o sacred
poetry began to be remarked. Indecent songs could no longer venture to
appear abroad.

While some were awakened by Bernard's preaching from a life of crime to
repentance, and by taking part in the holy war strove to obtain the
remission of their sins, others again, who though hitherto borne along
in the current of ordinary worldly pursuits, yet had not given
themselves up to vice, were filled by Bernard's words with loathing of
the worldly life, inflamed with a vehement longing after a higher stage
of Christian perfection, after a life of entire consecration to God.
They longed rather to enter upon the pilgrimage to the heavenly than to
an earthly Jerusalem; they resolved to become monks, and would fain have
the man of God himself, whose words had made so deep an impression on
their hearts, as their guide in the spiritual life, and commit
themselves to his directions, in the monastery of Clairvaux. But here
Bernard showed his prudence and knowledge of mankind; he did not allow
all to become monks who wished to do so. Many he rejected because he
perceived they were not fitted for the quiet of the contemplative life,
but needed to be disciplined by the conflicts and cares of a life of
action.

As contemporaries themselves acknowledge, these first impressions, in
the case of many who went to the crusades, were of no permanent
duration, and their old nature broke forth again the more strongly under
the manifold temptations to which they were exposed, in proportion to
the facility with which, through the confidence they reposed in a
plenary indulgence, without really laying to heart the condition upon
which it was bestowed, they could flatter themselves with security in
their sins.

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, in describing the blessed effects of that
awakening which accompanied the preaching of the crusader, yet says: "We
doubt not that among so vast a multitude some became in the true sense
and in all sincerity soldiers of Christ. Some, however, were led to
embark in the enterprise by various other occasions, concerning whom it
does not belong to us to judge, but only to Him who alone knows the
hearts of those who marched to the contest either in the right or not in
the right spirit. Yet this we do confidently affirm, that to this
crusade many were called, but few were chosen." And it was said that
many returned from this expedition, not better, but worse than they
went. Therefore the monk Cesarius of Heisterbach,