234 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



Another bearer of the hly is he 



' Whom Mary's charms 

 Embellish'd, as the sun the morning star ' — 



Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. 



Though opposing the doctrine of the Im- 

 maculate Conception of the Virgin, he had a 

 very special devotion to the Mother of Christ. 



Many of his sermons, called by Henault 

 Chefs d'ceuvre de sentiment et de force, celebrate 

 her perfections, and, in particular, the famous 

 series of sermons upon the Bride of the Song of 

 Solomon. 



It is said that it was his love for the * hly 

 of the valleys ' which so impressed the lily form 

 upon the architecture of his order, for again and 

 again in the Gothic stone- work of the Cistercian 

 abbeys * lily work ' is found. 



The lily, it may be remarked, is given to 

 those saints in holy orders who were pious from 

 their earliest youth and not to those who had 

 passed a gay time in the world before conversion. 



