4. One cause of grief saddens these heavenly crowns of martyrs, these glorious spiritual confessions, these very great and illustrious virtues of the brethren who stand; which is, that the hostile violence has torn away a part of our own bowels, and thrown it away in the destructiveness of its own cruelty. What shall I do in this matter, beloved brethren? Wavering in the various tide of feeling, what or how shall I speak? I need tears rather than words to express the sorrow with which the wound of our body should be bewailed, with which the manifold loss of a people once numerous should be lamented. For whose heart is so hard or cruel, who is so unmindful of brotherly love, as, among the varied ruins of his friends, and the mournful relics disfigured with all degradation, to be able to stand and to keep dry eyes, and not in the breaking out of his grief to express his groanings rather with tears than with words? I grieve, brethren, I grieve with you; nor does my own integrity and my personal soundness beguile me to the soothing of my griefs, since it is the shepherd that is chiefly wounded in the wound of his flock. I join my breast with each one, and I share in the grievous burden of sorrow and mourning. I wail with the wailing, I weep with the weeping, I regard myself as prostrated with those that are prostrate. My limbs are at the same time stricken with those darts of the raging enemy; their cruel swords have pierced through my bowels; my mind could not remain untouched and free from the inroad of persecution among my downfallen brethren; sympathy has cast me down also.

IV. Has martyrum coelestes coronas, has confessorum glorias spiritales, has stantium fratrum maximas eximiasque virtutes moestitia una contristat, 0467C quod avulsam nostrorum viscerum partem violentus 0468A inimicus populationis suae strage dejecit. Quid hoc loco faciam, dilectissimi fratres? fluctuans vario mentis aestu, quid aut quomodo dicam? Lacrymis magis quam verbis opus est ad exprimendum dolorem quo corporis nostri plaga deflenda est, quo populi aliquando numerosi multiplex lamentanda jactura est. Quis enim sic durus aut ferreus, quis sic fraternae charitatis oblitus, qui inter suorum multiformes ruinas et lugubres ac multo squalore deformes reliquias constitutus siccos oculos tenere praevaleat, nec, erumpente statim fletu, prius gemitus suos lacrymis quam voce depromat? Doleo, fratres, doleo vobiscum, nec mihi ad leniendos dolores meos integritas propria et sanitas privata blanditur, quando plus pastor in gregis sui vulnere vulneretur. Cum singulis pectus 0468B meum copulo, moeroris et funeris pondera luctuosa participo. Cum plangentibus plango, cum deflentibus defleo, cum jacentibus jacere me credo. Jaculis illis grassantis inimici mea simul membra percussa sunt, saevientes gladii per mea viscera transierunt. Immunis et liber a persecutionis incursu fuisse non potest animus. In prostratis fratribus et me prostravit affectus.