Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/392

356 Readings in European History the vicinity, leaving their hives, came to that one ; and over that work they sang in their own manner certain wonderful melodies like hymns. The rustic, hearing this, marveled. But waiting until the fitting time for collecting the honey, he found nothing in his hives. Finding himself impoverished through the means by which he had expected to be enriched, he went to the hive where he had placed the host, and where he saw the bees had come together. But when he approached, just as if they wished to vindicate the insult to our Saviour, the bees rushed upon the rustic and stung him so severely that he escaped with difficulty and in great agony. Going to the priest, he related all that he had done, and what the bees had done. The priest, by the advice of the bishop, collected his parishioners and made a procession to that place. Then the bees, leaving the hive, rose in the air, making sweet melody. Raising the hive, they found inside the noble structure of that little church and the body of our Lord placed upon the altar. Then, returning thanks, they bore to their own church that little church of the bees, constructed with such skill and elegance, and placed it on the altar. By this deed those who do not reverence, but offer insult instead, to the sacred body of Christ, or the sacred place where it is, ought to be put to great confusion. 138. Through Also it is related that once when a certain holy father confession was engaged with the brethren in some work, he forgot to prayer is^ rec ite the nones at the right time, on account of his occupa- erased from tion. Afterwards he saw the devil passing before him, bear- the devil's j ng on his shoulders a very large book, in the shape of a book. (From Stephen of roll, which looked as large as a tower; and he adjured the Bourbon.) ^evil in the name of the Lord to drop the book. When the monk unrolled the book, he found written on one page that he himself had not said the nones on the day and at the hour when he ought. Whereupon, prostrating himself at once at the feet of his companions, he confessed his negligence, and immediately looking again in the devil's roll, he found that