Letter CCLXXXVIII. To his Uncle Andrew, a Knight of the Temple

(A.D. 1153.)

Bernard deplores the unhappy issue of the Crusade.

1. The letter which you lately sent me found me lying in bed. I received it with open hands, joyfully, read and re-read it, but should have been more joyful could I have seen you yourself. I read in it of your desire to see me, and of your fear because of the danger threatening the land which the Lord honoured by His presence, the State which He consecrated by His own blood. Woe to our princes! l In the Lord's land they did no good, in their own, to which they returned with all speed, they practise incredible mischief, and they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. They are mighty to do evil, but good they cannot do. But I trust that the Lord will not reject His people, and will not cast away His inheritance. Moreover, the right hand •of the Lord will yet execute power, and His arm will help Him, that all may know that it is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in princes. You do well to •compare yourself to an ant. For what else are we children of men, who are born of the earth, always labouring after useless and empty things? What profit is there to a man for all his labour wherewith he labours under the sun? Let us, therefore, climb up above the sun, and let our •conversation be in heaven; let us in mind go before thither whether we shall one day follow in body. There, my dear Andrew, is the fruit of your labour, there is your reward. You are warring under the sun, but it is for One who sits .above the sun. Let us who tight here expect from Him our largesse. The reward of our warfare is not of the earth, is not from beneath; its prize is from afar, and from the utmost Jand. Under the sun is want, above the sun abundance. Good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and run ning over, shall men give into our bosom (S. Luke vi. 38).

2. You wish to see me; and you say that the gratification of¹ your wish depends on me. For you hint that you wait for an order from me to come. What shall I say to you? I both wish for you to come, and yet fear your coming. So placed between wishing and not wishing, I am in a strait between two, and which to choose I know not. On one side is the wish to satisfy what is at once your own desire and mine; on the other, the doubt whether I ought not to believe rather the common report of you, which says that you are so necessary to the land that no small disaster is likely to happen if you leave it. And so what I dare not command I yet wish for, viz., that I may see you before I die. You can see and know better than I if you can anyhow come without loss and reproach to the country. And it might be that your coming would not be altogether unprofitable. Perhaps, with God's blessing, some would be induced to accompany you on your return to support the Church of God, since you are known and beloved by all. God can bring it to pass that you, too, can say with holy Jacob, With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and, lo! I return with three bands (Gen. xxxii. 10). One thing, I say, if you do come, do not delay, lest, perchance, you come and find me not. For I am now ready to be offered, and I do not think that I have much more time to spend on earth. Who will give me the happiness of being somewhat refreshed before I depart hence, with your sweet and gladsome presence? I have written to the Queen as you wished, and I rejoice in the good report which you give of her. Salute in the Lord your Master and brethren of the Temple, likewise those of the Hospital. Salute also all who are shut up, and all the Saints to whom you have an opportunity of speaking, and commend me to their prayers. Be instead of me to them. I hear that our Gerard,² who spent some time in our house, has now been made Bishop; him, too, I salute most warmly with great affection.

Footnotes

1. This is to be understood of the unfortunate expedition to the E ast. For ambition, quarrels, and rivalry between the Christian leaders of that holy expedition broke their strength and frustrated their undertaking, so Bernard says (De Consid. lib. ii. c. i), and so says Otto of Fnsingen, an eye-witness, in his de Gest binder, lib. i. c. 78, where, after relating the great disasters that fell on the Christian army, he adds: " Yet, notwithstanding such reverses, the haughtiness of the Kings to each other that had sprung up did notecase." See Emilius on Louis VII., where, treating of the siege of Damascus, he says that it would have been taken if it haa not been saved by the ambition of the Christian leaders. See also Sigonius de Reg. Hal. lib. xi., an, I De Consid. lib. ii. c. i. ↩

2. Was this the Gerard, Bishop of Bethlehem, of whom William of Tyre speaks in the beginning of his i;th Book under the year 1146, and again at the end under the year 1152? or was he Bishop of Sidon? ↩