powerful of this world be entertained, here let the poor of Christ
be relieved; there, I say, let human actions and declamations be
heard, but here let reading and prayers be heard only in whispers;
there let opulence, the parent and nurse of vice, increase with
cares, here let the virtuous and golden mean be all-sufficient. In
both places the canonical discipline instituted by Augustine, which
is now distinguished above all other orders, is observed; for the
Benedictines, when their wealth was increased by the fervour of
charity, and multiplied by the bounty of the faithful, under the
pretext of a bad dispensation, corrupted by gluttony and indulgence
an order which in its original state of poverty was held in high
estimation. The Cistercian order, derived from the former, at first
deserved praise and commendation from its adhering voluntarily to
the original vows of poverty and sanctity: until ambition, the
blind mother of mischief, unable to fix bounds to prosperity, was
introduced; for as Seneca says, "Too great happiness makes men
greedy, nor are their desires ever so temperate, as to terminate in
what is acquired:" a step is made from great things to greater, and
men having attained what they did not expect, form the most
unbounded hopes; to which the poet Ovid thus alludes.


"Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis,
Nec facile est aequa commoda mente pati;


And again:


"Creverunt opes et opum furiosa cupido,