Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/107

 ST. BERNARD 61 after his return home, and he then proceeded to fulfil her wish, which accorded with his own, of becoming a monk. His father and friends endeavored to dis- suade him from this step, but instead, he persuaded five of his brothers and twenty-five other friends to join him in the career which he had chosen. His father and remaining brothers subsequently followed him, and the whole family took monastic vows. Bernard did not select for his abode one of those monas- teries whose wealth and splendor had corrupted the intention of their founders, and softened the severity of the original discipline. His motive was truly relig- ious, and took the superstitious form then almost inseparable from earnest piety. He and his comrades entered the poor convent of Citeaux, near Dijon, where the .rules of life enjoined by St. Benedict in the sixth century were observed with great rigor. Frequent watchings, fasts, bleedings, and scourgings, for the purpose of mortifying the body ; abstinence from conversation or laughter ; habits of perpetual devotion, laborious exertion, and humble obedience to the abbot, were the main features of the system. Bernard undertook the duties of his office with such incessant zeal, and displayed such amazing control over his appetites, that he seriously weakened his health, but at the same time enlarged his reputation to such an extent that the convent became overcrowded with the number of those whom he had attracted thither. He was therefore appointed, after three years' residence at Citeaux, to head a colony of monks which was to be fixed in the valley of Clairvaux a desolate though beautiful spot in the bishopric of Lan- gres. The tears of their brethren accompanied the departure of Bernard and the twelve others who composed the band. It was in the year 1115, and at the age of twenty-six, that he was made Abbot of Clairvaux. His appearance at the consecration is described as that of a corpse rather than a man, so emaciated with the rigors of devotion had he become. He had frequent visions, perhaps from his weakness, in one of which he imagined that the Virgin Mary herself appeared to him. The privations of the members of his little colony were most severe. The season for sowing had been spent in building the convent, and when the winter came they were reduced to little better than starvation. Coarse bread and beech-leaves steeped in salt were their only food. This scanty sustenance, together with the strict adherence to the Benedictine rule, in which Bernard still persisted, so shattered his health, that the bishop of the diocese, who was his personal friend, at last interfered, and released him from the active duties of abbot. But as soon as a brief respite had restored his strength, Bernard renewed his self-mortifying practices. A fresh attack of illness followed, and he was obliged permanently to relax his habits. In after-years he lamented the error into which his early enthusiasm and mistaken zeal had led him, the effects of which greatly marred his future influence for good. Though debarred from laboring in his own sphere, Bernard's energetic mind would not let him rest, and he began from this time to exercise the power which his reputation for sanctity had brought him, in political life. He well knew the nature of the position which he was thus enabled to take, and did not shrink from its perils. " Bernard ! wherefore art thou here on earth ? " is said to have