23. To Lanfrid, Abbot of St Ulmar

Anselm, called Archbishop, to his dearly-beloved brother Lanfrid, Lord -Abbot of the Monastery of Saint Ulmar; may the divine wisdom guide and the divine help aid thee.

Concerning your urgent request pressing me to try by arguments and petitions to obtain leave from your bishop for you to give up the post of abbot where the divine will has placed you, I have myself thought much and often, and spoken to others from whom I hoped to receive spiritual counsel; and I have come to the conclusion, that although on account of the pity which I feel, my brother, for your sadness, I should greatly rejoice with you if by the mercy of God, with the advice and permission of your archbishop and bishop, you should attain your desire, it would yet be dangerous for me to request and advise so unusual a measure. Further: I fear lest I should err not a little if at my instance the place committed to your charge should be left without any ruler and be more completely, nay, altogether, ruined, both as to goods, government, and order. For if your presence there were of no other use than this: that wickedness cannot reign there, or act freely without any check, so that things are not so bad there as they would be if it were without a head, either as to orderly life or waste of goods; yet you could not complain as if you were living uselessly where you were repressing so much evil both bodily and spiritual, thus keeping that place from ruin. Then your prudence may all the more take comfort since there are some under you who both love your wisdom and rule and obey it with a voluntary subjection. There is again somewhat more for which you should rejoice in your tribulation; that you are doubtless meeting with it on account of your burning zeal for God, and that you are enduring it from the fear of God whereby you dare not fly from it. Of a truth, where there are so many reasons for comfort and spiritual gladness, little weight ought to be attached to the bitterness of sadness. For God weighs not only the care one takes to be profitable to others, but also or perhaps yet more carefully, the labour one endures in the attempt to profit them and the grief one feels at not being able to improve them according to one's wish. For it is our part to plough and sow, but the increase and harvest are God's to give. He repays us that which is our own, though it be our own through His help; but that which is His, to Himself He ascribes it. However, if your mind will not or cannot accept this opinion, I do not forbid it, if through your bishop, and the ordinance of God through those to whom these matters appertain, you can in the regular way obtain your desire. Farewell.