CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER l6
FOR many years Ceolfrith had carried out the discipline of observance of the Rule, a discipline which its father and provider had handed down on the authority of traditional practice for the benefit both of his monks and himself. All this time he had shown a diligence equalled by none in his ceaseless daily round of prayer and chant; had proved himself remarkably zealous in restraining evildoers, yet tactful in encouraging the weak; and had practised a degree of abstinence from food and drink and a disregard for dress rarely found in those in authority. But now that he was old and full of days he realized that the defects of advanced age rendered him incapable of maintaining any longer, either by precept or by personal example, proper spiritual standards in those who were subject to him. He turned the matter over in his mind a long while and finally decided that it would be better were the brethren to choose, as the decree of their privilege and the Rule of St Benedict laid down, one from among themselves who was more suitable to be abbot. This he charged them to do. As for himself, he had it in mind to visit once more the shrines of the holy apostles in Rome, where he had gone with Benedict as a young man. This arrangement would give him respite for a while from the cares of the world and freedom to enjoy peace and solitude, and would also enable the brethren, under the more active leadership of the younger man they would elect as abbot, to follow more perfectly the way of life enjoined by their rule.