What sayest thou to these things now, Brother most beloved, remembering that thou wast a wild olive, and meet for eternal fire, and seeing that thou art now grafted, in despite of nature, on this fair and fruitful olive tree, and art become a partaker in its fatness? Canst thou do aught save proclaim with the whole inward love of thine heart, "Great is thy mercy to me, O Lord, and Thou hast snatched my soul from the nethermost Hell"? For it is written of Catho that he would praise his gods mightily--he being but an heathen--and extol his own good fortune, in that it had been permitted to him to be born in that land, and at that time when he could see Rome and her Empire flourishing in the height of their prosperity; and if this is true, Brother most beloved, what return wilt thou make to the Lord thy God for that it was given thee to be born and to live in this time of His Most abundant Goodness, and in a land which He, the Lord, hath blessed? Hadst thou lived in the days of thy fathers, before our land was illumined by the light of Grace of which so much hath been said already, what else could have befallen but that thou shouldest have done even as they did? From which it doth follow that thou also wouldest have gone even whither they went, there to abide for ever. O happy days in which were born the leaders and chiefs of this new army of ours, I mean Gherard Groet and Florentius, and their son's sons also, and they that are born from them continually! and so it shall continue to the end of time. Amen. May the Mother of Grace grant thee to follow their footsteps and to hold fast their doctrine. * * * * * Here endeth the letter concerning the first institutors of the monastery at Windesem, which letter was written by the venerable Father William Voern.