Letter XL. To the Same

(Circa A.D. 1127.)

He commends a poor religious to Theobald.

I commend unto you two things in this man whom you see: poverty and piety, that if you do not compassionate the one in him you may reverence the other, and may not deny to him what he has come so far, and at the price of so many fatigues, to ask of you. Give him, then, some help, if not for his sake, at least for your own; for if he has need of you because he is poor, you have as much and, indeed, more need of him because he is a religious. Finally, of all those many people whom I have sent unto you for the same cause, I do not know if there has been one other on whom you might bestow a benefit with greater certainty that it would be pleasing to God. Farewell.