=95. A Crime committed at Athelney.=[254]--There was a crime committed once in that monastery, which I would <not>,[255] by my silence, utterly consign to oblivion, although it is an atrocious villainy, for throughout the whole of Scripture the base deeds of the wicked are interspersed among the reverend actions of the righteous, like tares and cockle among the wheat. Good deeds are recorded that they may be praised, imitated, and emulated, and that those who pursue them may be held worthy of all honor; and wicked deeds, that they may be censured, execrated, and avoided, and their imitators be reproved with all odium, contempt, and vengeance. =96. The Plot of a Priest and a Deacon.=[256]--Once upon a time, a certain priest and a deacon, Gauls by birth, of the number of the aforesaid monks, by the instigation of the devil, and roused by jealousy, became so embittered in secret against their abbot, the above-mentioned John, that, after the manner of the Jews, they circumvented and betrayed their master. For they so wrought upon two hired servants of the same Gallic race that in the night, when all men were enjoying the sweet tranquillity of sleep, they should make their way into the church armed, and, shutting it behind them as usual, hide themselves there, and wait till the abbot should enter the church alone. At length, when, as was his wont, he should secretly enter the church by himself to pray, and, bending his knees, bow before the holy altar, the men should fall upon him, and slay him on the spot. They should then drag his lifeless body out of the church, and throw it down before the house of a certain harlot, as if he had been slain whilst on a visit to her. This was their device, adding crime to crime, as it is said, ‘The last error shall be worse than the first.’[257] But the divine mercy, which is always wont to aid the innocent, frustrated in great part the evil design of those evil men, so that it did not turn out in all respects as they had planned.