COLLOQUY XV.
What they ought to be who Devote themselves to Study.
Some of his companions, hearing that many doctors in Paris, and others in Germany, Italy and France had joined his Order, asked the blessed Father if he were willing that his children should devote themselves to the study of the Holy Scriptures. He replied : ‘ I am willing, provided that, after the example of Christ, of Whom we read that He prayed more than He read, they never omit the practice of prayer. And let them not study only that they may know how to speak, but that they may practise what they learn, and that when they have done this they may propose it for the practice of others. I wish my Brethren to be disciples of the Gospel, and so to advance in the knowledge of truth, as at the same time to increase in holy simplicity, that thus they may not separate the prudence of the serpent from the simplicity of the dove, which the greatest of Masters with His blessed lips has commanded us to unite.’