A LIBEL ON NIGHTINGALES.
The monks of Himmerode led dissolute lives, and Saint Bernard was sent to reprove them, and endeavour to bring them back to a sense of their duty.
In vain the Saint lectured—the monks were wicked as ever, and the Saint in despair sought his chamber; there, opening his window, he sat down to plan fresh arguments with which he might touch the wicked hearts of the monks.
The music of the sweet nightingales swelled up to his ears, and steeped his senses in bliss; but the Saint perceived, to his horror, that wicked desires then arose in his breast: so, closing the window, he hastened away. The thought then occurred to the Saint that, if the songs of the nightingales thus affected so holy a man as himself they must do infinite harm to the monks; he therefore (having the power) banished the birds, and shortly the monks were reformed.
The Abbess of Stuben, who gently ruled over a religious body of nuns, hearing the nightingales had been driven out, and were wandering in search of a home, invited them to settle in the meadows and groves that surrounded her cloister.
The birds gladly arrived, and their songs, which had harmed the wicked monks’ hearts, cheered and exalted the thoughts of the pure-hearted nuns.
Nuns and nightingales are now alike departed, as well as the droning old monks, whose notes we could better have spared.
Kloster Stuben.