Meaning in the Particular Now

“Less naive, the Puritans centered their elegies about adults on life this side of the grave and only conventionally and briefly mentioned the afterlife. Their elegies, like their sermons, were rarely eschatological. The meaning of a man’s life was to be found in the details of that life, not merely in the confidence that he was elect. Though they took comfort in the prospect of an afterlife, they focussed on the significance of this life” (Daly, p. 147).