§ 65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 347
the acts of violence for which the place was once notorious, and the peace which reigned in it after Bernard and his companions set up their simple house. Then he says, " the hills began to distil sweetness, and fields, before sterile, blossomed and became fat under the divine benediction."1
In this new cloistral retreat Bernard preached, wrought miracles, wrote innumerable letters,2 received princes and high ecclesiastics. From there he went forth on errands of high import to his age. The convent soon had wide fame, and sent off many shoots.3
William of St. Thierry4 draws an attractive picture of Clairvaux, which at this long distance compels a feeling of rest. William says : —
I tarried with him a few days, unworthy though I was, and whichever way I turned my eyes, I marvelled and thought I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and also the old pathways of the Egyptian monks, our fathers, marked with the recent footsteps of the men of our time left in them. The golden ages seemed to have returned and revisited the world there at Clair vaux. ... At the first glance, as you entered, after descending the hill, you could feel that God was in the place ; and the silent valley bespoke, in the simplicity of its buildings, the genuine humility of the poor of Christ dwelling there. The silence of the noon was as the silence of the midnight, broken only by the chants of the choral service, and the sound of garden and field implements. No one was idle. In the hours not devoted to sleep or prayer, the brethren kept busy with hoe, scythe, and axe, taming the wild land and clearing the forest. And although there was such a number in the valley, yet each seemed to be a solitary.5
1 Apud vallem quce prius dicebatur vallis absinthialis et amara, cceperunt monies stillare dulcedinem, etc. Vita prima, XIII. 61 ; Migne, 185, 260. See also Alanus, Vita secunda, VI. 18.
2 His letters include long compositions abounding in allegory and moralizations and brief pithy statements, which approach the subject in hand with modern directness. Alanus gives a list of churchmen high in position going forth from Clairvaux. Vita secunda, XX. 54 ; Migne, 185, 154.
3 Vacandard, vol. II., Appendix, gives a list of sixty-eight convents founded by Bernard.
4 William was born at Liege about 1085, and died about 1149. In 1119 he was made abbot of the Cistercian convent of Thierry near Rheims. We meet him frequently in the company of Bernard, and in the controversies over Abselard and Gilbert of Poitiers.
6 Vita prima, I. 7 ; Migne, 182, 268.
348 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Here is another description by the novice, Peter de Roy a, writing from Clairvaux : 1 —
"Its monks have found a Jacob's ladder with angels upon it, descend ing to provide help to the bodies of the monks that they fail not in the way, and also ascending, and so controlling the monks' minds that their bodies may be glorified. Their song seems to be little less than angelic, but much more than human. ... It seems to me I am hardly looking upon men when I see them in the gardens with hoe, in the fields with forks and rakes and sickles, in the woods with axe, clad in disordered garments — but that I am looking on a race of fools without speech and sense, the reproach of mankind. However, my reason assures me that their life is with Christ in the heavens."
Bernard, to whom monastic seclusion was the highest ideal of the Christian life, bent his energies to induce his friends to take the vow. Its vigils and mortifications were the best means for developing the two cardinal virtues of love and humility.2 His persistent effort to persuade his sister Hum blina shocks our sense of what is due to the sacred ties of nature, but was fully justified by the examples of St. An thony and Benedict of Nursia. Humblina was married to a husband of rank and had a family. When she appeared one day at Clairvaux, Bernard refused to go down to see her, for he had insisted before on her taking the veil and she had declined. Now she finally communicated to him the bitter cry, " If my brother despises my body, let not the servant of God despise my soul." 3 Bernard then heeded and again called upon her to renounce the vanities of the world and lay aside the luxuries of dress and ornaments. Return ing to her household, Humblina, after two years, and with her husband's consent, retired to the convent of Juilty, where she spent the remainder of her days.
1 The genuineness of the letter is questionable. Ep., 492; Migne, 182, 706-713.
2 Ep., 142; Migne, 182, 297.
3 Si despicit frater me.us carnem meam, ne despiciat servus Dei animam meam. Ve.niat, prcecipiat, quicquid prwceperit, facere parata num. Vita secunda, VII. 22; Migne, 185, 482. Was ever sister's appeal more tender?