e have
composed concerning the love of books; in which we have endeavoured to
give the astonishment of our contemporaries the reason why we have
loved books so greatly. But because it is hardly granted to mortals to
accomplish aught that is not rolled in the dust of vanity, we do not
venture entirely to justify the zealous love which we have so long had
for books, or to deny that it may perchance sometimes have been the
occasion of some venial negligence, albeit the object of our love is
honourable and our intention upright. For if when we have done
everything, we are bound to call ourselves unprofitable servants; if
the most holy Job was afraid of all his works; if according to Isaiah
all our righteousness is as filthy rags, who shall presume to boast
himself of the perfection of any virtue, or deny that from some
circumstance a thing may deserve to be reprehended, which in itself
perhaps was not reprehensible. For good springs from one selfsame
source, but evil arises in many ways, as Dionysius informs us.
Wherefore to make amends for our iniquities, by which we acknowledge
ourselves to have frequently offended the Creator of all things, in
asking the assistance of their prayers, we have thought fit to exhort
our future students to show their gratitude as well to us as to their
other benefactors in time to come by requiting our forethought for
their benefit by spiritual retribution. Let us live when dead in their
memories, who have lived in our benevolence before they were born, and
live now sustained by our beneficence. Let them implore the mercy of
the Redeemer with unwearied prayer, that the pious Judge may excuse our
negligences, may pardon the wickedness of our sins, may cover the
lapses of our feebleness with the cloak of piety, and remit by His
divine goodness the offences of which we are ashamed and penitent.
That He may preserve to us for a due season of repentance the gifts of
His good grace, steadfastness of faith, loftiness of hope, and the
widest charity to all men. That He may turn our haughty will to lament
its faults, that it may deplore its past most vain elations, may
retract its most bitter indignations, and detest its most insane
delectations. That His virtue may abound in us, when our own is found
wanting, and that He who freely consecrated our beginning by the
sacrament of baptism, and advanced our progress to the seat of the
Apostles without any desert of ours, may deign to fortify our out