which is not dead.  Descartes and Kant are his children.  Among his immediate disciples were a pope, twenty-nine cardinals, and more than fifty bishops.  His two greatest pupils were Peter the Lombard, bishop of Paris, and author of the ‘Sentences,’ the theological text-book of the schools for hundreds of years; and Arnold of Brescia, one of the noblest champions of human liberty, though condemned and banished by the second Council of the Lateran.

The best biography of Abelard is that by Charles de Remusat (2 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1845).  See also, in English, Wight’s ‘Abelard and Eloise’ (New York, 1853).

Thomas Davidson

* * * * *

HELOISE TO ABELARD

A letter of yours sent to a friend, best beloved, to console him in affliction, was lately, almost by a chance, put into my hands.  Seeing the superscription, guess how eagerly I seized it!  I had lost the reality; I hoped to draw some comfort from this faint image of you.  But alas!—­for I well remember—­every line was written with gall and wormwood.

How you retold our sorrowful history, and dwelt on your incessant afflictions!  Well did you fulfill that promise to your friend, that, in comparison with your own, his misfortunes should seem but as trifles.  You recalled the persecutions of your masters, the cruelty of my uncle, and the fierce hostility of your fellow-pupils, Albericus of Rheims, and Lotulphus of Lombardy—­how through their plottings that glorious book your Theology was burned, and you confined and disgraced—­you went on to the machinations of the Abbot of St. Denys and of your false brethren of the convent, and the calumnies of those wretches, Norbert and Bernard, who envy and hate you.  It was even, you say, imputed to you as an offense to have given the name of Paraclete, contrary to the common practice, to the Oratory you had founded.

The persecutions of that cruel tyrant of St. Gildas, and of those execrable monks,—­monks out of greed only, whom notwithstanding you call your children,—­which still harass you, close the miserable history.  Nobody could read or hear these things and not be moved to tears.  What then must they mean to me?

We all despair of your life, and our trembling hearts dread to hear the tidings of your murder.  For Christ’s sake, who has thus far protected you,—­write to us, as to His handmaids and yours, every circumstance of your present dangers.  I and my sisters alone remain of all who were your friends.  Let us be sharers of your joys and sorrows.  Sympathy brings some relief, and a load laid on many shoulders is lighter.  And write the more surely, if your letters may be messengers of joy.  Whatever message they bring, at least they will show that you remember us.  You can write to comfort your friend:  while you soothe his wounds, you inflame mine.  Heal, I pray you, those you yourself have made, you who bustle