The last words of dying parents were particularly regarded by their children, and writers of conduct books conceded death to be the best time for advising one’s offspring concerning matters they should never forget. Gouge admonished parents, at such a time, to warn their children against the evils which they, dying, would be able to see rising up as snares and temptations to the living. They would also be able to look beyond to the struggle of their own souls seeking the rewards of heaven. He concludes seriously, therefore, by saying, “No means can be thought of to procure God’s blessing or withhold His curse as the faithful prayers of their children, especially when parents are leaving their children and going to God.” Such belief prompted children away from home to make every effort to return to dying parents before it was too late to look into their eyes for the last message they might give them in this world and, at the same time, perform their filial duty of praying for the soul at the brink of death.
From: Elizabethans at Home by Lu Emily Pearson (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1957), pp. 462-463.
