orn in London on April 20, 1832, and was the son of the
inventor and proprietor of "Morison's Pills." His first years
were spent in Paris, where he laid the foundation of his
intimate knowledge of the French people. After graduating at
Oxford, he wrote for the "Saturday Review" and other papers,
and in 1863 brought out his "Life and Times of Saint Bernard."
His other chief work is entitled "The Service of Man: an Essay
towards the Religion of the Future," published in 1886. He had
projected an historical study of France under Louis XIV., but
never completed it. He died on February 26, 1888. Morison was
a Positivist, and had many friends in that group, and his rich
mind and genial temper endeared him to several of the leading
literary men of his time, such as George Meredith, Mark
Pattison and Matthew Arnold.

_I.--The Early Days of a Useful Life_

Saint Bernard was born in 1091, and died in 1153. His life thus almost
coincides with the central portion of the Middle Ages. He saw the First
and Second Crusades, the rising liberties of the communes, and the
beginnings of scholasticism under Abelard. A large Church reformation
and the noblest period of monasticism occurred in his day, and received
deep marks of his genius.

He was the son of Tesselin, a wealthy feudal baron of Burgundy,
remarkable for his courage, piety, justice and modesty. Alith, his
mother, was earnest, loving and devout, and full of humility and
charity. His earliest years were passed amid the European fervour of the
First Crusade; and as he grew from boyhood into youth--at which time his
mother died--he made choice of the monastic profession. His friends
vainly tried to tempt him aside into the pursuit of philosophy; but his
commanding personal ascendancy brought his brothers and friends to
follow him instead into the religious life. Having assembled a company
of about thirty chosen spirits, he retired into seclusion with them for
six months, and then, in 1113, at the age of twenty-two, led them within
the gates of Citeaux.

This community, founded fifteen years before, and now ruled by Stephen
Harding, an Englishman from Dorsetshire, was exceedingly austere,
keeping Saint Benedict's rule literally. Here Bernard's uncompromising
self-mortification, and his love of, and communion with, Nature, showed
themselves as the chief characteristics of his noble spirit. "Believe
me," he said