Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/79

 THE

BEGINNING OF THE BOOK

OF

THE LIFE AND MIRACLES

OF

BISHOP OF LINDISFARNE.

CHAPTER I.

HOW CUTHBERT, THE CHILD OF GOD, WAS WARNED BY A CHILD OF HIS FUTURE BISHOPRIC.

§3. beginning of our history of the life of the blessed Cuthbert is hallowed by Jeremy the Prophet, who, in exaltation of the anchorite's perfect state, says, "It is good for a man, when he hath borne the yoke from his youth, he shall sit alone, and shall be silent, because he shall raise himself above himself." For, inspired by the sweetness of this good, Cuthbert, the man of God, from his early youth bent his neck beneath the yoke of the monastic institution; and when occasion presented itself, having laid fast hold of the anachoretic life, he rejoiced to sit apart for no small space of time, and for the sweetness of divine meditation to hold his tongue silent from human colloquy. But that he should be able to do this in his advanced years, was the effect of God's grace inciting him gradually to the way of truth from his early childhood; for even to the eighth year of his life, which is the first year of boyhood succeeding to