hanging is in store for you. While the wretched man's heart is
thus filled with woe and only the sorrowing Muses bedew their
cheeks with tears, in his strait is heard on every side the
wailing appeal to us, and to avoid the danger of impending death
he shows the slight sign of the ancient tonsure which we bestowed
upon him, begging that we may be called to his aid and bear
witness to the privilege bestowed upon him. Then straightway
touched with pity we run to meet the prodigal son and snatch the
fugitive slave from the gates of death. The book he has not
forgotten is handed to him to be read, and while with lips
stammering with fear he reads a few words, the power of the judge
is loosed, the accuser is withdrawn, and death is put to flight.
O marvellous virtue of an empiric verse! O saving antidote of
dreadful ruin! O precious reading of the psalter, which for this
alone deserves to be called the book of life! Let the laity
undergo the judgment of the secular arm, that either sewn up in
sacks they may be carried out to Neptune, or planted in the earth
may fructify for Pluto, or may be offered amid the flames as a
fattened holocaust to Vulcan, or at least may be hung up as a
victim to Juno: while our nursling at a single reading of the
book of life is handed over to the custody of the Bishop, and
rigour is changed to favour, and the forum being transferred from
the laity, death is routed by the clerk who is the nursling of
books.

But now let us speak of the clerks who are vessels of virtue.
Which of you about to preach ascends the pulpit or the rostrum
without in some way consulting us? Which of you enters the
schools to teach or to dispute without relying upon our support?
First of all, it behoves you to eat the book with Ezechiel, that