Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/276

 year they found him in the depth of a valley, and they strove even by force to bring him thence unto his church, and to compel him as a bridegroom unto the bosom of his spouse. But the bishop in nowise yielded unto them, accounting himself no longer worthy to exercise the priestly office; since from his mouth had issued a purposed falsehood, the which the sacred canons define to be sacrilege in the mouth of a priest. Whereby it is to be considered how deeply should they repent who of their own fault have fallen into the heaviest offences, when this holy man so deeply repented of, and so strictly atoned for, one falsehood alone. Alas! what hearts of clay do they bear unto the resistance of sin, but what hearts of stone unto repentance! For many men, wicked, sinful, abandoned in their lives (the which cannot be observed without grief), take on themselves the cure of souls, and think to wash away the guilt of others with their own denied hands; who, being themselves bound with the chain of mortal sin, desire to loose others' bonds, and thus heap on themselves increased offence. These men, being placed under the spiritual control, can repent of and atone for their own guiltiness, but, when seated in the pastoral chair, bound are they to account for the faith of all those who are entrusted to their charge. Since, then, the words of a priest must be either a truth or a sacrilege, terrible is the judgment on those priests whose tongue is defiled with falsehoods and with perjuries. Thus much let us show, as speaking by digression, how earnestly not only crimes and evil deeds, but even falsehoods, are to be avoided by all Christian men, and especially by the pastors of souls. Now let us return unto the thread of our sacred story. The aforementioned monks, unwilling to separate from Saint Asycus, continued with him even unto