BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX.

From the German of Neander.

BY L. H. S.

God has constituted the different human natures, in which the race manifests itself, furnished with a great variety of peculiar gifts and powers, so that, animated by an all-comprehensive love, they should develop themselves in mutual dependence upon each other, or should complement one another. And as the Creator of nature is also the Author of the new creation of grace, He constantly employs human peculiarities, widely different in character and possessing heterogeneous powers and tendencies, in order that they may work harmoniously together for the upbuilding of His Church! On the one side, we see men of restless, fiery energy driven to great efficiency abroad; and on the other, those of deep introspectiveness, devoted to quiet submersion in the concealed sanctuary of contemplation and to a life dedicated to meditation. And the words of life, streaming forth from the souls of the latter, when enkindled with heav enly fire in their holy hours of prayer and meditation, with which they exert an enlivening influence upon their contemporaries and posterity, are quite equal to the great deeds of the former class. The Lord needs for His work some souls which are like Mary, as well as others like Martha. Martha was not reproved because her activity had been directed to practical matters, but because, in the midst of these, she had forgotten the one thing needful. But those are particularly prominent, who show these opposite tendencies of the religious life united together. To these belongs Bernard, whom, we are compelled along with our brethren of the Romish Church to call a saint or holy one, in the sense of the divine Word, which, although it recognizes but one as perfectly holy, still shows many in whom the image of the holy One is so exhibited, although dimly, that they are called on this account, after Him, holy or saints.

We owe the greatest teachers of the Church to the instructions they received from pious mothers. This was the case with him, whose life we propose to examine in this article. Bernard was born in the year 1091, at Fontaines in Burgundy. He was descended from a distinguished knightly family. His mother Aleth, who was a model Christian woman, as soon as she was able, carried the child that had been so longed-for, to the church and dedicated her son to the service of the Lord, to whom his entire life was to be devoted. A monastic life, devoted to secret prayer and meditation as well as to works of practical charity, seemed to her the true ideal of such a life, and in striking contrast to the wild habits of the knights and of the clergy secularized in a thousand ways. Therefore she devoted her son to it, and her wishes found a congenial soul in him. When in early life, however, he lost his mother, he was drawn away by

other influences from the direction originally given him by her. Yet there was always present with him the image of his sainted mother, which was ineffaceably imprinted on his memory. At last he could no longer resist its powerful influence. At the age of twenty three, when he was about to visit one of his brothers, who as a knight was laying siege to a castle, the memory of his mother exercised such powerful influence upon his heart, that he entered a church standing on the road, bowed before the Lord in prayer and dedicated himself wholly to Him in that form of Christian life to which his mother had devoted him. As whatever he was he must be with his whole soul, and half measures were foreign to his nature, he selected immediately a monastic order which had been just formed, and which was so notorious for the rigidity of its discipline that many were deterred from entering it. This was located at the cloister of Citeaux, near Dijon, and was the so-called Order of Cistercians. His example and the power of his eloquence, for which he was especially distinguished, induced several of his relatives and his four brothers to unite with him in the execution of his resolution. It was characteristic of the age, in which there existed a great longing among men after the heavenly home, that when the oldest of the brothers, said, on taking leave of the youngest, who was a boy playing in the streets, "See, now all our wealth and castles are thine," the latter answered; "You take heaven for yourselves and give me earth; that is an unequal division!" With glowing zeal Bernard performed from the beginning all the requirements of the most rigid monastic life; no offering of self-abnegation was too great for him. Youthful fanaticism led him to such extravagancies that he overstepped the proper measure in deeds of self-mortification and of self-denial. He must have regretted afterwards, on more mature reflection, that he had in this way destroyed his health and made his bodily powers unfit for many things which he might otherwise have performed in the service of the Lord. Nevertheless the appearance of his haggard face testifying to his offering of self-denial, the power of religious enthusiasm in a frail feeble body, and his fiery eloquence secured him so much the greater reverence and made so much the greater impression upon his contemporaries. Thus Bernard was able by his appearance and his gestures, by the very tone of his voice to produce great effects even in countries where a foreign tongue was employed and no one understood the words he used. When he travelled around and labored in the woods and fields for his cloister, he raised his soul in prayer and meditation to God, under the mighty influences of nature, which was to him a temple: and streams of living waters thus were secured, which he afterwards employed to quicken his contemporaries. Thus he wrote of his experience to a man of letters: "Believe one who knows by experience; thou canst find more in the woods than in books. The trees and stones will teach thee more than thou canst learn from the Masters."

On account of Bernard, the Order, to which he belonged, obtained a fresh impetus, and after three years he was placed at the head of a new foundation established by it. In a wild, solitary valley, surrounded with mountains in the diocese of Langres,-in a country which had been the haunt of robbers, and heretofore known as Wormwood Vale (Wermuthsthal) the new foundation was to be located. And now in opposition to the kingdom of Satan a house of God was to be located here. The new

Cloister was called by the name of Clairvaux, which was the French for "Beautiful Valley." Bernard was made abbot of this Cloister. The wild land was built upon and made fruitful by the severe labor of the monks excited and led by him, and the Cloister, after many hardships, secured great possessions which were made a blessing to the people. During a grievous famine in Burgundy, when hosts of the starving poor streamed from all sides to the gates of the Cloister, two thousand of these were selected and marked by a badge, and they were for two entire months provided with all necessary means of subsistence; all others received unstinted alms. This Cloister soon acquired a wide-spread reputation, and monastic colonies from it were asked for by many other countries, in order that they might establish Cloisters like it. Bernard left behind him, at his death, 160 Cloisters in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all which had sprung from his Cloister at ClairThese required an immense correspondence from Bernard, which was carried on in the Latin language with all these countries.

vaux.

Bernard was devoted to Domestic Missions. He took an interest in those, who in this savage age, from want of proper instruction, had plunged into the commission of great crimes: frequently by his powerful influence, such were released from the penalty of death, and, by the pastoral care he showed in the Cloister, by severe discipline and the influence of religious intercourse, he often succeeded in leading them to repentance and true conversion. Thus it happened once when visiting one of the nobles, who advised with him in all charitable undertakings,-Count Theobald of Champagne, that he met a great crowd leading to the scaffold a brigand who had committed many crimes. Bernard prevailed upon the Count to give him the man as a present. He afterwards lived thirty years a monastic life and ended his days in faith and peace. Bernard showed great wisdom in the performance of pastoral duties. Many an inspiriting word for Christians of every age in their inner conflicts did he speak to his monks, in reference to the temptations of the inner life in their striving after Christian perfection; he warned them against that tendency, which leads a man only to ponder over his sins and consume himself in such gloomy forebodings, but which never brings him to peace and joy. Thus he speaks in an address to his monks: "I exhort you, my friends, to lift yourselves at times from painful recollections of your own course of life to the contemplation of the divine attributes, so that you, who have been put to confusion by the contemplation of yourselves, may breathe again by a glance upward toward God. Anguish for sins is indeed necessary, but that must only not be perpetual. It should alternate with the more enrapturing remembrance of the grace of God, in order that the heart may not be hardened by sorrow and perish with despair. The grace of God is more powerful than any sin. Whence the righteous man is not always an accuser of himself; he begins his prayer with a confession of sins, but he ends it with a celebration of the praise of God." In another address to the monks he says: "We often come with lukewarm or cold hearts to the altar and there offer up our prayers. But if we only persistently remain, grace is suddenly poured out upon us, the heart becomes full and a stream of pious feelings fills the soul." He warns them against the danger of a one-sided fanatical impulse of feeling and such youthful extravagances, as he himself had shown earlier in life; "It is your self

will that teaches you not to take care of your body, to give no audience to reason. You had a good spirit, but you do not employ it properly. I fear that instead of it you have taken up another, which under the guise of good will deceive you and that you, who have begun in the spirit, will end in the flesh. God is wisdom, and He asks not a mere sweet feeling of resignation, but love united with wisdom. He directs men, away from their efforts to make their own righteousness avail (which always plunges them into manifold forms of unrest), to righteousness in Christ as the firm ground of all trust." This truth, upon which the existence of the Evangelical Church depends, he pronounced more simply and clearly than it had been stated for centuries. He says in a sermon: Christ is not only merely righteous, but is called righteousness itself, the righteousness that justifieth. Thou art as mighty in justification as thou art rich in forgiveness. Hence he who is sorry for his sins hungers and thirsts after righteousness: let him have faith in Him, who justifieth the ungodly, and being justified by faith alone he shall have peace with God. And in another Sermon: "No one is without sin, but for all there is righteousness graciously granted me by Him, against whom I have sinned. Every thing that He has decreed shall not be accounted against me, is as though it had never been committed. To be without sin is only possible to God's righteousness, but God's forgiveness stands in the place of righteousness for man." One of his monks having fallen into great distress of soul by reason of doubts which disturbed him, he dared not approach the Holy Supper in such a condition. Bernard had labored with him in vain; he continued to complain that he had no faith and that without faith he could not draw near to the Body of the Lord. "Come then," said Bernard at last with the tone of trust in God that was peculiar to a Paul and a Luther, "come forward in confidence and receive the Body of the Lord in. my faith." The monk, to whom these words were addressed, yielded to the resoluteness of the Abbot. Paying no regard to his doubts, he communed, and peace and joy returned to his soul.

Bernard was often called into near and distant countries to settle strifes between princes, nobles and peoples, where raging passions had either threatened or produced wars. From his sick couch he often dragged himself away to follow such a divine call. He was asked for advice by Popes, Kings, and Emperors, and called to assist in occasions of importance; frankly he told the truth to the great, and in that way, at times, drew down on him the displeasure of the Romish Court which was greatly indebted to him. The Popes Innocent II. and Eugenius III. took refuge with him when they were driven from their chair by the restless spirit of the Romans; to his energy and the power of his eloquence they especially owed their victory over their adversaries. Twice he journeyed to Italy and quieted the raging people. The impression which he made upon them produced extraordinary effects. Sick were healed; we have reports from eye-witnesses, which are so simple and plausible, that we are not justified in doubting their truth. Who can estimate the effects, that are wrought, in the name of Christ and by His power, by those who are His agents? And as these divine powers were introduced by Him in the development of the human race, the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural are no more to be sharply defined. The stand-point of the genuine Christian is far from laying any great stress upon such events,