Ubi fugiam nisi ad te?—
Thy mercies alone can save, and it is not in the frivolous and seductive intercourse of a worldly life those mercies can be obtained.”
Stricken to the heart by these reflections, he hurried in a fever of terror and alarm (the sepulchral voice still ringing in his ears) to Grenoble, of which see one of his dearest friends, the venerable Hugo, had lately been appointed bishop.
This saintly prelate soothed the dreadful agitation of his spirits by relating to him a revelation he had just received in a dream.
“As I slept,” said Hugo, “methought the desert mountains beyond Grenoble became suddenly visible in the dead of night by the streaming of seven lucid stars which hung directly over them. Whilst I remained absorbed in the contemplation of this wonder, an awful voice seemed to break the nocturnal silence, declaring their dreary solitudes thy future abode, O Bruno!—by thee to be consecrated as a retirement for holy men desirous of holding converse with their God. No shepherd’s pipe shall be heard within these precincts; no huntsman’s profane feet ever invade their fastnesses; nor shall woman ascend this mountain, or violate by her allurements the sacred repose of its inhabitants.”
Such were the first institutions of the order as the inspired Bishop of Grenoble delivered them to Bruno, who selecting a few persons that, like himself, contemned the splendours of the world and the charms of society, repaired with them to this spot; and, in the darkest parts of the forests which shade the most gloomy recesses of the mountains, founded the first convent of Carthusians, long since destroyed.
Several years passed away, whilst Bruno was employed in actions of the most exalted piety; and, the fame of his exemplary conduct reaching Rome, (where his friend had been lately invested with the papal tiara,) the whole conclave was desirous of seeing him, and entreated Urban to invite him to Rome. The request of Christ’s vicegerent was not to be refused; and Bruno quitted his beloved solitude, leaving some of his disciples behind, who propagated his doctrines, and tended zealously the infant order.
The pomp of the Roman court soon disgusted the rigid Bruno, who had weaned himself entirely from worldly affections.
Being wholly intent on futurity, the bustle and tumults of a busy metropolis became so irksome that he supplicated Urban for leave to retire; and, having obtained it, left Rome, and immediately seeking the wilds of Calabria, there sequestered himself in a lonely hermitage, calmly expecting his last moments.
In his death there was no bitterness. A celestial radiance shone around him even before he closed his eyes upon this frail existence, and many a venerable witness has testified that the voices of angelic beings were heard calling him to come and receive his reward; but as the different accounts of his translation are not essentially varied, it would be tedious to recite them.