has withered up before harvest
time; thus wheat degenerates to tares, and vines into the wild vines,
and thus olives run into the wild olive; the tender stems rot away
altogether, and those who might have grown up into strong pillars of
the Church, being endowed with the capacity of a subtle intellect,
abandon the schools of learning. With poverty only as their
stepmother, they are repelled violently from the nectared cup of
philosophy as soon as they have tasted of it and have become more
fiercely thirsty by the very taste. Though fit for the liberal arts
and disposed to study the sacred writings alone, being deprived of the
aid of their friends, by a kind of apostasy they return to the
mechanical arts solely to gain a livelihood, to the loss of the Church
and the degradation of the whole clergy. Thus Mother Church conceiving
sons is compelled to miscarry, nay, some misshapen monster is born
untimely from her womb, and for lack of that little with which Nature
is contented, she loses excellent pupils, who might afterwards become
champions and athletes of the faith. Alas, how suddenly the woof is
cut, while the hand of the weaver is beginning his work! Alas, how the
sun is eclipsed in the brightness of the dawn, and the planet in its
course is hurled backwards, and, while it bears the nature and likeness
of a star suddenly drops and becomes a meteor! What more piteous sight
can the pious man behold? What can more sharply stir the bowels of his
pity? What can more easily melt a heart hard as an anvil into hot
tears? On the other hand, let us recall from past experience how much
it has profited the whole Christian commonwealth, not indeed to
enervate students with the delights of a Sardanapalus or the riches of
a Croesus, but rather to support them in their poverty with the frugal
means that become the scholar. How many have we seen with our eyes,
how many have we read of in books, who, distinguished by no pride of
birth, and rejoicing in no rich inheritance, but supported only by the
piety of the good, have made their way to apostolic chairs, have most
worthily presided over faithful subjects, have bent the necks of the
proud and lofty to the ecclesiastical yoke and have extended further
the liberties of the Church!

Accordingly, having taken a survey of human necessities in every
direction, with a view to bestow our charity upon them, our
compassionate inclinations have chosen to bear pious aid to this
calamitous