without anxiety of
retaining, without fear of forgetting. O blessed school, where
Christ teaches our hearts with the words of his virtue, where
without study and lecture we learn how we should live happily to
eternity! There no book is bought, no teacher of things written
is hired, there is no circumventing in debate, no intricacy of
sophisms, [but] a plain settlement of all questions, a full
apprehension of universal reasons and arguments. There life
avails more than lecture; simplicity, more than cavilling. There
no one is shut in [i.e., limited in freedom] save he who is shut
out. In a word; there every reproach is done away with in the
answer given to him who evilly presents an evil life: "Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels;" and to him who sets for a good life: "Come, ye
blessed" &c.

Would that the sons of men were as intent upon these better
studies as they are on idle talking, on vain and base buffoonery!
Certainly they would harvest richer fruits, more excellent
favors, certainly greater honors and beyond doubt would learn the
end of all perfection,--Christ,--whom they will never find in
these. Farewell.[78]

(c) _Letters from or to Students at Paris_

These letters belong to a period covering nearly four centuries. The
first gives an opinion of William of Champeaux in marked contrast to
that of Abelard.

(1) A CERTAIN D. WRITES TO A CERTAIN PRIOR CONCERNING HIS STUDIES AT
PARIS. (1109-1112.)

I am now in Paris in the School of Master William of Champeaux,
the greatest of all the men of his time whom I have known, in
every branch of learning. When we hear his voice we think that no
man, but, as it were, an angel from heaven, is speaking; for the
melody of his words and the profundity of his ideas transcends,
as it were, human limitations....

Here, my revered friend, I am training my youth that I may not
utterly succumb to those vices which, unless conquered, are wont,
as a rule, to overturn this period of life. Here I am doing my
best to illumine by doctrine and study my untaught mind,
emancipated from the shades of ignorance and the sin of the first
man, so far as God, from whom alone comes every blessing of
wisdom, shall himself deign to permit. Because the blessing of
wisdom, wh