IV. Keep the Sabbath and go to church-to pray, but not to prattle. Give alms according to
your power, for alms extinguish sins as water does fire. Show hospitality to travelers, visit the sick,
take care of widows and orphans, pay your tithes to the church, and do to nobody what you would
not have done to yourself. Fear God above all. Let the servants be obedient to their masters, and
the masters just to their servants. Cling to the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed, and communicate them
to your own children and to those whose baptismal sponsors you are. Keep the fast, love what is
right, stand up against the devil, and partake from time to time of the Lord’s Supper. Such are the
works which God commands you to do and fulfil.
V. Believe in the advent of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and the judgment of all
men. For then the impious shall be separated from the just, the one for the everlasting fire, the
others for the eternal life. Then begins a life with God without death, a light without shadows, a
health without sickness, a plenty without hunger, a happiness without fear, a joy with no misgivings.
Then comes the eternal glory, in which the just shall shine like suns, for no eye has ever seen, no
ear has ever heard, no heart has ever dreamed, of all that which God has prepared for those whom
he loves.
VI. I also remind you, my beloved brethren, that the birth-day of our Lord is approaching,
in order that you may abstain from all that is worldly or lewd or impure or bad. Spit out all malice
and hatred and envy; it is poison to your heart. Keep chaste even with respect to your own wives.
Clothe yourselves with good works. Give alms to the poor who belong to Christ; invite them often
to your feasts. Keep peace with all, and make peace between those who are at discord. If, with the
aid of Christ, you will truly fulfil these commands, then in this life you can with confidence approach
the altar of God, and in the next you shall partake of the everlasting bliss."^119
Bonifacius combined the zeal and devotion of a missionary with worldly prudence and a
rare genius for organization and administration. He was no profound scholar, but a practical statesman
and a strict disciplinarian. He was not a theologian, but an ecclesiastic, and would have made a
good Pope. He selected the best situations for his bishoprics and monasteries, and his far-sighted
policy has been confirmed by history. He was a man of unblemished character and untiring energy.
He was incessantly active, preaching, traveling, presiding over Synods, deciding perplexing questions
about heathen customs and trivial ceremonies. He wrought no miracles, such as were usually
expected from a missionary in those days. His disciple and biographer apologizes for this defect,
and appeals as an offset to the invisible cures of souls which he performed.^120
The weak spot in his character is the bigotry and intolerance which he displayed in his
controversy with the independent missionaries of the French and Scotch-Irish schools who had
done the pioneer work before him. He reaped the fruits of their labors, and destroyed their further
usefulness, which he might have secured by a liberal Christian policy. He hated every feature of
individuality and national independence in matters of the church. To him true Christianity was
identical with Romanism, and he made Germany as loyal to the Pope as was his native England.
He served under four Popes, Gregory II., Gregory III., Zacharias, and Stephen, and they could not
have had a more devoted and faithful agent. Those who labored without papal authority were to
him dangerous hirelings, thieves and robbers who climbed up some other way. He denounced them
as false prophets, seducers of the people, idolaters and adulterers (because they were married and
(^119) In Migne, l.c., p. 870. A German translation in Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter (1879), p. 14.
(^120) Othlo, Vita Bonif., c. 26 (Migne, l.c. fol. 664).