“If there is joy over a rise, there is fear for a fall: the loftier the position, the more dangerous the fall. According to your appellation be the chief overseer not only of the flock committed unto thee, but also of thyself, that in a few days of labour you may earn a great reward of bliss. “These are dangerous times in Britain. The death of kings[165] is a signal of misery. Discord is the road to prison. The things which you have very often heard our master Archbishop Albert predict are hastening to come true. “Be not covetous of gold and of silver but of gain of souls. Me remember daily in prayers and alms, thyself always in keeping of the commandments of God. If storms threaten on every side, steer manfully the ship of Christ, that in time you may arrive with your sailors at the port of prosperity. Let your tongue never be silent from the word of holy preaching, your hand never be benumbed from good work. “Let not your mind become soft in adulation of princes or slow in correction of those under you. Let not the flatteries of the world deceive you, the transient honours uplift, the favour of the people subvert you. Be a very firm pillar in the house of God, not a reed shaken with the wind. Be a candle set on a candlestick, not hid under a bushel. Be to all a way of salvation, not an artery of perdition, that by thee very many may be corrected and saved, and with thee may attain unto eternal life. “Wherever you go, let the Pastoral treatise of the blessed Gregory go with you. Read it, re-read it, very often, and see in it yourself and your work, that you may always have before your eyes how you ought to live, how you ought to teach. It is a mirror of a bishop’s life, and a specific against all the wounds of the devil’s fraud.” [Sidenote: Ep. 173. A.D. 801.] Late in Alcuin’s life, he became very anxious about the conduct of this favourite pupil, Archbishop Eanbald II. Five years after the election he wrote two letters on the subject, one direct to the Archbishop, and one to two monks whom he sent to visit and advise him. To Eanbald he writes as to one in tribulation, the king Eardulf being set against him. “But”, he says, “I think that a part of your tribulation arises from yourself. It may be that you shelter the enemies of the king, or protect their possessions. If you suffer justly, why be troubled? If unjustly, why not call to mind the Saints? As the apostle James says[166]—‘Ye have heard of the tribulations of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.’” In this letter he goes no further into detail, remarking at its close that the Cuckoo will say more. The Cuckoo was one of his messengers, Cuculus, whom he calls in his playful way the bird of spring, the name being the Latin word for a cuckoo. To the Cuckoo, then, and the presbyter Calvin, he sends a letter of instructions. [Sidenote: Ep. 174. A.D. 801.]