130. The wealth which you have obtained, If you do not be obedient to HIM, Shall be taken from you in a short time; They shall leave you in pain. 131. For it has been the full reduction To every king who has been, When you have bartered--hapless power!-- Your righteousness for unrighteousness. 132. For it is through the unrighteousness of kings That all peace is disrupted Between the Church and the laity-- All truth is broken. 133. For it is through their contention Comes every plague, it is known; It is through their excesses that there comes not Corn, or milk, or fruit; 134. It is through them come all mortalities, Which defy every power; It is through them that battle-triumph attends Every enemy over their countries; 135. It is through them come the tempests Of the angry, cold skies, The insects--the many distempers Which cut off all the people. [There were a few stanzas more, but they are illegible.] It is unnecessary for us to dwell at any great length on the importance of this venerable document. It not only illustrates in an extraordinary manner many points of Catholic dogma, but also shows that several of the disciplinary observances now in force in the Church were faithfully observed by our fathers in the seventh century. For instance, the respectful and loving homage due to the Blessed Mother of God is insinuated in the fifth strophe; in the ninth and following strophes we are taught the authority with which bishops are invested in the Church--authority which extends over every class no matter how exalted: "Check the noble kings: be thou the vigilant pastor". In the eighteenth and following we are instructed in the duty of honouring superiors as we honour Christ Himself. From the thirty-eighth to the sixty-sixth we are taught the great and most important offices of a priest, especially with regard to offering the Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord, the practice of daily Mass, the celebration of Requiem Masses for the dead, the administration of the Holy Communion in life and death, and the necessity of receiving the confessions of the faithful, both before Communion and at the last moment.