Franklin (1706-1790) composed the following "Epitaph on Himself" in 1728: The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here, food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author. When Ben was 22 years old he wrote an epitaph for himself, but, later in life, he changed his mind and left instructions in his Last Will and Testament that only the simple inscription below be used. Benjamin and Deborah Franklin: 1790

Satan called all his angels together to create a plan to seduce mankind. "Who will go for me and what will you tell them?" One glided forward, "I will go, and I will tell them that there is no heaven." "No, they will not believe that. They want there to be a heaven. Who else has an idea?" Another said, "I will go and tell them that there is no hell." "No, they know there is a Hitler, there must be a hell." Finally, a crafty spirit said, "I will go, and I will tell them that there is no hurry."

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

Doughboy Dead at 71... Veteran Pillsbury spokesman Pop N. Fresh, died yesterday of a severe yeast infection. He was 71. Fresh was buried in one of the largest funeral ceremonies in recent years. Dozens of celebrities turned out including: Mrs.Butterworth, the California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Betty Crocker and the Hostess Twinkies. The gravesite was piled high with flours and longtime friend, Aunt Jemima, delivered the eulogy, describing Fresh as a man who "never knew how much he was kneaded." Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with many turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, squandering much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model for millions. Fresh is survived by his second wife. They have two children and one in the oven. The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

Thinking of the fullness and duration of this wonderful life, W. B. Hinson, a great preacher of a past generation, spoke from his own experience just before he died. He said, "I remember a year ago when a doctor told me, 'You have an illness from which you won't recover.' I walked out to where I live 5 miles from Portland, Oregon, and I looked across at that mountain that I love. I looked at the river in which I rejoice, and I looked at the stately trees that are always God's own poetry to my soul. Then in the evening I looked up into the great sky where God was lighting His lamps, and I said, ' I may not see you many more times, but Mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone; and River, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea; and Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great down pulling of the material universe!'"

Wednesday March 14 10:52 AM ET Man Survives Fall But Lands Beside Corpse LONDON (Reuters) - A British man who jumped off a cliff survived a fall of nearly 400 feet -- but landed on a ledge next to a badly decomposed body. Rescuers said the 22-year-old man had suffered serious and extensive injuries and it was miraculous that he was still alive after falling such a distance. ``To live at all is a miracle but to land so close to a dead body is just amazing,'' a coastguard spokesman told Reuters. The drama began when police and coastguards were called to Shakespeare Cliff at Dover on England's southeast coast on Tuesday night when the man was spotted behaving erratically. Despite their attempts to calm him he leapt over the cliff edge. ``The man survived the plunge but landed close to another body. It was very much decomposed,'' the spokesman said. The grisly find was made by a paramedic who went to the aid of the man as he lay injured on the ledge about 30 feet from the bottom of the white chalky cliff. The man was taken to hospital with multiple injuries but his condition was stable, officials said. A spokesman for Dover police said officers did not know the identity of the dead man.

Bob Hill and his new wife Betty were vacationing in Europe, as it happens, near Transylvania. They were driving in a rental car along a rather deserted highway. It was late and raining very hard. Bob could barely see 20 feet in front of the car. Suddenly the car skids out of control! Bob attempts to control the car, but to no avail! The car swerves and smashes into a tree. Moments later, Bob shakes his head to clear the fog. Dazed, he looks over at the passenger seat and sees his wife unconscious, with her head bleeding! Despite the rain and unfamiliar countryside, Bob knows he has to carry her to the nearest phone. Bob carefully picks his wife up and begins trudging down the road. After a short while, he sees a light. He heads towards the light, which is coming from an old, large house. He approaches the door and knocks. A minute passes. A small, hunched man opens the door. Bob immediately blurts, "Hello, my name is Bob Hill, and this is my wife Betty. We've been in a terrible accident, and my wife has been seriously hurt. Can I please use your phone??" "I'm sorry," replied the hunchback, "but we don't have a phone. My master is a doctor; come in and I will get him!" Bob brings his wife in. An elegant man comes down the stairs. "I'm afraid my assistant may have misled you. I am not a medical doctor; I am a scientist. However, it is many miles to the nearest clinic, and I have had a basic medical training. I will see what I can do. Igor, bring them down to the laboratory." With that, Igor picks up Betty and carries her downstairs, with Bob following closely. Igor places Betty on a table in the lab. Bob collapses from exhaustion and his own injuries, so Igor places Bob on an adjoining table. After a brief examination, Igor's master looks worried. "Things are serious, Igor. Prepare a transfusion." Igor and his master work feverishly, but to no avail. Bob and Betty Hill are no more. The Hills' deaths upset Igor's master greatly. Wearily, he climbs the steps to his conservatory, which houses his grand piano. For it is here that he has always found solace. He begins to play, and a stirring, almost haunting, melody fills the house. Meanwhile, Igor is still in the lab tidying up. His eyes catch movement, and he notices the fingers on Betty's hand twitch, keeping time to the haunting piano music. Stunned, he watches as Bob's arm begins to rise, marking the beat! He is further amazed as Betty sits straight up! Unable to contain himself, he dashes up the stairs to the conservatory. He bursts in and shouts to his master: "Master, Master! ... The Hills are alive with the sound of music!

A drill sergeant had just chewed out a new recruit. At the end of his rant he said, "I guess when I die you'll come and dance on my grave." The kid said, "Not me, Sarge. I promised myself that when I got out of the Army, I'd never stand in another line."

The story is told of the minister who was helping a dying woman talk about her last wishes. "I want to be cremated," the woman said to her minister. "That's fine," said the minister. "And what do you wish done with the ashes?" "I want my ashes sprinkled on that big shopping center down the road?" The minister was surprised. "Why the shopping center?" "Because then for once my daughter will come and visit me once a week!" she barked.

An artist walked into the gallery where his work was being displayed. “Has anyone come in to see my paintings?” he asked the gallery owner. “I have good new and bad news,” said the owner. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if your paintings would appreciate in value after your death. I told him they certainly would. He bought all 15 of your paintings." "That's wonderful," the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news?" "The guy was your doctor."

Here are some funny epitaphs from real tombstones: On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia: Here lies Ezekial Aikle Age 102 The Good Die Young. In a London, England cemetery: Ann Mann Here lies Ann Mann, Who lived an old maid But died an old Mann. Dec. 8, 1767 In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery: Anna Wallace The children of Israel wanted bread And the Lord sent them manna, Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna. Playing with names in a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery: Here lies Johnny Yeast Pardon me For not rising. Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery: Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake Stepped on the gas Instead of the brake. In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery: Here lays Butch, We planted him raw. He was quick on the trigger, But slow on the draw. A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery: Sacred to the memory of my husband John Barnes who died January 3, 1803 His comely young widow, aged 23, has many qualifications of a good wife, and yearns to be comforted. A lawyer's epitaph in England: Sir John Strange Here lies an honest lawyer, And that is Strange. Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont: I was somebody. Who, is no business Of yours. Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona: Here lies Lester Moore Four slugs from a .44 No Les No More. In a Georgia cemetery: "I told you I was sick!" John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery: Reader if cash thou art In want of any Dig 4 feet deep And thou wilt find a Penny. On Margaret Daniels' grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia: She always said her feet were killing her but nobody believed her. In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England: On the 22nd of June - Jonathan Fiddle - Went out of tune. Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont has an epitaph that sounds like something from a Three Stooges movie: Here lies the body of our Anna Done to death by a banana It wasn't the fruit that laid her low But the skin of the thing that made her go. More fun with names with Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England: Gone away Owin' more Than he could pay. Someone in Winslow, Maine didn't like Mr. Wood: In Memory of Beza Wood Departed this life Nov. 2, 1837 Aged 45 yrs. Here lies one Wood Enclosed in wood One Wood Within another. The outer wood Is very good: We cannot praise The other. On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts: Under the sod and under the trees Lies the body of Jonathan Pease. He is not here, there's only the pod: Pease shelled out and went to God. The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost a consumer tip: Who was fatally burned March 21, 1870 by the explosion of a lamp filled with "R.E. Danforth's Non-Explosive Burning Fluid" Oops! Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York: Born 1903--Died 1942 Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was. In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery: Here lies an Atheist All dressed up And no place to go. But does he make house calls? Dr. Fred Roberts, Brookland, Arkansas: Office upstairs

Dick Bong was the greatest fighter pilot of all time. He was America’s “Ace of Aces,” having achieved an incredible 40 kills in air-to-air combat. After his 40th kill his superiors decided he deserved to return to a hero’s welcome, so he was ordered home for his safety. Ironically, he died six months after returning home from the war due to a mechanical failure in the plane he was flying. We act like we're invulnerable, but we're not.

It is said that an Eastern monarch once charged his counselors to invent him a sentence that would be true and appropriate in every sitatuation and circumstance. They presented him with these words, "And this too shall pass away."

Live so the preacher can tell the truth at your funeral.

An old preacher was dying. He sent a message for his doctor and his lawyer, both church members, to come to his home. When they arrived, they were ushered up to his bedroom. As they entered the room the preacher held out his hands and motioned for them to sit, one on each side of his bed. The preacher grasped their hands, sighed contentedly, smiled and stared at the ceiling. For a time, no one said anything. Both the doctor and lawyer were touched and flattered that the preacher would ask them to be with him during his final moments. They were also puzzled; the preacher had never given them any indication that he particularly liked either of them. They both remembered his many long, uncomfortable sermons about greed, covetousness and avaricious behavior that made them squirm in their seats. Finally, the doctor said, "Preacher, why did you ask us to come?" The old preacher mustered up his strength, then said weakly, "Jesus died between two thieves and that's how I want to go.

http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEP20030721133653&Title=States&rLink=0 "Holding Severed Head In Place, He Defied Death" IANS AGRA: A 28-year-old carrier van driver's head nearly got chopped off in a road accident. Weeks later he is alive, thanks to sheer grit. His head almost severed, blood oozing and eyes popping out, Balram was in a dazed state when the accident took place on July 5 in Fatehabad in Uttar Pradesh. He, however, kept his head attached to his body with some cloth. When no one came to help him, he drove his own vehicle for 30 km to reach a nursing home in Agra. Doctors there found the head partly joined with the spinal column -- something that saved his life. D.V. Sharma, who runs the nursing home, said it was Balram's supreme confidence and presence of mind that must have made him drive without any loss of time. "Had there been some delay, death was a certainty." "Imagine someone walking into the nursing home with his head almost cut off from the neck. The very thought gives shivers," said an attendant who first saw Balram at the nursing home. On Sunday evening, a felicitation function was organised by Agra's clubs and some NGOs for Balram. People who donated blood for him were also praised at the function in the hospital, which incidentally refused to take money for his treatment. Recalling the accident, a family member said: "Balram was returning from Arnauta in Bah tehsil (sub-district) with 10 quintals of wheat in his van. When he was passing through the main market in Fatehabad, a tractor trolley carrying iron rods and pipes ahead of him suddenly applied the breaks. "Balram could not stop in time and banged into the trolley. The iron rods pierced through his neck. His head fell on one side, attached precariously to the spinal cord. "He was fully conscious and all his organs were in command. Promptly, Balram straightened his head and tied a 'safi' (a thin cloth towel) around it and rushed towards Agra. Whoever saw the scene couldn't believe his eyes. The crowd that assembled around did nothing. "When Balram tried to speak, blood oozed from his mouth. "Soaked in blood and in a totally shattered state, even his co-worker collapsed unconscious. But Balram did not lose heart. He kick-started the van and went to a nearby doctor who advised him to immediately rush to Agra. The first nursing home on the way refused him admission as he was in a critical state. "Then around 7.30 p.m., he reached D.V. Sharma's bone clinic. He fell unconscious. Sharma immediately got his team together as both his pulse and breathing rhythms had come under strain." It took nearly three-and-a-half hours for doctors to complete the operation. Papers on the van helped them trace his family members. A life was saved. On Sunday, Balram was fit and ready to return. He is still having trouble speaking, but doctors said a minor operation later would restore his voice

"I pray that when I die, all of hell will throw a party to celebrate the fact that I'm no longer in the fight."

Talleyrand, French diplomat, for money, fame and power bought, sold, double crossed and duped twenty kings and leaders including Napoleon, Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria and Louis XVIII of France, erected many palaces and led two revolutions. When he died doctors embalmed him after removing his brains, and placed him in a satin-lined coffin. A servant entered to clean up the room and wondered what should be done with the stuff on the table. He remembered a sewer out in the street, so threw the brains therein. Man’s brains fade; God’s wisdom wins out at last.

February 7 is the day Sinclair Lewis was born in 1885 at Saulk Center, Minnesota. Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930. His best known works of social satire were Main Street, It Can't Happen Here and Babbit. Yet, for all his renown and wealth, Lewis died in Rome of alcoholism. Upon his death in 1951, he was cremated and his ashes sent to Rome's U.S. Embassy for disposition. One morning a visitor noticed a worker on her knees with a dustpan and broom. Next to her was an overturned funerary urn. When asked what she was doing, she replied nonchalantly, "Sweeping up Sinclair Lewis." If we focus on the words, "sweeping up Sinclair Lewis," we realize the abject futility of the human experience outside of the soul and its relationship to God. This is why the Bible says: "For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. … But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him" (Psalm 103:14, 17).

A young preacher and an older preacher go to breakfast with an 89-year-old long-time member. The young whippersnapper finally says "89? Wow. I don't know if I want to live to be 89!" The old man immediately replied with great wisdom: "You will when you're 88."

When it comes time to die, make sure all you have to do is die.

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.”

Better to die for something than from something -- Ghost (“Matrix”)

Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I'm going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It's just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live." Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we're not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We're in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living." Golfer Paul Azinger recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour. He's done pretty well. But that bout with cancer deepened his perspective. He wrote, "I've made a lot of money since I've been on the tour, and I've won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don't have problems, but I feel like I've found the answer to the six-foot hole." Citation: Robert Russell, "Resurrection Promises," Preaching Today, Tape No. 151.

Natalie Portman, the actress who plays Padme Amidala in the Star Wars movies, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, is uncomfortable with the notion of life after death. She says, "I don't believe in that [the concept of the afterlife]. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live." Citation: Rolling Stone (6-20-02), p. 58; submitted by Derek Chinn, Portland, Oregon

The town of Le Lavandou on the French Riviera recently passed a law barring any more burials in the town cemetery. It's full. The law says, "It is forbidden without a cemetery plot to die on the territory of the commune." The law hasn't stopped people from dying. Nineteen people have died without a plot and are temporarily housed in friends' vaults. There is only one law against dying that really works—the law of the Resurrection. Citation: Lee Eclov, Lake Forest, Illinois; from Chicago Tribune (9-22-00)

I came across a book [To Hell and Back] written by a cardiologist at the University of Tennessee that corroborates an important aspect of the biblical message. In the course of their emergency room work, Dr. Maurice Rawlings and his colleagues interviewed more than 300 people who claimed near-death experiences. What made Rawlings' study distinct is that the interviews were not conducted months or years later but immediately after the experiences had allegedly occurred—while the patients were still too shaken up in the immediacy of the moment to gloss over or to re-imagine what they had experienced. Nearly 50 percent of them reported encountering images of fire, of tormented and tormenting creatures, and other sights hailing from a place very different from heaven. In follow-up interviews much later many of these same people had changed their stories, apparently unwilling to admit to their families, maybe even to themselves, that they had caught a glimpse of something like what the Bible calls hell. Dr. Rawlings concludes, "Just listening to these patients has changed my life. There is a life after death, and if I don't know where I'm going, it is not safe to die." Citation: Daniel Meyer, "The Light at the End of the Tunnel," Preaching Today No. 238

Jan 10, 2005 10:43 PM EST Preacher dies during sermon about heaven OVIEDO, Fla. (AP) -- A Presbyterian minister collapsed and died in mid-sentence of a sermon after saying "And when I go to heaven ...," his colleague said Monday. The Rev. Jack Arnold, 69, was nearing the end of his sermon Sunday at Covenant Presbyterian Church in this Orlando suburb when he grabbed the podium before falling to the floor, said the Rev. Michael S. Beates, associate pastor at Covenant Presbyterian. Before collapsing, Arnold quoted the 18th century Bible scholar, John Wesley, who said, "Until my work on this earth is done, I am immortal. But when my work for Christ is done ... I go to be with Jesus," Beates said in a telephone interview. Several members of the congregation with medical backgrounds tried to revive the minister and paramedics were called, but Arnold appeared to die instantly, Beates said. Arnold had been the senior minister at the church until the late 1990s when he began traveling to Africa and the Middle East to teach pastors. The cause of death was believed to be cardiac arrest. He had bypass surgery five years earlier. Beates also recounted Arnold's death in an e-mail he sent to members of the Central Florida Presbytery. "We were stunned," Beates said. "It was traumatic, but how wonderful it was he died in his own church among the people he loved the most." © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

"No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve a life beyond the grave… all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system; and the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins."