In Meditation 17, a sound of a bell tolling the oncoming death of a stranger causes John Donne to ponder on the meaning of death. Through different analogies, he gives an interesting point of view that encourages a reader not to be afraid of dying. He first compares the church to a universal book in which chapters represent the members of the church. Then he proposes that “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.” In other words, we all have to die; however, the death is not the end, but the new beginning. Donne goes on to explain that each person dies from a different cause because God employs different translators such as age, war, or sickness
