For on what account, tell me, do you thus weep for one departed?  Because he was a bad man?  You ought on that very account to be thankful, since the occasions of wickedness are now cut off.  Because he was good and kind?  If so, you ought to rejoice; since he has been soon removed, before wickedness had corrupted him, and he has gone away to a world where he stands even secure, and there is no reason even to mistrust a change.  Because he was a youth?  For that, too, praise Him that has taken him, because he has speedily called him to a better lot.  Because he was an aged man?  On this account, also, give thanks and glorify Him that has taken him.  Be ashamed of your behavior at a burial.  The singing of psalms, the prayers, the assembling of the (spiritual) fathers and brethren—­all this is not that you may weep, and lament, and afflict yourselves, but that you may render thanks to Him who has taken the departed.  For as when men are called to some high office, multitudes with praises on their lips assemble to escort them at their departure to their stations, so do all with abundant praise join to send forward, as to greater honor, those of the pious who have departed.  Death is rest, a deliverance from the exhausting labors and cares of this world.  When, then, thou seest a relative departing, yield not to despondency; give thyself to reflection; examine thy conscience; cherish the thought that after a little while this end awaits thee also.  Be more considerate; let another’s death excite thee to salutary fear; shake off all indolence; examine your past deeds; quit your sins, and commence a happy change.

We differ from unbelievers in our estimate of things.  The unbeliever surveys the heavens and worships them, because he thinks them a divinity; he looks to the earth and makes himself a servant to it, and longs for the things of sense.  But not so with us.  We survey the heavens and admire Him that made them; for we do not believe them to be a god, but a work of God.  I look on the whole creation, and am led by it to the Creator.  He looks on wealth, and longs for it with earnest desire; I look on wealth, and contemn it.  He sees poverty, and laments; I see poverty, and rejoice.  I see things in one light; he in another.  Just so in regard to death.  He sees a corpse, and thinks of it as a corpse; I see a corpse, and behold sleep rather than death.  And as in regard to books, both learned persons and unlearned see them with the same eyes, but not with the same understanding—­for to the unlearned the mere shapes of letters appear, while the learned discover the sense that lies within those letters—­so in respect to affairs in general, we all see what takes place with the same eyes, but not with the same understanding and judgment.  Since, therefore, in all other things we differ from them, shall we agree with them in our sentiments respecting death?