Let reading be constant for you, and prayer unceasing. Let your times and duties be divided, so that after you have read you may pray, and after you have prayed you may read. Thus alternate these two goods perpetually, so that at no time may you be idle from them. But if anything must be worked with the hands, or surely the body must be refreshed by the sustenance of food, let something be read to you: so that while your hands or eyes are intent upon the work, the grace of the divine word may feed your ears. For if we pray and read, we withdraw our slippery mind from the surprises of the devil; how much more readily does the human soul slide into vices, if it is not bridled by the restraint of constant reading and prayer? Let reading teach you; ask something in prayer; but after you have prayed, again seek by reading what you may request.