Poems & Letters 79

Bound alike and burdened by the condescension of your solicitude, by the greatness of your gift, by the constancy of your devotion—with what worthy thanksgiving, not to say diligence of service, shall I make return? Unless perhaps, being in many ways weak, I be sustained in this by that very grace of yours which burdens us. May Almighty God grant you to the adornment of the Church, to our consolation and refreshment, so that, since in truth you live not for yourselves alone, you may heap up your merits through the comforts you give to others. My sins indeed brought about no ordinary necessity, by which we were defrauded of the bodily presence of your devotion on the day of the little festival we kept. But you have re-

-stored and rendered to us in return the sight of you in light, of your speech in discourse, of your touch in deed. I hope in the mercy of our God that not only in my time, but also in the time to come, our little church will venerate the gift of your offering. And just as I, while I live, desire to preserve it as a testimony of your inexhaustible bounty, so may God grant me this: that even to him whom, after me, when God shall command, your choice shall decree, your authority may specially commend it.