We have come together, by the grace of God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we who have set before us one and the same end of religious life. And it is plain that you on your part are longing to learn something of that which concerns salvation. I therefore for my part am bound to declare God's righteous acts, since night and day there runs in my mind what the Apostle says: ‘For three years by night and day I did not cease to admonish every one of you with tears’ (Acts 20, 31). Since also the present time is very favourable, and this place provides quiet and complete freedom from the tumults without, let us unite our prayers, that while we give to our fellow-servants their measure of corn in season, you, like good ground, receiving the word, may, as Scripture says (Matt. 13, 23), yield a hundred-fold a perfect fruit in righteousness.