Synopsis of Events from the Creation of the World

...rageously completing the thought from the previous page: "his resolve courageously..." accepted both joys and sorrows. The Sum of All Philosophy: To die joyfully—which anyone dares to say in words—he taught by deed and example.

September 15th.

After the middle of the night, around two in the morning, he seemed to be struggling for his final breath; therefore, Father Bisselius Johannes Bisselius (1601–1682), a Jesuit scholar and poet who was a close friend of Besold, who was usually assisting him, was summoned immediately by my superior, Master Johann Sebastian Küchler. Meanwhile, Master Georg Ludwig Lindenspür tended to the readiness of his soul with comforts, and, stirring him to persevere in the devotion he had begun, piously exhorted him to perform those acts worthy of a dying man; but the sick man was able to ask whether that time was already at hand (uttering the formal words: Is it then time? original: "ist es dann an dem?" Besold slips into his native German here), as if he knew that this final limit had not yet been set for him.

We all crowded around the bed, hardly present to ourselves because of our grief, about to witness the sad scene of human life; soon the aforementioned Father also arrived; and by all pious means—through exhortations, prayers, and consolations—he raised the sick man’s spirits toward the hope of the heavenly homeland. We, joining our prayers to his, commended him to God. Turning toward his wife, he repeated his final entre-