perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiration;
that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and
adverse experience; that the same confidence should have
repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding
generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that
was open before them; and that men of every condition should have
staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate
adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand
miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the
council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new
emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land;
but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some
impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the
authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings:
their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the
voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard, ^28 the
monk, or the saint, may claim the most honorable place. ^* About
eight years before the first conquest of Jerusalem, he was born
of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of three- and-twenty he
buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in the primitive
fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he led forth
her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux ^29 in
Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the
humble station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age
has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the
honors of these spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are
distinguished by some energies of the mind; they were at least
superior to their votaries and disciples; and, in the race of
superstition, they attained the prize for which such numbers
contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high