CHAPTER V

THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE POSSESSIONERS

The venerable devotion of the religious orders is wont to be
solicitous in the care of books and to delight in their society,
as if they were the only riches. For some used to write them
with their own hands between the hours of prayer, and gave to the
making of books such intervals as they could secure and the times
appointed for the recreation of the body. By whose labours there
are resplendent to-day in most monasteries these sacred
treasuries full of cherubic letters, for giving the knowledge of
salvation to the student and a delectable light to the paths of
the laity. O manual toil, happier than any agricultural task! O
devout solicitude, where neither Martha nor Mary deserves to be
rebuked! O joyful house, in which the fruitful Leah does not
envy the beauteous Rachel, but action and contemplation share
each other's joys! O happy charge, destined to benefit endless
generations of posterity, with which no planting of trees, no
sowing of seeds, no pastoral delight in herds, no building of
fortified camps can be compared! Wherefore the memory of those
fathers should be immortal, who delighted only in the treasures
of wisdom, who most laboriously provided shining lamps against
future darkness, and against hunger of hearing the Word of God,
most carefully prepared, not bread baked in the ashes, nor of
barley, nor musty, but unleavened loaves made of the finest wheat
of divine wisdom, with which hungry souls might be joyfully fed
These men were the stoutest champions of the Christian army, who
defended our weakness by their most valiant arms; they were in
their time the most cunning takers of foxes, who have left us