Letter CCI. To Baldwin,* Abbot of the Monastery of Rieti

Bernard begs him to apply hu'mself strenuously to the duties of his charge.

1. The letter which you have sent me is full of your affection; it stirs mine. And I am grieved that I cannot reply as I feel. Nor will I waste time in making excuses, knowing that I speak to one who knows me. You are aware¹ under what a load I groan, and my groaning is not hid from you. But do not judge my affection by the shortness of my letter, for no speech would be able to express it by its length. And the trouble of my many occupations, indeed, is able to bring it about that I write in few words, but not to diminish my love. It may exclude action, or impede it, but never affection. As a mother loves her son, so did I love you when you were with me, and delighted J o my heart. Let me love you when absent, lest I seem to have loved you for the pleasure I received from you, and not for yourself. You were very necessary to me; and from this it may most clearly be seen how sincere is my love. I mean that I should not be this day feeling your loss if in you I had sought merely my own good. But now you see that, disregarding my own advantage, I envied not your gain when I placed you in a position from whence at some time you may be placed over all the goods of your Lord.

2. But do you see that you are found a faithful and prudent servant. See that you give their heavenly bread to your fellow servant without grudging, and that you pray without ceasing; and do not make any empty excuse about your being new to the office, and inexperienced, for this, perhaps, you feel or put on. For a barren modesty is unpleasing, and humility beyond the bounds of truth is not praiseworthy. Attend then to your office. Drive away false shame by considering the dignity of your office. Act as a teacher. You are a novice, but you are a debtor; and recognize that you became a debtor from the time you bound yourself. Will inexperience be any excuse to the creditor for the loss of his gains? Does the usurer suffer the first part of the time to go unreckoned? But I am not, you will say, sufficient for these things. As though your devotion were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not! Prepare to give an answer about the one talent entrusted to you, and be easy about the rest. If you have received much, give much, but if little, then that little. For he that is not faithful in the least will not be faithful in the greatest. Give all, because all will be asked for again from you, even to the last farthing, but only what you have, not what you have not.

3. Remember also to give to your voice the utterance of power. What is that, do you say? That your works harmonize with your words; nay, rather your words with your works; that is to say, that you take care to do first, and then to teach. It is a most beautiful and most whole some order of things that you should first bear yourself what you impose as a burden on another, and so learn from yourself how you ought to rule others. Otherwise the Wise Man will address you as the sluggard, to whom it is a labour to lift up his hand to his mouth (Frov. xxvi. 15). The Apostle, too, will reprove you: Thou that tcachcst others, dost thou not teach thyself? (Rom. ii. 21). Moreover, you will be stamped with the fault of the Pharisees, who bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not more them -with one of their ji tigers (S. Matt, xxiii. 4). The example set by actual work is indeed a speech that is living and efficacious, easily making that which is said persuasive, by showing that that which is ordered can be done. On these two kinds of commands, viz., of word and example, under stand that there hang the whole of your duty, and the safety of your conscience. Yet if you are wise you will add a third, viz., devotion to prayer, as a kind of complement of that threefold repetition in the Gospel concerning feeding the sheep (S. John xxi. 15-17). In this way you will find that the Sacrament of this Trinity is in nothing made void by you if you feed by word, by example, and by the fruit of holy prayers. And now abideth these three — word, example, prayer; but the greatest of these is prayer. For although, as I said, work is the life of the word spoken, yet prayer gives both to work and word grace* and efficacy. Alas! I am called away; I must go; I cannot write more. Let me, however, briefly implore you to take care to free me as soon as you can from one heavy care, and forget not to say more plainly what you mean when you complain, among other things, that you have received a wound from one from whom you did not expect it. For that gives me much anxiety.

Footnotes

1. Not the same as Cardinal Baldwin, a disciple of Bernard, for whom tuin to Letters 144 and 245. For he was a Cardinal when the other Baldwin was ruling the Cistercian Monastery of Rie'ti, which was in two divisions, one dedi cated to S. Matthew, the other to the Holy Shepherd, and over this last Baldwin was placed. ↩