67. To Prior Henry.
The Letters of St. Anselm
67. TO PRIOR HENRY.
Anselm praises Osbeni for having completely given up the perversity of his former life and for having persevered in his monastic vow. He urgently beseeches Prior
Henry to receive and treat him kindly on his return to Canterbury so that the fragile flower of a virtuous life may not be crushed by severity.
TO HIS LORD AND DEAREST FRIEND, THE REVEREND PRIOR HENRY:
BROTHER ANSELM WISHING THAT HE MAY SOW HOLINESS ON
EARTH AND REAP BLISS IN HEAVEN.
MY BELOVED, YOUR DOM OSBERN,1 who is being brought to you,2 so freely accuses and curses the perversi ty of his former life and—as far as I could tell openly and secretly from the life he shared with us—is so inflamed by the love of a praiseworthy life that his inner man may be thought, not without cause, either to have changed for the better already or surely to be about to change easily.
It is certainly known to your prudence that a display of kindness is never so necessary as in the case of a new, fresh conversion from sullied to unsullied behavior, lest the good beginnings, which can be nourished and guided towards perfection by the warmth of goodwill be hindered or sure ly crushed by the harshness of severity. Therefore I beseech your beloved holiness, that, as befits the discretion of your governance and is expedient for the aforenamed brother, having blotted out the memory of his previous perversities you nourish the infancy of his resolutions towards improve ment with the milk of pure affection, lest—which I do not expect—he perhaps offend, not by weakness, but by fall ing back of his own free will into his former wickedness.
You can in no way more appropriately prove to him that love lay hidden under the severity he felt in his error than if now it is made clear in correcting his error. Accordingly, it appears to me that no one should be prodded on to the path of a righteous life unless he cannot be drawn to it. I pray, too, or rather I demand, on the basis of the obliga tion which friends owe to each other, that, just as I wish