Perhaps there never was a man who had greater influence than Bernard; for, although he did not rise to be anything more than Abbot of Clairvaux, and refused all higher offices, he was able, by the power of his speech, and by the fame of his saintliness, to turn kings and princes, popes and emperors, and even whole assemblies of men, in any way that he pleased. When two popes had been chosen in opposition to each other, Bernard was able to draw all the chief princes of Christendom into siding with that pope whose cause he had taken up; and when the other pope's successor had been brought so low that he could carry on his claims no longer, he went to Bernard, entreating him to plead for him with the successful pope, Innocent II., and was led by the abbot to throw himself humbly as a penitent at Innocent's feet.
Some years after this, one of Bernard's old pupils was chosen as pope, and took the name of Eugenius III. Eugenius was much under the direction of his old master, and Bernard, like a true friend, wrote a book "On Consideration," which he sent to Eugenius, showing him the chief faults which were in the Roman Church, and earnestly exhorting the pope to reform them.
Bernard was even the chief means of getting up a new crusade. When tidings came from the East that the Christians in those parts had suffered heavy losses (A.D. 1145), he travelled over great part of France and along the river Rhine in order to enlist people for the holy war. He gathered meetings, at which he spoke in such a way as to move all hearts, and stirred up his hearers to such an eagerness for crusading that they even tore the clothes off his back in order to divide them into little bits, which might serve as crusaders' badges. And he drew in the emperor Conrad and king Lewis VII. of France, besides a number of smaller princes, to join the expedition, although it was so hard to persuade Conrad, that, when at last he was brought over, it was regarded as a miracle.
It had been found, at the time of the first crusade, that many people were disposed to fall on the Jews of their own neighbourhood, as being enemies of Christ no less than the Mahometans of the Holy Land, and the same was repeated now. But Bernard strongly set his face against this kind of cruelty, and was not only the means of saving the lives of many Jews, but brought the chief preacher of the persecution to own with sorrow and shame that he had been utterly wrong.
Although, however, a vast army was raised for the recovery of the Holy Land, and although both the emperor and the French king went at the head of it, nothing came of the crusade except that vast numbers of lives were sacrificed without any gain; and even Bernard's great fame as a saint was not enough to protect him from blame on account of the part which he had taken in getting up this unfortunate attempt.
These were some of the most remarkable things in which Bernard's command over men's minds was shown; and he was able also to get the better of some persons who taught wrong or doubtful opinions, even although they may have been men of sharper wits and of greater learning than himself.
In short, Bernard was the leading man of his age. No doubt he believed many things which we should think superstitious or altogether wrong; and in his conduct we cannot help noticing some tokens of human frailty—especially a jealous love of the power and influence which he had gained. But, although he was not without his defects, we cannot fail to see in him an honest, hearty, and laborious servant of God, and we shall not wish to grudge him the title of saint, which was granted to him by a pope in 1173, and has ever since been commonly attached to his name. Bernard died in 1153.
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