orward, both in buildings and in other necessaries. This
also we suggest to your fatherhood, that you persuade religious men and
those who, you hope, will be useful to the monastery, to come into their
Order, for this will be of the greatest advantage to the house, and to
you they will pay the greater heed. May your holiness have good health,
being always mindful of us in Christ.

IV

To the Brothers in Ireland. November 1148.[977]

(Epistle 374.)

To the religious brothers who are in Ireland, and especially to those
communities which Malachy the bishop, of blessed memory, founded,
Brother Bernard, called to be abbot of Clairvaux, [wishing them] _the
consolation of the Comforter_.[978]

1. If _here we had a continuing city_ we should rightly mourn with most
abundant tears that we had lost such a fellow-citizen. But if _we_
rather _seek one to come_,[979] as befits us, it is nevertheless no
small cause of grief that we are bereaved of a guide so indispensable.
We ought, however, to regulate passion with knowledge and to mitigate
grief with the _confidence of hope_.[980] Nor does it become any one to
wonder if love compels groaning, if desolation draws forth tears: yet we
must set a limit to these things, nay in no small measure be consoled
while we gaze _not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal_.[981] First, indeed, we ought to rejoice
with the holy soul, lest he accuse us of want of charity, saying also
himself what the Lord said to the apostles, "_If ye loved me ye would
rejoice because I go unto the Father._"[982] The spirit of our father
has gone before us to _the Father of spirits_,[983] and we are
convicted, not only as wanting in charity, but even as guilty of
ingratitude for all the benefits which came to us through him, if we do
not rejoice with him who has _departed_ from labour to rest, from danger
to safety, from _the world unto the Father_.[984] Therefore, if it is an
act of filial piety to weep for Malachy who is dead, yet more is it an
act of piety to rejoice with Malachy who is alive. Is he not alive?
Assuredly he is, and in bliss. _In the eyes of the foolish he seemed to
have died; but he is in peace._[985]

2. Hence even the thought of our own advantage provides us with another
motive for great joy and gladness, because so powerful a patron, so
faithful an advocate has gone b