felt that in all his travels he had seen no sight more lovely.  Their guide led them straight into the church, and as Butzbach’s eye glanced along the plain Romanesque columns, past the gorgeous tomb of the founder, to the dim splendours of the choir, the words of the familiar Psalm rose to his lips:  ’Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi; hic habitabo, quoniam elegi eam.’  Peace had come to him at once, and he received it.

After a generous meal in the refectory they were brought in to the tall, dignified Abbot; and while they stood before him answering his questions, they felt that he had not been praised more highly than was his due.  Abbot and Prior took them round the monastery; the latter a busy little man in whom they could hardly recognize so exalted a dignitary.  At the back they found the brethren busy with the week’s washing.  All crowded round them, full of questions and congratulations and pleasant laughter.  For three days they were lodged in the guest-chambers, and then the Prior asked them whether they stood firm in their wish to enter the Order.  On their assent he expounded to them the severities of the life, the self-abnegation that would be required of them, bidding them consider whether they could face it; at the same time instructing them in all the customs and practices of the house.  The dress was put upon them, they were led into the convent and cells allotted to them; and told that till St. Benedict’s Day (21 March) they would be on probation.  Before the day came Peter’s spirit faltered, and he went.  But his weakness was not for long.  He repented and found his peace in a Cistercian house near Worms; and Butzbach’s sympathy went with him, back to the Upper Germany which both loved.

The time of probation was hard to Butzbach; not because of the life, which the good Prior tempered to his tenderness, but through the temptations of the Devil, who seemed ever present with him.  He was specially tormented with the thought of Johannisberg, and the feeling that he had deserted it.  But the wise heads in charge of him gave comfort and stablishment; and he persevered.  On the Founder’s Day, 1501, he entered upon the novitiate, which was followed a year later by his profession; and in 1503 he was sent to Treves and ordained priest.

In the course of his numerous writings Butzbach gives sketches of many of the inmates of Laach.  The senior brother at the time of his arrival was Jacob of Breden in Westphalia, a man of strong character and force of will.  As a boy, when at school at Cleves, he was laughed at for his provincial accent; and therefore determined henceforward to speak nothing but Latin, with the result that he acquired a complete mastery of it.  He had at first joined the Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle, then became a Benedictine in St. Martin’s at Cologne, and came to Laach to introduce the Bursfeld reforms.  So tender-hearted was he that he would not kill even the insects which worried him, but would catch them and throw them out