Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Whose smile fills all that radiant throng
With ecstasy untold.

That bright, yet tender, smile

My sweetest welcome there

Shall cheer me through the little while
I tarry for him here.

"Thy love, thou precious Lord!

My joy and strength shall be,

Till thou shalt speak the gladdening word
That bids me rise to thee.

And then, through endless days,
Where all thy glories shine,
In happier, holier strains I'll praise
The grace that made me thine."

RICHARD MEUX BENSON.

MR. BENSON was a scholar of Christ Church College, Oxford, and graduated, B.A., November, 1847. He was the successful competitor for the Kennicott Hebrew scholarship. He was ordained deacon June 18, 1848, and priest June 3, 1849, by the Bishop of Oxford. In 1850 he was preferred to the perpetual curacy of St. John's Church, Cowley, a living that he still continues to hold.

In 1865 he was visited by the Rev. Charles C. Grafton, of Boston, Mass., on which occasion was organized, under the patronage of Mr. Benson, because of his "high social position, wealth, and literary attainments, the Society called 'The Cowley Fathers."" This Society pledge themselves to renounce the world and devote themselves to mission work. "They have all things in common; accept no salaries, only a provision for actual support in an economical way; do not marry; take their meals in silence; and follow daily rules of devotion." Their principal stations are Oxford,

England, and Boston, Mass. Mr. Benson in 1870 returned "Father" Grafton's visit, and officiated frequently in several of the Episcopal dioceses of the United States. He contributed to "Hymns, Ancient and Modern,"

"Praise to God who reigns above," etc.,

and the following translation of "Jesu, Redemptor omni um," etc. :

"O thou whose all-redeeming might

Crowns every chief in faith's true fight,
On this commemoration day

Hear us, good Jesu, while we pray.

"In faithful strife for thy dear name
Thy servant earned the saintly fame,
Which pious hearts with prayers revere
In constant memory year by year.

"Earth's fleeting joys he counted naught,
For higher, truer joys he sought,
And now, with angels round thy throne,
Unfading treasures are his own.

"O grant that we, most gracious God!
May follow in the steps he trod:
And, freed from every stain of sin,
As he hath won may also win.

"To thee, O Christ, our loving King!
All glory, praise, and thanks we bring;
Whom with the Father we adore,

And Holy Ghost, for evermore."

As an author he is favorably known by the following works: "The Wisdom of the Son of David," Prov. i.-ix. ; "Redemption: some of the Aspects of the Work of Christ, considered in a Course of Sermons" (1861); "The Divine Rule of Prayer"; "The Manual of an Association for Prayer on Behalf of the Unconverted" (1862); "Lays of Memory, Sacred and Social, by a Mother and Son "; besides several single Sermons, and a Manual of Confirmation.

BERNARD, OF CLAIRVAUX.

1091-1153.

BERNARD'S hymns are among the purest, sweetest, and richest of Latin hymnology. His master-piece, "De Nomine Jesu," as found in Daniel's "Thesaurus Hymnologicus," contains forty-eight four-line stanzas. Wackernagel, in his "Das Deutsche Kirchenlied" (1862), gives eight additional stanzas.

Bernard was born in 1091 at Fontaine, Burgundy, a village of which his father, Tecelin, was lord. His parents were both of high birth, his father being a knight of the house of Chatillon, and his godly mother, Alix, or Alethe, a daughter of Count Bernard, of Montbar. He was educated, with great strictness and care, at Chatillon on the Seine and at the University of Paris. The loss of his mother, in his twentieth year, determined his choice of a monastic life. He had five brothers, all of whom, and twenty-five other young men, by dint of faithful and persevering effort, he induced to enter with him, 1113, the monastery of Citeaux, near Dijon, of the Order of Cistercians, founded 1098. A rigid compliance with the rigorous rules of the Order soon reduced him almost to a skeleton. This very haggardness, however, gave him fame.

At the end of two years he was sent forth, with twelve other monks, to found a new monastery. He chose a wild gorge, known as "The Valley of Wormwood," in Champagne, diocese of Langres, a noted robber haunt. He gave it the name of "Clara Vallis," whence "Clairvaux "_"The Beautiful Valley." As Abbot of Clairvaux, he soon became known and noted throughout Christendom. Disciples flocked to him from all quarters. Not less than seven hundred novitiates, at one time, were attached to the monastery. Of his pupils, one became a Pope; six, Cardinals; and thirty, Bishops. Not less than seventy-two branches of the Order were founded by himself in France, Spain, and

Britain. At his death, the Order numbered one hundred and sixty monasteries.

By his learning, his energy, his austerity, and his re puted sanctity, he acquired an immense influence. His advice and counsel were universally sought, and his preaching welcomed with enthusiasm. He was summoned repeatedly to the great Councils of the Church, where his opinions were hailed as the perfection of wisdom. The great schism in the Papacy was healed, mainly by his interposition, in behalf of Innocent II. At the Conference in Sens, 1140, he confronted and confounded the rationalizing Abelard. The great crusade of 1147 was undertaken, chiefly at his instigation, by Louis VII., King of France. Worn down by his great austerities and abundant labors, he died, August 20, 1153, at the Abbey of Clairvaux.

His literary remains were published, 1515, at Venice, in two quarto volumes, and, 1645, at Paris, in five folios. They include 439 Letters, 340 Sermons (principally on "The Song of Solomon," to the study of which he was greatly addicted), and 12 Treatises. Seven considerable Poems are claimed as his, written, it is thought, about 1140.

Twelve years after his death he was canonized by the Pope, and, in 1174, he was publicly enrolled among "The Saints." Luther said of him: "If there has ever been a pious monk who feared God, it was St. Bernard, whom alone I hold in much higher esteem than all other monks and priests throughout the globe."

BERNARD, OF MORLAIX.

BERNARD was born at Morlaix, in Bretagne, of English parents. Of the dates of his birth and death, and of the incidents of his life, nothing is now known, save that the most of his life was spent, in the twelfth century, at Cluny,

on the little river Grône, in the Department of Saône et Loire, in a valley between two mountains, about 200 miles southeast of Paris. The Abbey had acquired, in the twelfth century, great renown. Peter, of Cluny, known as "The Venerable," succeeded Hugh II. as General of the Order and Abbot of Cluny, in 1121, at the age of twenty-eight years. He presided over the monastery until his death, December 24, 1156. He was the intimate friend of Bernard of Clairvaux. The church of Cluny was then regarded as the most magnificent in France, and the monastery itself as one of the most illustrious in Christendom.

It was at this period that Bernard, the poet, occupied one of the cells of Cluny. When not employed in monastic duties according to the rules of his Order, he occupied himself in the cultivation of his poetic talent. One of the happy fruits of these leisure hours is the divine poem, "De Contemptu Mundi." It is an elaborate production of three thousand lines, peculiarly constructed. Every line is a hexameter of five dactyles and one spondee, after the following fashion:

"Tunc nova gloria | pectora sobria | clarificabit :
Solvit enigmata | veraque sabbata | continuabit.
Patria luminis | inscia turbinis | inscia litis,
Cive replebitur amplificabitur | Iraélitis.

[ocr errors]

Thus every line is composed of three parts, the second rhyming with the first, and the third with the third of the following or preceding line. It is wonderfully artistic. "Our language," says Neale, "would utterly fail to give any idea of the majestic sweetness which invests it in Latin. Its difficulty in that language is such that Bernard, in a preface, expresses his belief that nothing but the special inspiration of the Spirit of God could have enabled him to employ it through so long a poem."

The author shows his regard for his superior, “Peter, the Venerable," by commending the work to his favor in a suitable Dedication. Of its Plan, he gives the following account:

"The Subject of the author is-The Advent of Christ to

« AnteriorContinuar »