architecture.  The order spread into England, where the first Cistercians were characterized by devoutness and poverty.  After a while the hand of fate wrote of them as it had of so many, “none were more greedy in adding farm to farm; none less scrupulous in obtaining grants of land from wealthy patrons.”  In general, the order was no better and no worse than the rest, but its chief glory is derived from the luster that was shed upon it by Bernard.

[Illustration:  SAINT BERNARD]

This illustrious counselor of kings and Catholic saint was born in Burgundy in 1091.  When about twenty years of age he entered the monastery at Citeaux with five of his brothers.  His genius might have secured ecclesiastical preferment, but he chose to dig ditches, plant fields and govern a monastery.  He entered the cloister at Citeaux because the monks were few and poor, and when it became crowded because of his fame, and its rule became lax because of the crowds, he left the cloister to found a home of his own.  The abbot selected twelve monks, following the number of apostles, and at their head placed young Bernard.  He led the twelve to the valley of Wormwood, and there, in a cheerless forest, he established the monastery of Clairvaux, or Clear Valley.  His rule was fiercely severe because he himself loved hardships and rough fare.  “It in no way befits religion,” he writes, “to seek remedies for the body, nor is it good for health either.  You may now and then take some cheap herb,—­such as poor men may,—­and this is done sometimes.  But to buy drugs, to hunt up doctors, to take doses, is unbecoming to religion and hostile to purity.”  His success in winning men to the monastic life was almost phenomenal.  It was said that “mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, and companions their friends, lest they be persuaded by his eloquent message to enter the cloister.”  “He was avoided like a plague,” says one.

Bernard’s monks changed the whole face of the country by felling trees and tilling the ground.  Their spiritual power rid the valley of Wormwood of its robbers, and the district grew rich and prosperous.  Thus Bernard became the most famous man of his time.  He was the arbiter in papal elections, the judge in temporal quarrels, the healer of schisms and a powerful preacher of the crusades.  He was the embodiment of all that was best in the thought of his age.  His weaknesses and faults may largely be explained by the fact that no man can rise entirely above the spirit of his times and absolutely free himself from all pernicious tendencies.  “As an advocate for the rights of the church, for the immunities of the clergy, no less than for the great interests of morality, he was fierce, intractable, unforgiving, haughty and tyrannical.”  There was, however, no note of insincerity in his work or writings, and no tinge of hypocrisy in fervent zeal.  He was brave, honest and pure; controlled always by a consuming passion for the moral welfare of the people.