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Wherefore each one on his admission is stripped of all his former
possessions, so that he is not allowed any longer to keep even the clothes
which he has on his back: but in the council of the brethren he is brought
forward into the midst and stripped of his own clothes, and clad by the
Abbot's hands in the dress of the monastery, so that by this he may know
not only that he has been despoiled of all his old things, but also that he
has laid aside all worldly pride, and come down to the want and poverty of
Christ, and that he is now to be supported not by wealth sought for by the
world's arts, nor by anything reserved from his former state of unbelief,
but that he is to receive out of the holy and sacred funds of the monastery
his rations for his service; and that, as he knows that he is thence to be
clothed and fed and that he has nothing of his own, he may learn,
nevertheless, not to be anxious about the morrow, according to the saying
of the Gospel, and may not be ashamed to be on a level with the poor, that
is with the body of the brethren, with whom Christ was not ashamed to be
numbered, and to call him-self their brother, but that rather he may glory
that he has been made to share the lot of his own servants.
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