For Whom The Bell Tolls

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 both 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 this 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
 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 neighbours. 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 fit 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.