How many of our abbeys, which two hundred years ago were resplendent with grandeur and sanctity, are now the refuge of the slothful? The order is still powerful, but the stink of the cities is encroaching on our holy places, the people of God are now inclined to commerce and wars of faction; down below in the great settlements, where the spirit of sanctity can no longer fi nd lodging, not only do they speak (of laymen nothing else could be expected) in the vulgar tongue, but they are already

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... ting in it, though none of these volumes will ever come within our walls-fomenter of heresies as these volumes inevitably become! -Abbot Abo in The Name of the Rose