Manchurian Books

Father Ambrose was more than sixty years old, and if he had belonged to
the world, instead of to religion, would have been entitled to the name
Henry von Sayn. His presence in the Benedictine Order was proof of the
fact that money will not accomplish everything. His famous, or perhaps
we should say infamous, ancestor, Count Henry III. of Sayn, who died in
1246, was a robber and a murderer, justly esteemed the terror of the
Rhine. Concealed as it was in the Sayn valley, half a league from the
great river, the situation of his stronghold favored his depredations.
He filled his warehousing rooms with merchandise from barges going down
the river, and with gold seized from unhappy merchants on their way up.
He thought no more of cutting a throat than of cutting a purse, and it
was only when he became amazingly wealthy that the increase of years
brought trouble to a conscience which all men thought had ceased to
exist. Thereupon, for the welfare of his soul, he built the Abbey of
Sayn, and provided for the monks therein.


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