By the Rev. Canon Eddrup. 



273 



in the renunciation of secular life, in submission to the most rigorous 

 discipline." One after another of his brothers and relatives, en- 

 thralled by his force of character, followed his example. When they 

 had all left the castle of their fathers, " Guido, the elder, addressed 

 Nivard, the youngest son, ' To you remains the sole patrimony of 

 our house/ 'Earth to me and heaven to you, that is no fair 

 partition/ said the boy. He lingered a short time with his aged 

 father, and then joined the rest. Even the father died a monk at 



Clairvaux in the arms of Bernard But the monastery 



of Stephen Harding could no longer contain its thronging votaries. 

 From this metropolis of holiness Bernard was chosen to lead the 

 first colony. There was a valley in Champagne, not far from the 

 river Aube, called the valley of Wormwood, infamous as a den of 

 robbers : Bernard and his companions resolved to change it into a 

 temple of God. It was a savage terrible solitude, so utterly barren 

 that at first they were reduced to live on beech leaves : they suffered 

 the direst extremity of famine, until the patient faith of Bernard 

 was rewarded by supplies pouring in from the reverential piety of 

 the neighbouring peasants." 1 



Here afterwards arose — the name being changed to the Noble, 

 the Illustrious Valley — the magnificent Abbey of Clairvaux. But 

 time brings its changes and chances to other places besides Stanley. 

 Clairvaux is now a railway station on the line from Paris to Langres 

 and Belfort, the remains of the abbey are turned into a prison, the 

 Church was recklessly pulled down some seventy years ago to make 

 room for a prison yard, not one stone has been left upon another, 

 the very tomb of Bernard has not been spared. 



In the full fervour of this revival of monastic devotion the Cis- 

 tercians were brought over to England, and the ruins of some of 

 their houses hold no low place among the beautiful things to be 

 seen in this land of ours. I may mention Rievaulx and Fountains, 

 in Yorkshire; Tintern, in Monmouthshire; Netley, in Hampshire. 

 Melrose, in Scotland, a colony from Rievaulx, was founded in 1136. 

 Kirkstall is now black witb the smoke of Leeds, and the once clear 

 river (Aire) flows by in a dark and discoloured stream. Waverley, 



1 Milmau's Latin Christianity, iii., 228, 229. 

 VOL. XXIV. — NO. LXXII. T 



