nothing.

I see I have drifted into speaking rather of how to make the best of
death than of life, but who can speak of life without his thoughts
turning instantly to that which is beyond it? He or she who has
made the best of the life after death has made the best of the life
before it; who cares one straw for any such chances and changes as
will commonly befall him here if he is upheld by the full and
certain hope of everlasting life in the affections of those that
shall come after? If the life after death is happy in the hearts of
others, it matters little how unhappy was the life before it.

And now I leave my subject, not without misgiving that I shall have
disappointed you. But for the great attention which is being paid
to the work from which I have quoted above, I should not have
thought it well to insist on points with which you are, I doubt not,
as fully impressed as I am: but that book weakens the sanctions of
natural religion, and minimizes the comfort which it affords us,
while it does more to undermine than to support the foundations of
what is commonly called belief. Therefore I was glad to embrace
this opportunity of protesting. Otherwise I should not have been so
serious on a matter that transcends all seriousness. Lord
Beaconsfield cut it shorter with more effect. When asked to give a
rule of life for the son of a friend he said, "Do not let him try
and find out who wrote the letters of Junius." Pressed for further
counsel, he added, "Nor yet who was the man in the iron mask"--and
he would say no more. Don't bore people. And yet I am by no means
sure that a good many people do not think themselves ill-used unless
he who addresses them has thoroughly well bored them--especially if
they have paid any money for hearing him. My great namesake said,
"Surely the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat," and
great as the pleasure both of cheating and boring undoubtedly is, I
believe he was right. So I remember a poem which came out some
thirty years ago in Punch, about a young lady who went forth in
quest to "Some burden make or burden bear, but which she did not
greatly care, oh Miserie." So, again, all the holy men and women
who in the Middle Ages professed to have discovered how to make the
best of life took care that being bored, if not cheated, should have
a large place in their programme. Still there are limits, and I
close not without fear that I may have exceeded them.