THe occasion I had (Sophronia) to compare the Clock and my Watch, suggested to me this other Reflection, That the Dyal-plate of the Clock being I know not how many times larger than that of the Watch, the Circle on which the hours were mark’d in the one, did by vast Odds exceed the correspondent Circle of the other: And yet, though the Index of the Clock had then past through a far greater quantity of space than that of the Watch, this little Index, being, when it was indeed Mid-night, arriv’d at the mark of the twelfth hour, when the greater Index was come but to that of the eleventh, I justly concluded, That the VVatch did not only go truer, but more forward than the Clock.
Thus in estimating Men’s Lives, there is something else to be look’d at than the meer duration of them: For there are some Men, who having Loyter’d and Trifled away very many Years in the VVorld, have no other Argument of their Age, than the Church-books of their Gray-hairs; and as little do they indeed Live, that waste a number of insignificant Years in successive or perpetual Diversions from the true business and end of Life. These, and many other kinds of Persons, that consume much Time to little purpose, may be said rather to have Lasted long, than to have Liv’d long: As the careless VVanderer, who, instead of Travelling, does nothing but stray from one wrong way to another, though he do so at Midsummer from Mornning to Night, may be said to have been long a Horse-back, but not to have perform’d a long Journey; whereas he, that by thriftily Husbanding his time, and industriously Improving it, has early dispatch’d the business for which he was sent into the VVorld, needs not Gray-hairs to be reputed to have Liv’d long enough, and consequently longer than those that wear Gray-hairs, only because they were Born many Years before him. In a word, to one of these sorts of Men we may attribute a longer Time, but to the other a longer Life; (for ev’n the Heathen could say, Non est vivere sed valere Vita) and within how narrow a compass soever a Man’s Life be confin’d, if he have Liv’d so long, as before he comes to the end of Life he have reach’d the ends of Living; The attainment of that Measure of Knowledge, and the practice of those Graces and Virtues that fit a Man to glorifie God in this short Life, and to be Glorified by him in that which shall have no End.
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