whom he had upbraided with their more serious actions, had
confessed, and returned from penance, he reproached them no more.
"I have known, indeed," says he, "I have known but now I know not,
(he spake this as it were a reproach to others), and I hold my
tongue, for what I know, I know not." From which it appears, that
after confession and penance, the demons either do not know the sins
of men, or do not know them to their injury and disgrace; because,
as Augustine says, "If man conceals, God discovers; if man
discovers, God conceals."

Some people are surprised that lightning often strikes our places of
worship, and damages the crosses and images of him who was
crucified, before the eyes of one who seeth all things, and permits
these circumstances to happen; to whom I shall only answer with
Ovid,


"Summa petit livor, perflant altissima venti,
Summa petunt dextra fulmina missa Jovis."


On the same subject, Peter Abelard, in the presence of Philip king
of France, is said to have answered a Jew, who urged these and
similar things against the faith. "It is true that the lightning
descending from on high, directs itself most commonly to the highest
object on earth, and to those most resembling its own nature; it
never, therefore, injures your synagogues, because no man ever saw
or heard of its falling upon a privy." An event worthy of note,
happened in our time in France. During a contention between some
monks of the Cistercian order, and a certain knight, about the