Meditations and Observations relating to the Conduct of Human Life in
general.


1. Remember how often you have neglected the great duties of religion
and virtue, and slighted the opportunities that Providence has put into
your hands; and, withal, that you have a set period assigned you for the
management of the affairs of human life; and then reflect seriously that,
unless you resolve immediately to improve the little remains, the whole
must necessarily slip away insensibly, and then you are lost beyond
recovery.

2. Let an unaffected gravity, freedom, justice, and sincerity shine
through all your actions, and let no fancies and chimeras give the least
check to those excellent qualities. This is an easy task, if you will
but suppose everything you do to be your last, and if you can keep your
passions and appetites from crossing your reason. Stand clear of
rashness, and have nothing of insincerity or self-love to infect you.

3. Manage all your thoughts and actions with such prudence and
circumspection as if you were sensible you were just going to step into
the grave. A little thinking will show a man the vanity and uncertainty
of all sublunary things, and enable him to examine maturely the manner of
dying; which, if duly abstracted from the terror of the idea, will appear
nothing more than an unavoidable appendix of life itself, and a pure
natural action.

4. Consider that ill-usage from some sort of people is in a manner