A Skull At The Banquet Table
Illustration★★In reading the epitaphs, and surveying the monuments of others, we should reflect on our own mortality. And not only reflect, but also prepare for the last scene, so that when it arrives we may meet it without dismay.
The ancient Egyptians are said to have placed a skull upon the table at their most splendid banquets, in order to remind the guests of their mortality. Socrates disregarded the intercession of his friends, and when it was in his power to make his escape out of prison, he refused, and asked with his usual pleasantry, where he could escape death.
“Where,” says he to Crito, who had bribed the gaoler, and made his escape certain, ““ Where shall I fly to avoid this irrevocable doom passed on all mankind?” Reader, remember this, whatever you escape, where will you go to avoid death? How necessary, then, to seek the favor of him who alone can support in that moment, and grace alone can prepare for the awful event.
Buck. 7836. DEATH Not Desired. Burckhardt relates, that when the plague visited Medina the Mohammedans, strict predestinarians, fled to the desert, excusing their conduct by saying that although the disease was a messenger sent to call them to heaven, yet they felt their own unworthiness to be so great that they thought it advisable to decline this special favor at resent and leave the town.
Men call for death, ut when it comes it is usually unwelcome.
The point
Combines two death-themed illustrations: one urging readers to prepare for death as the Egyptians and Socrates did, and another noting that those who claim to welcome death as a divine call still flee from it in practice.