Poems & Letters 8

With the coming of the present bearers, behold, now for a second time the gifts of your desirable and reverend address have come to me; which nevertheless would become greater by their favourable prosperity, if they became copious in number. In truth a twofold matter of rejoicing has accrued in your letters. First, that you show, by a hereditary affection, that my grace is preserved with you, as it existed in the mind of your predecessors. Then, that you have bidden me serve in that business by which, while you take care of a liberty to be protected or restored, you have judged me too not unworthy of such a ministry. Fulfilled therefore is the holy and spiritual command of your beatitude. You have heaped up the reward by prayer:

by your intervention the price which you sent was made more precious. By the reverence of you, savagery was conquered by humility amid barbaric rigour, cruelty by intercession, cupidity by the bringing-in [of your gifts]. We conjecture how you there subdue harder minds by your preachings, when even in absence you thus break stones by the force of your intervening. By your work the distress of our regions is visited; and the abundance of an irrigating fountain, flowing out from the treasury of your bounty, when it has watered Italy, sprinkles Gaul too. Wherefore, having paid the service of honourable salutation, I insinuate myself, with a supplication poured out beforehand in vows, to your intercession or favour: desiring letters, though in all matters, yet for me in special causes;

in which it may so befall you through mercy, that the fruit of your works may reach me too through obedience.