CHAPTER XVI.

Of the useful virtue called silence.

THE Servitor had an interior drawing to strive after true peace of heart, and it seemed to him that silence would be of service towards attaining it. He therefore kept so strict a guard over his mouth, that for thirty years he never broke silence at table, except once, when he was returning from a chapter with many other brothers, and they ate on board ship. On that occasion he broke it. In order to have greater mastery over his tongue, and to stop himself from giving way too readily to talk, he made choice in his mind of three masters, without whose special leave he resolved never to speak, and these were the holy patriarchs St. Dominic, St. Arsenius, and St. Bernard. Whenever he wished to speak he went in thought from one to the other, and asked leave, saying, “Jube, 57domne, benedicere” (Bid me, O master, speak); and if it was the right time and place to speak, he received permission from the first master; and if there was no external reason to prevent him speaking, he had leave from the second; and if it was not likely to do him an injury interiorly, he considered that he had leave from all three; and after that he spoke; but if it was not so, it seemed to him that he ought to keep silence. Whenever he was called to the door of the convent he applied himself to these four things:—first, to receive every one with kindliness; secondly, to despatch the matter with brevity; thirdly, to send the person away consoled; fourthly, to go back again free from attachment.