First Sentence

"THE beginning of our account of the life and miracles of the blessed Cuthbert is consecrated by the words which the prophet Jeremiah uses of the state of perfection of the hermit: 'It is good for a man to have borne the yoke in his youth; he shall sit in solitude and be silent, because he will raise himself above himself; for it was the sweetness of this way of life which led Cuthbert, in his earliest youth, to put his neck to the yoke of monastic discipline."