Letters478 Letter CDLXXVIII. To the Count of Nevers.

To his most dearly beloved in Christ, Wilhelm, B[ernard], called Abbot of Clairvaux, health.

The more prepared you show yourself to obey, the more careful and cautious it behoves me to be in advising or correcting. It was indeed proper and becoming that you should carry on and complete that praiseworthy beginning of your conversion: and that was so much the more becoming to you, that you had bravely treated all that was yours as of no account, going on to perfect that which remained, namely, the giving up of yourself also, and thus no longer living according to your own sole will: inasmuch as you are a true follower of Christ, who became obedient unto His Father, even unto death: and though He was able to do all things, yet confessed that He could do nothing as of Himself. s But since, as you represent to me, both the exigency of the present time and compassion for the poor, and the care of your House which you have assumed, seem to hinder the completion of your [good purpose at the time intended: neither do I, as far as concerns me, prohibit whatever course charity may have prescribed to you: yet so that you do not delay beyond the limit already fixed by yourself. And take heed of this also: that during this period of freedom thus conceded to you, you do not misuse the time by employing it, not in the Divine things, but in the fulfilment of your own inclinations, or even perhaps (which may God forbid) in secular pleasures and business. Farewell.