Letters136 Letter CXXXVI. To pope innocent (A.D. 1134)

He asks that Dalfinus, who was prepared to give satisfaction for the injuries that he had inflicted, may receive gentler treatment.

o If we were always meeting with calamities, who would be able to bear them? If with prosperity, who is there that would not despise it? But Wisdom, who sweetly orders all things, so tempers with moderation and alternates for His elect the necessary vicissitudes that attend upon the course of their temporal life, that they are neither shattered by adversity nor beguiled by prosperity. The former is made more tolerable by the latter, and the latter receives a keener enjoyment from the former. Blessed be God in all things: our sorrow has been turned into joy, our wounds have been soothed first by wine, then with oil. The robbers and plunderers have been smitten with compunction and brought low. They send back with honour the priest of the Lord, on whom they dared to lay hands; the spoils which they had carried off they energetically collect again, and wholly restore. If any part of them cannot be found Dalfinus will give satisfaction for it according to your good pleasure; he has pledged me his honour to this. If he comes to the feet of your majesty, as he proposes to do, in order to fulfil his promise, I ask that the young man may be dealt with more gently than he deserves. Not that I wish so great a crime to go unpunished, but that the Church, if possible, may be honoured by due satisfaction being given; so that he who gives the satisfaction may not be exasperated beyond the limits of his patience, and may not repent him of having listened to my advice.