belongs to another. And, after all, what are those goods which you call yours? The benefices of the Church? Certainly; you do well in rising to keep vigil, in going to Mass, in assisting at the day and night offices, so you do not take the præbend of the Church without return. It is just that he who serves the Altar should live from the Altar. It is granted therefore to you that if you serve well at the Altar you should live from it, but not that you should live in luxury and splendour at its expense, that you should take its revenues to provide yourself with gilded reins, ornamented saddles, silver spurs, furs of all kinds, and purple ornaments to cover your hands and adorn your neck. Whatsoever you take from the Altar, in short, beyond necessary food and simple dress, is not yours, and it is rapine and even sacrilege. The Wise man prayed for necessary sustenance, not for things superfluous (Prov. xxx. 8). The Apostle says, having food and clothing (1 Tim. vi. 8), not food and magnificent dress. And a certain other saint says, if the Lord shall give me bread to eat and raiment to cover me (Gen. xxviii. 20). Take notice, to cover me. So then let us, too, be content with raiment to cover us, not with luxurious and costly clothing which is worn to please women, and wakes the wearers like them. But you say: Those with whom I associate do this; if I do not do as others, I shall be remarked for singularity. Wherefore I say, go forth from the midst of them; that you may not either live with singularity in the eyes of the town or perish by the example of others.

12. What do you do in the town at all, O effeminate soldier? Your fellow soldiers whom you have

deserted by flight are fighting and overcoming; they knock and they enter in, they seize heaven and reign while you scour the streets and squares, sitting upon your ambling courser, and clad in purple and fine linen. These are the ornaments of peace, not the weapons of war. Or do you say, Peace, and there is no peace (Ezekiel xiii. 10). The purple tunic does not put to flight lust, and pride, and avarice, nor does it protect against other fiery darts of the enemy. Lastly, it does not ward off from you the fever which you more fear, nor secure you from death. Where are your warlike weapons, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breast-plate of patience? Why do you tremble? There are more with us than with our enemies. Take your arms, recover your strength while yet the combat lasts; Angels are spectators and helpers, the Lord himself is your aid and your support, who will teach your hands to war and your fingers to fight (Psalm cxliv. 1). Let us come to the help of our brothers, lest if they fight without us they vanquish without us, and without us enter into heaven; lest, last of all, when the door has been shut it be replied from within to us knocking too late, Verily I say unto you, I know you not (S. Matthew xxv. 12). Make yourself known then and seen beforehand, lest you be unknown for glory and known only for punishment. If Christ recognizes you in the strife, He will recognize you in heaven, and as He has promised, will manifest Himself to you (S. John xiv. 21). If only you by repenting and returning will show yourself such as to be able to say with confidence Then shall I know even as also I am known (1 Corinthians xiii. 12). In the meantime I have by

these admonitions knocked sufficiently at the heart of a young man modest and docile; and nothing remains for me now than to knock by my prayers also, for him, at the door of the Divine Mercy, that the Lord may finish my work if my remonstrances have found his heart ever so little softened, so that I may speedily rejoice over him with great joy.

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Footnotes

1. Either a canon holding a prebend of theology or simply a student—here probably the former. But see n. 7.—[E.] ↩

2. Bernard usually shows himself very doubtful of the salvation of those who, having been tailed by God to the religious state, had not yielded to their vocation, and much more of those who, having entered it, though not made profession, had returned to the world. See Letters 107 and 108. But Fulk had actually made profession. ↩

3. i.e., not owing me obedience as a monk. ↩