"The followers of all sorts of schisms, different in their opinions, various in their multitude, sought, by pretending to the Christian name, to blunt the keenness of your choice. But, while we entrust our several conditions to eternity, and reserve for the future examination what each conceives to be right in his own case, a bright flash of the truth has descended on the present. For a divine provision has supplied a judge for our own time. In making choice for yourself, you have given a decision for all. Your faith is our victory. In this case most men, in their search for the true religion, when they consult priests, or are moved by the suggestion of companions, are wont to allege the custom of their family, and the rite which has descended to them from their fathers. Thus making a show of modesty, which is injurious to salvation, they keep a useless reverence for parents in maintaining unbelief, but confess themselves ignorant what to choose. Away with the excuse of such hurtful modesty, after the miracle of such a deed as yours. Content only with the nobility of your ancient race, you have resolved that all which could crown with glory such a rank should spring from your personal merit. If they did great things, you willed to do greater. Your answer to that nobility of your ancestors was to show your temporal kingdom; you set before your posterity a kingdom in heaven. Let Greece exult in having a prince of our law; not that it any longer deserves to enjoy alone so great a gift, since the rest of the world has its own lustre. For now in the western parts shines in a new king a sunbeam which is not new. The birthday of our Redeemer fitly marked its bright rising. You were regenerated to salvation from the water on the same day on which the world received for its redemption the birth of the Lord of heaven. Let the Lord's birthday be yours also: you were born to Christ when Christ was born to the world. Then you consecrated your soul to God, your life to those around you, your fame to those coming after you.