lendent, but the poor are
not there." It recalls the erring monasteries to real mortification. In
another early treatise, "The Degrees of Humility and of Pride," the
modes of pride are exhibited forcibly, and with not a little humour.
Curiosity, thoughtless mirth, mock humility, and other symptoms of the
protean vice are painted by a master.

But Bernard's period of retirement was drawing to a close; he was
becoming indispensable to his contemporaries. In 1128 he was called to
the Council of Troyes, at which the Order of Knights Templars was
founded, and wrote a treatise in praise of the "new warfare," called the
"Exhortation to the Knights of the Temple." He was brought, again, to
the council convened by Louis VI. at Etampes to decide between the
claims of the rival Popes in the Papal schism. The council opened by
unanimous consent that Bernard's judgement should decide their views;
and without hesitation he pronounced Innocent II. the lawful Pope, and
Peter Leonis, or Anacletus II., a vain pretender. He bore the same
testimony, in the presence of Innocent, before Henry I. of England, at
Chartres, and before Lotharius, the German Emperor, at Liege. The Pope
visited Clairvaux, where he was moved to tears at the sight of the
tattered flock of "Christ's poor," then presided at the Council of
Rheims, 1131, and continued his journey into Italy, still accompanied by
the Abbot of Clairvaux. Bernard, convinced that the cause of Innocent
was the cause of justice and religion, set no bounds to his advocacy of
it in letters to kings, bishops and cities. Such was now the fame of his
sanctity that on his approach to Milan the whole population came out to
meet him.

He returned to Clairvaux in 1135, where he found the community all
living in Christian amity, and again retired to a cottage in the
neighbourhood for rest and reflection. "Bernard was in the heavens,"
says Arnold of Bonnevaux; "but they compelled him to come down and
listen to their sublunary business." The buildings were too small for
their constantly growing numbers, and a convenient site had been found
in an open plain farther down the valley. Bishops, barons and merchants
came to the help of the good work; and the new abbey and church rose
quickly.

To Bernard's forty-fifth year belong the "Sermons on the Canticles." In
the auditorium, or talking-room of the monastery, the abbot, surrounded
by his white-cowled monks, delivered his spiritual discourses. A strange