Chapter LXIII. How at prayer he drove away wandering thoughts

97. He deemed himself grievously to offend if at any time he were moved by vain fancies when at prayer. If any such thing happened he never failed to atone for it by immediate confession, and his zeal herein had become so much a matter of use that he was very seldom troubled by flies of this sort. One Lent he had spent his odds and ends of time (that they might not be altogether lost) in making a certain vessel. One day while he was devoutly saying Tierce his eyes chanced to turn to look at the vessel, and he felt that the fervour of his inner man was checked. Grieving, therefore, that the cry from his heart to the Divine ears had been interrupted, when Tierce was finished he said in the hearing of the brethren: "Alas for the fruitless work which has had the power to turn away my mind to it! I will sacrifice it to the Lord, whose sacrifice it has hindered." And with these words he seized the vessel and burnt it up. "Let us be ashamed," said he, "to be seized by trivial fancies when we are speaking to the Great King at the time of prayer."