Saint Edmund

This blessed child, both in England and in Paris, corresponded perfectly to the inclinations and care of such a prudent mother. He was a model of gentleness, modesty, and devotion, a spiritual alliance. He was almost never seen except at school, at church, or in his room. Prayer and study, apart from the indispensable needs of the body, occupied all his time, and he never failed, on feast days and Sundays, following his mother's instruction, to recite the entire Psalter of David. The love of the child Jesus Christ was deeply rooted in his heart; he often thought of Him, and this amiable Savior did not forget him in return, but watched assiduously over all his needs. He received one day a signal favor. As he was walking with other schoolboys, he moved away from the company for fear that some useless or less than honest conversation might make an impression on his imagination, this divine child appeared to him in ravishing beauty, and, casting upon him a look full of love, said to him these words: 'I greet you, my beloved.' Edme was surprised by such an obliging greeting and remained quite stunned without daring to answer anything; but the Savior added: 'Do you not recognize me then?' — 'I do not have that honor,' Edme said to him, 'and I also persuade myself that you take me for another, and that you do not know me either.' — 'How can it be,' replied the little Jesus, 'that you do not know me, I who in school am always at your side and who accompany you wherever you go? Look upon my face and see what is written.' Edme raised his eyes and read these words: JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS, written in celestial characters. 'That is my name,' continued this adorable child; 'you must engrave it deeply in your heart, and imprint it at night on your forehead, and it will preserve you, and all those who do the same, from a sudden death.' After which He disappeared, leaving our holy schoolboy filled with an inconceivable joy. Since then, he had a singular devotion to the Passion of Our Lord, and he made it the continuous occupation of his mind.

Some authors have written that this miraculous apparition took place in the Pré-aux-Clercs, in Paris. The mother of our Saint, having fallen dangerously ill and judging well that she would not recover, recalled this dear son from Paris as soon as possible to give him her blessing. He received it with profound respect, and then begged this good mother to give it also to his brother and sisters. 'That is not necessary, my son,' she replied, 'I have blessed them all in your person, inasmuch as it will be through you that they will be made participants in the blessings of heaven.' She was not unaware of the degree of holiness he would one day reach, and the previous night she had seen him in a dream wearing on his head a crown of thorns, which, having suddenly caught fire, sent its flames toward heaven. As he was the eldest, she recommended that he take care of his brother and watch particularly over the reputation of his sisters. Their extreme beauty, although it was accompanied by perfect wisdom, made him fear for them the perils to which they would be exposed in the world. He therefore proposed that they become nuns; and, having their consent for this, he presented them to the superior of a monastery, but they would only be received on condition that they bring a certain sum of cash; fearing that there might be simony in this, he withdrew and had recourse to God through prayer, also ordering his sisters to do the same. After his prayer, he went to a poor monastery where he knew that the observance was kept in all its integrity. As soon as the prioress saw him, she called him by his name, although she did not know him, and, anticipating his request, which God had revealed to her, she told him that he could bring his sisters and that they would be received with joy. Delivered from the anxieties of the family, and resolved to return to Paris, Edme first consecrated himself to God and to the Blessed Virgin, by the vow of chastity. He chose, for this solemn act, a day and a sanctuary dedicated to the Mother of God, and here is how he accomplished this donation of himself: he came to an altar of Mary, placed at the foot of her statue two rings prepared in advance, and around which he had had engraved the Salutation of the Angel: he pronounced on his knees the vow, already made in his heart, of perpetual chastity, then took one of the rings, and as a pledge of his oaths and of an henceforth irrevocable alliance, placed it on the finger of the holy image; he likewise placed on his own finger a similar ring which he kept until death: a sweet memorial that reminded him, by its shape, of the eternity of his promises, and which, by the sweet Ave of which it bore the imprint, would remain on his hand as a perpetual salutation to his beloved Mother. From that time on, Mary did not cease to protect this dear child, and he, for his part, was always faithful to the one he called 'his sovereign, his guardian, his spouse, his mother.'

He returned to Paris to complete his studies. He was in love with the sciences, but he had no less ardor for virtue. He studied as if he were to live forever, and he lived as if he were to die the next day; study made him despise vanity, the pleasures of the senses, and all things that could prevent him from practicing virtue, and virtue filled his soul with celestial lights that made it capable of penetrating, through study, the most sublime truths. Thus, by this happy concert, he became so learned that he was the admiration, not only of his fellow students, but also of his masters, and he was considered a prodigy of doctrine and erudition, at the same time that the purity and innocence of his life made him a miracle of holiness.

As he advanced in age, he increased his austerities: for, not content with the common hairshirts that his mother had once given him, he had one made so rough, and so to speak so cruel and unbearable, that one had hardly ever seen the like. He added to it horsehair drawers and stockings, with the corset he had inherited from his mother, which made him endure at every moment a martyrdom that one cannot conceive. When he had received the first degrees of the faculty of Paris, he taught belles-lettres there with a great reputation. In this employment, he was so disinterested that not only did he not press his students for money, but what was given to him he often left on a window covered with dirt, saying that dust must be left with dust. When his students were in need, he relieved them with his alms, and one day he took one into his home who was sick, and slept for six weeks beside his bed to assist him. He cured another of a cruel arm ailment by saying to him: "May our Lord Jesus Christ heal you!" He also applied himself to leading them to virtue, and he often used his chair to give them powerful exhortations on the obligations they had to live as Christians. He had a chapel built in his parish in honor of the Blessed Virgin, where he took them with him to Mass. He said every day, in honor of this Queen of Angels and of Saint John the Evangelist, the prayer O intemerata, and once when he had omitted it, he was reproved by this beloved disciple. While he was teaching geometry, and applying himself to solving its problems, his mother appeared to him in a dream and asked him what all these figures meant to which he was so attentive. Having answered what came to his mind, she took his hand and imprinted three circles on it, which represented the Holy Trinity, saying to him: "Leave, my son, all the figures with which you are now occupied, and think no more but of these." The Saint understood well what this meant, and immediately applied himself to the study of theology.

After having taught the liberal arts for six years, he returned to class as a simple disciple. While studying, he had before him the image of Our Lady, around which were represented the mysteries of our Redemption; and, in the height of his applications, he addressed her with such fervor that his spirit sometimes entered into the sweetness of contemplation and a sort of ecstasy. He never took the Bible to read it without kissing it with respect. He spent part of the night in this reading. He heard Matins every day at Saint-Merry, and then remained for a very long time in prayer with tears and groans at the foot of an altar of the Blessed Virgin. From there he went to the schools without taking any rest. In the afternoon he heard Vespers; and, although he was so assiduous at church, one never saw him sitting there, but always in a humbled posture. Walter of Gray, Archbishop of York, knowing that he needed books, had some copied for him; but he refused them, for fear that it would be a burden to the monastery. He even sometimes sold those that belonged to him to give alms to the poor, because the more he grew in light, the less he needed books.

It is by these acts of religion as much as by study that he made himself worthy of the rank of doctor. It was nevertheless necessary to force him to receive it, because his humility made him believe that he did not deserve such a great honor. He immediately used this new degree for the benefit of his neighbor, as if he were born only for the utility of others. He gave his lessons with such unction that, while enlightening the minds of his listeners, he also softened their hearts. Many, touched by the exhortations inflamed with divine love that he mingled among his discussions, left considerable benefices and ecclesiastical dignities to embrace the religious life.

One night in a dream, he saw a great fire fill the hall where he taught publicly, and seven torches, which were formed from this fire, come out of it. The next day, seven of his students, among whom was Stephen of Lexington, who later became Abbot of Clairvaux and founded the famous College of the Bernardins in Paris, joined the Abbot of Cîteaux, who had come to listen to him, and went to receive the habit in his monastery. Another time, when he was to treat of the most Holy Trinity, he fell asleep in his chair while waiting for the start of t he lesson; during hi Étienne de Lexington Disciple of Edmund and founder of the Collège des Bernardins. s sleep, he saw a dove descend from heaven and bring him a host in its mouth; after which he discoursed with such depth on this mystery that one clearly perceived that he was speaking by an extraordinary impression of the Spirit of God. He also applied himself to preaching, and his sermons were so animated with an apostolic zeal that he overcame the resistance of the most hardened sinners: as he did with regard to William, Earl of Salisbury, who had not been to confession for a long time.

From his childhood, he had fasted on bread and water on Fridays, and from Septuagesima until Lent; after his promotion to the priesthood, he ate only once a day, and he practiced such rigorous abstinence that it was feared it might be excessive. He was seen almost always in prayer. He often adored Our Lord with these words: Adoramus te, Christe, which he repeated at each of His wounds. It is held that, for three years, he never lay in his bed, and that he slept sometimes lying on a bench or on the bare ground, sometimes sitting, so that only half of his body would rest. He never wanted a benefice where he could not reside; and, when he was obliged to teach, if he had one, he would resign it, so as not to receive the income without fulfilling the obligations. But finally, to have more freedom to apply himself to the ministry of preaching the Gospel, without being a burden to anyone, he accepted, albeit with great difficulty, and only at the insistence of his friends, the treasurership of the illustrious church of Salisbury. He had such contempt for gold and silver that he never touched them except to give alms. He relied on his steward for his receipts and expenses, and never asked him for an account, provided he was liberal toward the poor.

The Pope, being informed of his holiness and his zeal for the glory of Jesus Christ, sent him an apostolic mission to preach the Crusade against the Saracens, with the power to demand from the churches what would be necessary for his journey. He did not consent to use this privilege, preferring to announce the word of God as a true Apostle, without any help other than that of zeal and self-denial. He fulfilled his mission with immense success, which he owed to the irresistible power of holiness. The see of Canterbury being vacant, and the election of the archbishop of that city having devolved to His Holiness, Pope Gregory IX appointed our holy preacher to it. He hid himself to avoid this honor, and offered great resistan ce when he was f pape Grégoire IX Pope who attested to the miracles of Bruno. ound; but finally, as it was pointed out to him that he could no longer oppose this choice without offending God, he allowed himself to be led to his archiepiscopal see. Having been consecrated (1234) with the general applause of all the people, he showed himself a worthy Shepherd of the flock of Jesus Christ. He increased his austerities rather than diminishing them. He did not take on brilliant and magnificent garments, as the bishops of his time did; but he contented himself in his clothing with a neat and honest simplicity. He took particular care of all the spiritual and bodily needs of his flock. He was the provider for the poor, the father of orphans, the support of widows, the refuge of persecuted persons, and the relief of the sick. He married off girls who had no means to provide for themselves, and applied to his works of charity, in addition to his own income, the fines from his officiality. He persecuted vice above all; but at the same time he worked everywhere to win over sinners and draw them to penance. He never wanted to receive any gift, and he could not approve of judges receiving them. On which he would pleasantly say that "between taking and hanging, there is only one letter of difference."

Such was the life of Saint Edmund while he peacefully enjoyed his see; but, because he was pleasing to God and cherished by heaven, it was necessary that he be tested in the furnace of tribulation. Indeed, as he showed himself inflexible in the defense of the rights of the Church and ecclesiastical immunities, he incurred such indignation from the king, the lords, the cowardly and complacent bishops, and even his own chapter, that they subjected him to a thousand kinds of outrages and persecutions. In these trials, his patience was always invincible. He tenderly cherished his own persecutors and, when the opportunity arose, showed them all kinds of kindness. He consoled and strengthened his servants and those attached to his person, telling them that these insults were medicines, which, however bitter they might be, were nonetheless very salutary for him and contributed to the health of his soul. He compared them to the wild honey on which Saint John lived in the desert, which had at once bitterness and sweetness. However, after strong remonstrances that he made to the king, seeing that his presence irritated spirits and that he was no longer left the freedom to perform his episcopal functions, he took the resolution to withdraw to France. He performed several more miracles before his departure, and, when he was on the point of embarking, Saint Thomas, that admirable Archbishop of Canterbury, who had left him such a beautiful example of episcopal vigor, appeared to him and exhorted him to always have good courage, assuring him that in a short time he would receive the reward for all his labors. He therefore left England secretly and withdrew to the Abbey of Pont igny, of the Order abbaye de Pontigny Cistercian abbey where the saint went into exile and where his body rests. of Cît eaux, where he w Ordre de Cîteaux Monastic order to which Bertrand and the Abbey of Grandselve belong. as received with all the reverence due to his character and his eminent virtue (1240).

Shortly after, he fell dangerously ill; his friends urged him to be transported to the monastery of Soisy, of the same Order, monastère de Soisy Place of the saint's death near Provins. near Provins, where the air was more temperate and much better. This change afflicted the religious of Pontigny extremely, and they showed him their sorrow by the abundance of their tears; but he consoled them, promising them that he would return to them on the feast of Saint Edmund, martyr. His illness did not diminish in this other house; on the contrary, it increased from day to day, so that he asked for the viaticum. As soon as he perceived the holy host in the hands of the priest, extending his arms toward this object of his love, he cried out with extreme confidence: "You are, Lord, the one in whom I have believed, you are the one whom I have preached and announced to your people, according to the truth of your Gospel. I take you to witness that I have sought on earth only you alone, and that all my desire has been to accomplish your holy will: this is still what I wish now above all things; do with me what you please." Those who were present were quite surprised to hear him speak in this way, because it seemed, by his gestures, his looks, and his tone of voice, that he actually saw Jesus Christ.

After having received the most holy Eucharist, he remained all that day in great joy: it seemed that he was no longer ill. Tears flowed from his eyes, burning with the ardor of his love, and the evenness of his face was a proof of the tranquility of his soul. He was finally given the sacrament of Extreme Unction, and then, taking the cross in his arms, he watered it with his tears and spent a long time kissing, with the most tender and affective devotion, the wounds of his Savior. He pressed his mouth, so to speak, to that of His sacred side, and, as if he had wanted to suck blood from it, he said: "It is now that one must draw salutary waters from the fountains of the Redeemer." The more his limbs weakened, the more he felt his soul strengthened by new graces. He never wanted to lie down, but he always remained seated and took no other relief than to rest his head between his hands sometimes. Finally, without giving any sign of death or heaving any sigh, he rendered his beautiful soul to Our Lord, on November 16 of the year 1240. The night that preceded his passing, a holy man had a revelation of his glory and of the veneration that he deserved on earth.

Immediately after the death of Saint Edme, his heart was separated from his body and placed in a reliquary that was deposited in the church of the Abbey of Saint-Jacques in Provins, where it was kept until the French Revolution. The venerable body, vested in pontifical ornaments, was exposed in the church of Soisy and then transported to Pontigny. Throughout the journey, the funeral carriage was preceded and followed by an immense crowd that never ceased to grow. It was with this magnificent procession that the holy body arrived at Pontigny on November 20, the feast day of Saint Edmund, martyr. It was placed in the middle of the sanctuary, where it remained exposed until the seventh day, vested in its pontifical ornaments and with the face uncovered. His features were not altered, and during the time he remained exposed to the eyes and veneration of the faithful, a numerous throng never ceased to fill the church. The religious charged with guarding the sacred deposit, desiring to possess a relic of the Saint, wished to remove his pontifical ring from his finger; but he could only remove it after asking the Saint for forgiveness for his temerity, and having humbly prayed to him to grant him this gift himself. This ring was kept among the holy objects, and the Lord granted numerous healings to the virtue of its touch. On November 25, the body was placed in a grave that had been prepared for him in front of the high altar, under the slabs of the sanctuary. Scarcely had the holy Pontiff been lowered into the tomb when God glorified his servant with three miracles. Eight days later, wonders began to occur in such great numbers at his tomb that the religious of Pontigny thought of giving him a more honorable resting place. The coffin having been removed from the grave and opened, the body was found without any corruption, and the face as fresh and as rosy as on the day of his passing.

Edme was hardly in possession of his tomb when he found himself invested with the glory of the Saints; the brilliance of his miracles, the memory of his heroic virtues, and the anticipated homage of the faithful canonized him before the judgment of the Church. Finally, he was placed among the Saints by Pope Innocent IV in 1247, and the ceremony of his translation w as set f Louis IX King of France who visited the relics of Saint Hildevert. or June 9 of the same year. It took place in the presence of Louis IX and his entire court, and a multitude that had flocked from the various regions of France and England. The holy body was found whole and without corruption, and deposited on the high altar, where it received the homage of the numerous faithful. The next day, it was placed in a stone mausoleum; but, shortly after, a second translation took place. The pious liberality of the faithful having allowed for the creation of a magnificent reliquary, resplendent with gold, crystal, and precious stones, the holy body was placed therein; it was raised on four bronze columns at the back of the sanctuary.

France did not flock with less eagerness than England to the tomb of the holy Archbishop of Canterbury. The influx grew every day, and the religious were no longer sufficient to show the holy relics. To satisfy the piety of the faithful and diminish the fatigue, they limited themselves to having the right hand kissed, which two brothers supported outside the reliquary and presented to the lips of the pilgrims. When they were exhausted, two others took their place without interruption; but such was the eagerness of the crowd that "the hand of the dead wearied the hands of the living." It also happened that, by the continuous movement imparted to the arm to offer it for kisses, it seemed to want to detach itself at the elbow joint and, as it were, "to sympathize by its weariness with the fatigue of the Brothers." The religious noticed this, and fearing that the movement, by dint of being repeated, might damage the rest of the body, and not wishing to excite the murmurs of the pilgrims, who had often come from afar, by a refusal, they resolved to complete with respect the separation of the forearm. They enclosed it in a gold arm-reliquary adorned with precious stones and offered, in the name of King Saint Louis, by the two queens of France. Even today, this hand continues to be presented to the gaze and veneration of the faithful.

Pontigny became the center of a pilgrimage that attracted men of every condition from the most remote provinces of the kingdom. The kings of France, in the calamities that threatened their family or their people, resorted to the intercession of Saint Edme to appease the divine wrath. These illustrious pilgrimages followed one another without interruption until the end of the 18th century: princes and cities came there or sent deputations with gifts and prayers to obtain signal favors or to avert the wrath of God. Several times the relics of Saint Edme escaped barbarian invaders, such as the Calvinists or the Revolutionaries of 1793. They were saved intact. Likewise, the church, which dates from 1150, is the only one of the Order of Cîteaux that has escaped the ravages of time or demolishers; it is still standing, without any alteration to the interior. It is distinguished by two characteristics: the unity of style and the austere purity of the architecture.

Here everything is noble, dignified, and imposing. The Rule of Cîteaux, no doubt, was not ignored; but the simplicity, the purity of the lines, and the gravity of the architectural style produced something great, beautiful, and solemn in their encounter, the ogive allies itself with the Romanesque round arch: it is the primitive ogival style. We find, in the abbey church of Pontigny, one of the first and successful attempts of the Gothic art that had just been born; it has produced nothing subsequently more pure and more irreproachable than the sanctuary with its apse slightly carried on its eight monolithic columns. Twenty-four chapels radiate in an elegant crown around this sanctuary, and it is from their midst that it emerges and rises in colonnades and ogives as graceful as they are imposing. The nave is also beautiful in its majestic nudity; but, devoid of ornamentation to the point of poverty, it appears cold and neglected, and one feels that the choir was treated by the artist with a just predilection.

The eye, accustomed to the flowery ornamentation of our cathedrals of the 13th and 14th centuries, would seek in vain here for those embroidered rose windows, those large and splendid stained-glass windows, those elegant aedicules, those figurines that breathe in the stone; one must not ask for this luxury of art from a church as severe as the monastic rules. Capitals with croziers for the sanctuary, and water leaves for the nave, are the only sculptures of this grandiose monument. These narrow lancet windows that measure the light for you with parsimony and give the holy place such a recollected color, remind you of the monk's cell and announce that the prescriptions of Saint Bernard and religious austerity have not been forgotten. At the back of the apse is a monument that dominates the sanctuary and affects an imposing majesty. One guesses that this reliquary, suspended in the air and supported by the hand of angels, serves as a throne for the one who, after God, is evidently the lord of the holy place. In this reliquary, adorned with old gilding and a few statuettes, a mixture of magnificence and poverty attests at once to a long veneration and a long indifference. On this secular bed that the faith and love of the people have prepared for him, the body of the holy pontiff rests peacefully as if on a state bed, and continues his sleep of six centuries. He is dressed in a red silk fabric and pontifical ornaments, which are evidently from the 13th century, and the same in which the holy body was wrapped at its first translation (1247). The head, despite the ravages of time, is well preserved, and some adhering teeth can still be seen in the mouth. His left hand is withered and extended along the body. The right hand, still intact, is kept in a separate reliquary. The four candles which, through the liberality of the kings of England, burned night and day and were to burn in perpetuity before the holy tomb, were extinguished under the breath of the Reformation (1532). On the beautiful sculptures of the choir, the revolutionary axe left traces of its vandalism.

Of the ancient abbey, only one building has survived; contemporary with the church and standing at its side, this last remnant does not dishonor it; it is well worthy of representing, to the ages, the famous monastery and gives a great idea of its solid beauty. This building consists of a cellar and a granary superimposed. When one considers these vaults and these pillars of an architecture so elegant and so strong that it can defy the injuries of time and compare itself to the most splendid constructions of our days, one feels that the monks built for the centuries and that these ages were not as ignorant nor as devoid of genius as modern pride would like to persuade itself. Of the monastery itself and the cells inhabited by the religious, not a stone remains. The cloisters, where so many saints and learned men walked, have disappeared, like the other buildings, under the hammer of the demolishers; only a few arcades leaning against the north side of the church remain; their destruction would have compromised the solidity of the monument, and, thanks to this necessity, they have been preserved for us. Boundary walls, as old as the abbey, surround the fields it occupied. Abandoned to the outrages of time, they have braved all the bad weather, and attest by their unshakable solidity the hands that built them. Within the enclosure, a few scattered stones, foundations hiding under the grass, a canal dug by the monks and whose waters continue to irrigate this fertile land, such are the only remains that have escaped destruction.

Next to this old cellar, which raises its massive walls supported by buttresses and blackened by time, a very young house rises, graceful as a resurrection of the past and a scion of immortal Catholicism. The same faith that had gathered on this land, for seven centuries, men enamored of God and exclusively devoted to his service, this eternally fertile faith has just rebuilt, in the midst of indifference and on the ruins of a glorious past, a new fortress of God.

The Abbey of Pontigny was repurchased in 1843 by Mgr de Cosnac, Archbishop of Sens, and it was the remains and the memory of Saint Edme that brought together, in these abandoned ruins, some young priests eager to devote themselves without reserve to the service of God and to the service of the most forsaken souls. After having tried their hand for several years at religious life and the apostolate, they finally believed themselves ripe for their great design. On September 29, 1852, gathered in a humble chapel whose ancient vaults had heard Saint Edme, they consecrated themselves to God by the ordinary vows of religion that they had long ago pronounced in their hearts and practiced in their lives. Consoling spectacle! In the midst of these countries desolate by indifference, like an oasis in the middle of arid sands, a modest institution is born and develops! Children of these regions, where the faith is weakened, gather on a land mixed with the ashes of the Saints, in the neighborhood and under the protection of Saint Edme whose name they bear, whose church and tomb they touch, and by their life both solitary and apostolic, they reconnect the chain of a glorious past. The monastery bell rings as it did in the past; one studies, one prays, one works as in the past; silence, peace, and the sweet joy of the monastic family reign as in the past. These are the same psalms, the same hymns and the same canticles, it is the same sacrifice that is celebrated on the restored altars. It is no longer the Pontigny that Saint Edme found when he took refuge there, but it is still Pontigny. It is no more than a memory, a shadow of this great name, but at least a pious memory and a shadow without stain! Magni nominis umbra!

Edmund published, around the year 1236, Provincial Constitutions, imbued with the wisdom that comes from God. They were intended to prevent discord and to destroy certain abuses that had crept in among the people and the clergy. The main prescriptions, contained in thirty-six canons, concern the love of peace, the care of children, the administration of the last sacraments to the sick, and the selflessness and purity of life that must distinguish the clergy. In these ordinances, which came from a fatherly heart, one finds the entire soul of the pontiff, so pure and so gentle. Before formulating the fifth canon, he addresses the rectors, vicars, and other priests in charge of the government of parishes in these terms: "It is a duty for us, my children, to love peace, since a God is its author, since He recommended it to us, since He came to pacify heaven and earth, and since upon this peace of time depends that which is eternal... We therefore warn you and expressly enjoin you to live in peace with all men as much as it depends on you; to exhort your parishioners to be but one body in Jesus Christ through the unity of faith and the bond of peace; to appease all the disputes that arise in your parishes, to end all quarrels as much as you can, and not to let the sun go down upon the anger of any of the souls entrusted to your care..."

The eighth canon recommended that priests avoid, in the administration of holy things, that shameful greed which cools the charity of the faithful and drives them away from the sacraments. It also regulated that in each deanery, men who fear God would be charged with warning the archbishop or his official of disorders that could scandalize the people and sadden the Church.

Children were not forgotten, and in the numerous attentions with which the archbishop wishes them to be surrounded from their birth and early education, he seems to remember the dangers that had threatened his own first moments. He orders that the faithful be reminded, every Sunday, "that mothers must feed their children with caution, not to put them to bed beside them for fear of smothering them, and not to leave them alone near fire or water." The other articles enjoined priests to surround the Holy Eucharist and Extreme Unction with the greatest respect and certain precise solemnities when they carry them to the sick. These wise constitutions were barely published when a national council (1237) came to give them an august sanction.

The best edition of the Constitutions of the holy Archbishop of Canterbury is that which Wilkins provided: Conc. Brit., et Hibern.

Edmund trained several people in the great art of prayer: he was also a skilled master in the ways of the interior life, and he is still regarded as one of the most famous contemplatives of the Church. He wanted the spirit of humility and mortification to be joined to prayer. He inculcated on every occasion the necessity of the prayer of the heart. "One hundred thousand people," he said, "will fall into illusion by multiplying their prayers... I would rather say only five words from the heart, and with devotion, than five thousand with coldness, with indifference, and by which my soul is not affected. Celebrate the praises of the Lord with intelligence. The soul must feel what the tongue says." — "Saint Edmund," says a modern author, "applied himself from his youth to the contemplation of eternal truths... He has so well united in his person, which is very rare, the science of the heart with that of the school, mystical theology with speculative, that having passed the lights of his mind into his heart, he became a perfect mystical theologian, who has enlightened the Church no less by the holiness of his life than by this admirable writing of spirituality, which bears the title the Mirror of the Church, and in which one finds several excellent things touching contemplation."

The Speculum Ecclesiae, or Mirror of the C Miroir de l'Église A work of spirituality and mystical theology written by the saint. hurch, was printed in Volume XIII of the Library of the Fathers. This work is found in manuscript in several libraries, notably in the Bodleian Library and in that of the English College at Douai. But there are considerable differences in these manuscripts. Some are only abridgments; others offer only a Latin translation made from a French version by William of Beaufu, a Carmelite friar of Northampton. One sees in the Bodleian Library other manuscript works of Saint Edmund, such as ten very devout prayers, in Latin; a treatise on the seven deadly sins and on the Decalogue, in French; another treatise entitled The seven Sacraments briefly declared of seynt Edmundu of Pountienie; that is to say, the seven sacraments briefly explained by Saint Edmund, etc. See the library of Tanner, V. Riche.

We have used, to complete this biography, the Life of Saint Edmund, by the Rev. Fr. L.-F. Massé, of the Society of the Fathers of Saint-Edmund of Pontigny.