5. To Henry

Brother Anselm to Henry, his dear master and brother, greeting.

Dearly-beloved, the more report testifies to me that your behaviour towards all increases daily in virtue and devoutness, so much the more is thy friend's heart in flamed by the wish to see what he by loving hears of, and enjoy what he loves from hearing of it. But since I suspect that we are beloved by each other in no dissimilar degree, so also I do not doubt but that we alike yearn each for the other. But to those whose spirits the fire of love welds into one, it is not unnaturally grievous to be debarred from personal intercourse by local separation. However, since "whether we live, or die, we are not our own, but the Lord's," we ought to consider more what the Lord, whose we are, wills to do with us, than what we, who are not our own, would wish. Let us therefore so cherish the yearning of fraternal love as that we may yet obey the rule of the celestial Will; and so manifest the obedience of submission which the divine rule requires, that we may retain the loving affection which the divine dispensation grants us. For we cannot better modify God's ordering for our own benefit than by setting our own will to obey His. Since therefore we both have many present with us whom we, being by them beloved, love in return; let us, while enjoying their society with a reasonable pleasure, prepare for those who are not to be enjoyed with a peaceful mind; and let us earnestly pray that at some time with both present and absent friends we may all present together enjoy the presence of God Himself. But since, led by divine mercy, we shall reach the home towards which we struggle not as by the same path, we shall the more joyfully assemble, as though recalled from various places of exile. I do not thus exhort thy serenity, beloved, as fearing thou dost not thus, but as desiring that wherein thou doest well therein thou shouldst continually make progress. I commend to thee Master Herluin my beloved, who also loveth me, as thou mayest know by his own mouth, who will better be able to tell thee those things which concern me, and for which I demand thy love, than I could do in the narrow limits of a letter. Consider the letter I send to Master Gondulph as thine own, chang ing the name, and thine as his. Now whatever my affection, whether expressing itself, or asking anything, writes either to thee or to him, that very same it would say both to thee and to him; but since for the soul dearly-loved by me of Osbern, our dead brother, I neither can pray to God nor ask of men as much as I would: I again impress upon thee that whatever concerning him I write to Master Gondulph, to thee I say it. The lord abbot and all the brethren of our congregation greet thee and Master Gondulph, thanking you much for your gifts, but still more for your excellent conduct, and application to learning. Farewell: and hold the soul of Osbern to be my second self; think of it not as his, but as mine.