“Learn to know God and to obey His precepts, Himself saying to you ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments.’ Therefore the reading of the Holy Scriptures is necessary, for in them each may learn what he must follow and what avoid. Let the light of learning dwell among you, and give light through you to other churches, that the praise of you may sound forth in the mouth of all, and your reward may remain eternal in the heavens. Each man shall receive the reward of his own work. Teach diligently the boys and the young men the knowledge of books in the way of the Lord, that they may become worthy to succeed to your honour, and may be your intercessors. For the prayers of the living are profitable to the dying, whether to the pardon of sin or to the increase of glory. He who sows not does not reap; he who learns not does not teach. And such a house as yours without teachers cannot be, or can scarcely be, safe. Great is alms-doing, to feed the poor with food for the body; but greater is it to satisfy the hungry soul with spiritual doctrine. As the provident shepherd takes care to supply his flock with all that is best, so the good teacher ought with all pains to procure for those under him the pastures of eternal life. For the increase of the flock is the glory of the shepherd, and the multitude of the wise is the safety of the world. I am aware that you, most holy fathers, fully know all this, and accomplish it; but the love of him that dictates this has dragged the words from his mouth, believing that you are willing to read with pious humility that which I dictate with devoted soberness in the love of God. Again and again I beseech you that you deign to have my name in memory among those of your friends. “May the God Christ Himself hearken to your kindliness interceding for the whole Church of God, and grant that we may attain unto the glory of eternal beatitude, my dearest brothers.” CHAPTER VIII Alcuin’s letters to King Eardulf and the banished intruder Osbald.—His letters to King Ethelred and Ethelred’s mother.—The Irish claim that Alcuin studied at Clonmacnoise.—Mayo of the Saxons. Alcuin had grievous anxieties about the manner of life of the kings of his native province, and the continual revolutions and disputed successions. Things got worse as he grew into older age—old age as it was then counted. In the previous chapter we have seen a letter of his to Ethelred, the King of Northumbria, under date 793. He wrote another letter to him in that same year, which he addressed in the following affectionate form:—“To my most excellent son Ethelred the king, to my most sweet friends Osbald the patrician and Osbert the duke, to all the friends of my brotherly love, Alchuin the levite desires eternal beatitude.”