Note 8 — Chapter V · EL RIO META

P. 14. How like the labors and cares of the bishops of the early Church were those of the missionaries among the children of the forest! Both were continually called upon to act as causarum examinatores—arbitrators—and to settle difficulties that were ever arising among the flocks entrusted to their care. St. Augustine, the great bishop of Hippo, refers frequently to “the burdensome character of this kind of work, and the distraction from higher activities which it involved”—“Quantum attinet ad meum commodum,” he writes in his De Opere Monachorum, XXIX, 37, “multo mallem per singulos dies certis horis, quantum in bene moderatis monasteriis constitutum est, aliquid manibus operari, et ceteras horas habere ad legendum et orandum, aut aliquid de divinis litteris agendum liberas, quam tumultuosissimas perplexitates caussarum alienarum pati de negotiis secularibus vel judicando dirimendis vel interveniendo præcidendis.” ↑