Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 1.djvu/181

 and to  wash  their  souls  by  true  repentance

from all  sins,  that  they  might  journey

to God's  brightness  with  brotherly  love.

After these  words  the  monks  became

greatly moved  (to  devotion),  and  sang  their  offices,

and prepared  themselves  for  the  true  life,

and committed  themselves  to  the  faithful  Creator.

The pestilence  then  came  upon  them  even  as  the  angel  said,

so that  one  hundred  and  sixteen  monks,

within five  months,  departed  from  the  monastery,

and Maurus  the  abbot  died  afterwards,

as the  angel  had  told  to  him  before.

There remained  alive,  however,  in  the  monastery,

four and  twenty  monks  after  Maurus'  death,

and he  was  buried  within  Saint  Martin's  church.

There miracles  are  wrought  by  the  holy  man

to the  praise  of  God,  who  liveth  ever  in  eternity.

This holy  Maurus'  life  was  thus  divided ;

when he  was  twelve  winters  old,  he  was  committed  to  Saint Benedict,

and he  remained  with  him  twenty  winters  thereafter,

and in  his  own  monastery  just  forty  years;

these are  altogether  seventy-two  years.

Two of  the  monks  who  came  with  him  thither,

died there  in  the  aforesaid  pestilence,

and two  returned  again,  as  he  himself  commanded,

back to  Monte  Cassino,  whence  they  had  first  come,

and one  of  them  [named  Faustus]  wrote  this  true  history

in the  Latin  tongue,  but  we  tell  it  in  English.

Be glory  and  praise  to  the  benevolent  God,

who rewardeth  His  saints  with  glory  in  eternity. Amen.