. In order to this we have only to embrace all events, good and bad, as His will. ”

“ If I assume this noble task, I can never reach its end; and so surely as it is my vocation to assume it, I can never cease to act, and hence can never cease to be. That which men call Death cannot interrupt my activity ”

“ If punishment be attended by continuity, by a sense of duration and succession, by the mental presence of its past and its future, by a sustained power of realizing it,42 this must be because it is endless and something more; such inflictions are an addition to its endlessness, and do not necessarily belong to it because it is endless. As I have already said, the great mystery is, not that evil has no end, but that it had a beginning. ”

“ Let us, therefore, labour whilst we can to secure our being admitted into this happy rest. What do we behold in this perishable life, if not grief and mourning, and what ought above all to afflict the faithful,—a too great abandonment and contempt of the law of God. ”

“ Job, in his resignation to God’s will, is a beacon-light to the sorrowing; the Apostles going forth from the scourges, and rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer for Christ, invest with a startling reality the beatitude: Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake. ”

“ What is done, is done. If I cannot escape punishment, let me be at least as happy as I can while it lasts. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow. Let me alone, thou tormenting conscience. ”

“ I know that we have been taught from our infancy, and it is now a popular doctrine with all the denominations of the Christians of the nineteenth century, that, when the mortal tenement is committed to the grave, there is an end of all further progress in intelligence and learning with regard to this probation. ”

“ Would you have us put her to death? asked one of the judges. You appear to argue in a strange way. What is your motive?—What your hope?—What would you have us do? suffer them to escape who will not confess, and put all to death who do? ”

“ An inward tribunal, which you can no longer cheat with sceptical delusions, will then wake up and pass judgment upon you. But the waking up will be like that of one buried alive in the bowels of the churchyard; there will come remorse like that of the suicide who has committed the fatal act and repents it;—'twill be a flash of lightning suddenly breaking in upon the midnight darkness of your life! There will be one look, and, if you can sustain that, I will admit that you have won! ”

“ Do we not all submit to Death? The highest sentence of the law, sentence of death, is passed on all of us by the fact of birth; yet we live patiently under it, patiently undergo it when the hour comes. ”

“ I have come to tell you that if you resign you will do a dishonourable thing, and that it behooves you on this occasion to answer the great expectation the world is now in on your account, even to the hazarding of your life, and of your liberty, which I am persuaded you value more than life itself. Now is the time for you to put forward more than ever those maxims for which we have so much combated you: 'I dread no poison nor sword! ”

“ At the word of command he must march into the very jaws of death, as is right. He must die or madden for the want of rest, rather than fall asleep on his post, for if he does, his punishment is certain and shameful death. ”

“ Let all tender and fervid hearts, all humble and brotherly spirits, all creatures strong with faith and hope, firm in an undoubtful promise, let them ask to the Lord, in every conceivable form, the end of this tremendous punishment. ”

“ We deny, therefore, that the labours and sorrows of the present life, the loss of such joys as are left to us at its close, and the dreadful agonies and terrors with which death is often attended, have the nature of a penalty. ”

“ Sentence of death had already been pronounced on many who were awaiting trial, and many a soul went up in that holocaust of smoke and flame and tempest to render an account of the deeds done in the flesh. ”

“ I. Our present life is a moral trial for another to come.—On till death is our seed-sowing; after death is the sure and universal harvest. On till death is our moral trial; after death is the life of judicial retribution, alike for the just and the unjust. ”

“ To what part of the world shall they retire when they withdraw from you? Where can there be so miserable a dwelling? To be banished the presence of God ! to be accursed of God ! O what a shocking destiny!
[Imagine yourself now before the tribunal of Christ. What are you most ashamed of at this very moment? Reflect seriously on it, and remember that all your secret sins shall be exposed at theday of judgment, if you do not here efface them by a sincere repentance.] ”

“ And this regard to civil affairs is justly and regularly placed after diligent trial made for restoring356 the mortal body; the attempt being frustrated in the end—because the unavoidable necessity of death, thus evidently laid before mankind, animates them to seek a kind of eternity by works of perpetuity, character, and fame. ”

“ Pitty'd her Paralell, and let her scape.
Thou Paradox of fate, whom ropes reprieve,
To whom the hangman proves a gentele Shrieve,
Death's after birth: Thou by thy Posthume fate,
And penitence truly art regenerate. ”

“ And, now let reason itself be the judge, whether it be long of God or you, if after this you will be unconverted and be damned? If you die now, it is because you will die. What should be said more to you? ”

“ Omitting these remoter considerations, let us inquire what, DEATH is; that punishment which is applied as a measure of transgressions of indefinite shades of distinction, so soon as they shall have passed that degree and colour of enormity, with which it is supposed no, inferior infliction is commensurate.
And first, whether death is good or evil, a punishment or a reward, or whether it be wholly indifferent, no man can take upon himself to assert. ”

“ By thy decree was spilt,
Whose head, upon the charger brought,
Appeased revengeful guilt,
His name, amid a deathless page,
Gleams forth with living ray,
While all thy royalty and pride
Are swept like foam away. ”

“ However, I do pray that they may be content with these endless miseries of ours; among which, after all, there is no discredit for any wrong thing done-sorrow is the beginning and end, sorrow that punishment is most severe when our conduct has been most unexceptionable. ”

“ This resignation which makes each one among you, even the greatest, only an insignificant detail-worker upon the immense labor whose completion you contemplate at an infinite remove, and the very outlines of which you ignore,—this resignation is sublime, though supremely painful to the aspiring soul. The individual laborer for his part abstains from all hope of seeing the whole truth, and works for his generation and futurity. ”

“ Someone comes in and tells you, "I bring you thirty years of existence; it is the immutable decree of fate; fifteen consecutive years must be happy, and fifteen years unhappy. You are at liberty to choose the half by which you wish to begin." ”

“ All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death; ”

“ Are we not admonished on every hand by the voice of sudden death? Many, during the past year, who, to human view, could ill be spared from their posts of labor, have suddenly obeyed the summons to depart hence. Who among the living shall be next to fall? ”