But,
As Cicero Says, "Nature Had Made Nothing Entirely Perfect;" When He
Came Into Power, Not Laying Aside That Sweet
Innate benignity which
he had always shewn when a private man, sustaining his people with
his staff rather than chastising
Them with rods, feeding them as it
were with the milk of a mother, and not making use of the scourges
of the father, he incurred public scandal for his remissness. So
great was his lenity that he put an end to all pastoral rigour; and
was a better monk than abbot, a better bishop than archbishop.
Hence pope Urban addressed him; "Urban, servant of the servants of
God, to the most fervent monk, to the warm abbot, to the luke-warm
bishop, to the remiss archbishop, health, etc."
This second successor to the martyr Thomas, having heard of the
insults offered to our Saviour and his holy cross, was amongst the
first who signed themselves with the cross, and manfully assumed the
office of preaching its service both at home and in the most remote
parts of the kingdom. Pursuing his journey to the Holy Land, he
embarked on board a vessel at Marseilles, and landed safely in a
port at Tyre, from whence he proceeded to Acre, where he found our
army both attacking and attacked, our forces dispirited by the
defection of the princes, and thrown into a state of desolation and
despair; fatigued by long expectation of supplies, greatly afflicted
by hunger and want, and distempered by the inclemency of the air:
finding his end approaching, he embraced his fellow subjects,
relieving their wants by liberal acts of charity and pious
exhortations, and by the tenor of his life and actions strengthened
them in the faith; whose ways, life, and deeds, may he who is alone
the "way, the truth, and the life," the way without offence, the
truth without doubt, and the life without end, direct in truth,
together with the whole body of the faithful, and for the glory of
his name and the palm of faith which he hath planted, teach their
hands to war, and their fingers to fight.
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