enders itself unto God, and awaits the end of
this life with much desire; and to itself it seems that it goes out
from the Inn to return home to the Father's mansion; to itself it
seems to have reached the end of a long journey and to have reached
the City; to itself it seems to have crossed the wide sea and returned
into the port. O, miserable men and vile, who run into this port with
sails unfurled; and there where you should find rest, are broken by
the fury of the wind and wrecked in the harbour. Truly the Knight
Lancelot chose not to enter it with sails unfurled, nor our most noble
Italian Guido da Montefeltro. These noble Spirits indeed furled the
sails after the voyage of this World, whose cares were rendered to
Religion in their long old age, when they had laid down each earthly
joy and labour. And it is not possible to excuse any man because of
the bond of matrimony, which may hold him in his old age, from turning
to Religion, even as he who adopts the habit of St. Benedict and St.
Augustine and St. Francis and St. Dominic and the like mode of life,
but also it is possible to turn to a good and true Religion whilst
remaining in the bonds of matrimony, for God asks of us no more than
the religious heart. And therefore St. Paul says to the Romans: "For
he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision
which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one inwardly;
and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the
letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

And the Noble Soul in this age blesses likewise the time that is past,
and it may well bless it; because when Memory turns back to them, the
Noble Soul remembers her upright deeds, without which it were not
possible for her to come to the port whither she is hastening with
such wealth nor with such gain. And the Noble Soul does like the good
merchant, who, when he draws near to his port, examines his cargo, and
says: "If I had not passed along such a highway as that, I should not
possess this treasure, and I should not have wherewith to rejoice in
my city, to which I am approaching;" and therefore he blesses the
voyage he has made.

And that these two things are suitable to this age that great poet
Lucan represents to us in the second book of his Pharsalia, when he
says that Marcia returned to Cato, and entreated him that he would
take her back in his fourth and Extreme Old Age, by which Marcia the
Noble Soul