1609. Sir George, from whom the islands took the alternative name of

Somers, was the first who established a settlement upon them, but he died before he had fully accomplished his design. In 1612 the Bermudas were granted to an offshoot of the Virginia Company, which consisted of 120 persons, 60 of whom, under the command of Henry More, proceeded to the islands. The first source of colonial wealth was the growing of tobacco, but the curing industry ceased early in the 18th century. In 1726 Bishop George Berkeley chose the Bermudas as the seat of his projected missionary establishment. The first newspaper, the _Bermuda Gazette_, was published in 1784. See Godet, _Bermuda, its History, Geology, Climate, &c_. (London, 1860); Lefroy, _Discovery and Settlement of the Bermudas_ (London, 1877-1879); A. Heilprin, _Bermuda Islands_ (Philadelphia, 1889); Stark, _Bermuda Guide_ (London, 1898); Cole, _Bermuda ... Bibliography_ (Boston, 1907); and for geology see also A. Agassiz, "Visit to the Bermudas in March 1894," _Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard_, vol. xxvi. No. 2, 1895; A.E. Verrill, "Notes on the Geology of the Bermudas," _Amer. Journ. Sci._ ser. 4, vol. ix. (1900), pp. 313-340; "The Bermuda Islands; Their Scenery, &c.," _Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts and Sci._ vol. xi. pt. 2 (1901-1902). BERMUDEZ, a N.E. state of Venezuela, between the Caribbean Sea and the Orinoco river, bounded E. by the gulf of Paria and the Delta-Amacuro territory, and W. by the states of Guarico and Miranda. Pop. (est. 1905) 364,158. It was created in 1881 by the union of the states of Barcelona, Cumana and Maturin, dissolved in 1901 into its three original states, and reorganized in 1904 with a slight modification of territory. The state includes the oldest settlements in Venezuela, and was once very prosperous, producing cattle and exporting hides, but wars and political disorders have partly destroyed its industries and impeded their development. Its principal productions are coffee, sugar, and cacao, and--less important--cotton, tobacco, cocoanuts, timber, indigo and dyewoods. Its more important towns are the capital, Barcelona, Maturin (pop. 14,473), capital of a district of the same name, and Cumana (10,000), on the gulf of Cariaco, founded in 1520 and one of the oldest towns of the continent. BERN (Fr. _Berne_), after the Grisons, the largest of the Swiss cantons, but by far the most populous, though politically Bern ranks after that of Zurich. It extends right across Switzerland from beyond the Jura to the snow-clad ranges that separate Bern from the Valais. Its total area is 2641.9 sq. m., of which 2081 sq. m. are classed as "productive" (including 591 sq. m. of forests, and 2.1 m. of vineyards), while of the remainder 111.3 sq. m. are occupied by glaciers (the Valais and the Grisons alone surpass it in this respect). It is mainly watered by the river Aar (q.v.), with its affluents, the Kander (left), the Saane or Sarine (left) and the Emme (right); the Aar forms the two lakes of Brienz and Thun (q.v.). The great extent of this canton accounts for the different character of the regions therein comprised. Three are usually distinguished:--(1) The _Oberland_ or Highlands, which is that best known to travellers, for it includes the snowy Alps of the Bernese Oberland (culminating in the Finsteraarhorn, 14,026 ft., and the Jungfrau, 13,669 ft.), as well as the famous summer resorts of Grindelwald, Murren, Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken, Meiringen, Kandersteg, Adelboden, Thun and the fine pastoral valley of the Simme. (2) The _Mittelland_ or Midlands, comprising the valley of the Aar below Thun, and that of the Emme, thus taking in the outliers of the high Alps and the open country on every side of the town of Bern. (3) The _Seeland_ (Lakeland) and the Jura, extending from Bienne and its lake across the Jura to Porrentruy in the plains and to the upper course of the Birs. The Oberland and Mittelland form the "old" canton, the Jura having only been acquired in 1815, and differing from the rest of the canton by reason of its French-speaking and Romanist inhabitants. In 1900 the total population of the canton was 589,433, of whom 483,388 were German-speaking, 97,789 French-speaking, and 7167 Italian-speaking; while there were 506,699 Protestants, 80,489 Romanists (including the Old Catholics), and 1543 Jews. The capital is Bern (q.v.), while the other important towns are Bienne (q.v.), Burgdorf (q.v.), Delemont or Delsberg (5053 inhabitants), Porrentruy or Pruntrut (6959 inhabitants), Thun (q.v.), and Langenthal (4799 inhabitants). There is a university (founded in 1834) in the town of Bern, as well as institutions for higher education in the principal towns. The canton is divided into 30 administrative districts, and contains 507 communes (the highest number in Switzerland). From 1803 to 1814 the canton was one of the six "Directorial" cantons of the Confederation. The existing cantonal constitution dates from 1893, but in 1906 the direct popular election of the executive of 9 members (hitherto named by the legislature) was introduced. The legislature or _Grossrath_ is elected for four years (like the executive), in the proportion of 1 member to every 2500 (or fraction over 1250) of the resident population. The _obligatory Referendum_ obtains in the case of all laws, and of decrees relating to an expenditure of over half a million francs, while 12,000 citizens have the right of _initiative_ in the case of legislative projects, and 15,000 may demand the revision of the cantonal constitution. The 2 members sent by the canton to the federal _Standerath_ are elected by the _Grossrath_, while the 29 members sent to the federal _Nationalrath_ are chosen by a popular vote. In the Alpine portions of the canton the breeding of cattle (those of the Simme valley are particularly famous) is the chief industry; next come the elaborate arrangements for summer travellers (the _Fremdenindustrie_). It is reckoned that there are 2430 "Alps" or mountain pastures in the canton, of which 1474 are in the Oberland, 627 in the Jura, and 280 in the Emme valley; they can maintain 95,478 cows and are of the estimated value of 46-1/2 million francs. The cheese of the Emme valley is locally much esteemed. Other industries in the Alpine region are wood-carving (at Brienz) and wine manufacture (on the shores of the lakes of Bienne and of Thun). The Mittelland is the agricultural portion of the canton. Watchmaking is the principal industry of the Jura, Bienne and St Imier being the chief centres of this industry. Iron mines are also worked in the Jura, while the Heimberg potteries, near Thun, produce a locally famous ware, and there are both quarries of building stone and tile factories. The canton is well supplied with railway lines, the broad gauge lines being 228 m. in length, and the narrow gauge lines 157-1/2 m.--in all 385-1/2 m. Among these are many funicular cog-wheel lines, climbing up to considerable heights, so up to Murren (5368 ft.), over the Wengern Alp (6772 ft.), up to the Schynige Platte (6463 ft.), and many others still in the state of projects. All these are in the Oberland where, too, is the so-called Jungfrau railway, which in 1906 attained a point (the Eismeer station) in the south wall of the Eiger (13,042 ft.) that was 10,371 ft. in height, the loftiest railway station in Switzerland. The canton of Bern is composed of the various districts which the town of Bern acquired by conquest or by purchase in the course of time. The more important, with dates of acquisition, are the following:--Laupen (1324), Hasli and Meiringen (1334), Thun and Burgdorf (1384), Unterseen and the Upper Simme valley (1386), Frutigen, &c. (1400), Lower Simme valley (1439-1449), Interlaken, with Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen and Brienz (1528, on the suppression of the Austin Canons of Interlaken), Saanen or Gessenay (1555), Koniz (1729), and the Bernese Jura with Bienne (1815, from the bishopric of Basel). But certain regions previously won were lost in 1798--Aargau (1415), Aigle and Grandson (1475), Vaud (1536), and the Pays d'En-Haut or Chateau d'Oex (1555). From 1798 to 1802 the Oberland formed a separate canton (capital, Thun) of the Helvetic Republic. (W. A. B. C.) BERN (Fr. _Berne_), the capital of the Swiss canton of the same name, and, by a Federal law of 1848, the political capital of the Swiss confederation. It is most picturesquely situated on a high bluff or peninsula, round the base of which flows the river Aar, thus completely cutting off the old town, save to the west. Five lofty bridges have been thrown over the Aar, the two most modern being the Kirchfeld and Kornhaus bridges which have greatly contributed to create new residential quarters near the old town. Within the town the arcades (or _Lauben_) on either side of the main street, and the numerous elaborately ornamented fountains attract the eye, as well as the two remaining towers that formerly stood on the old walls but are now in the centre of the town; the _Zeilglockenthurm_ (famous for its singular 16th-century clock, with its mechanical contrivances, set in motion when the hour strikes) and the _Kaficthurm_. The principal medieval building in Bern is the (now Protestant) Munster, begun in 1421 though not completed till 1573. The tower, rising conspicuously above the town, has recently been well restored, but the church was never a cathedral church (as is often stated), for there has never yet been a bishop of Bern. The federal Houses of Parliament (_Bundeshaus_) were much enlarged in 1888-1892, the older portions dating from 1852-1857, and also contain the offices of the federal executive and administration. The town-hall dates from 1406, while some of the houses belonging to the old gilds contain much of interest. The town library (with which that of the university was incorporated in 1905) contains a vast store of MSS. and rare printed books, but should be carefully distinguished from the national Swiss library, which, with the building for the federal archives, is built in the new Kirchfeld quarter. There are a number of museums; the historical (archaeological and medieval), the natural history (in which the skin of Barry, the famous St Bernard dog, is preserved), the art (mainly modern Swiss pictures), and the Alpine (in which are collections of all kinds relating to the Swiss Alps). Bern possesses a university (founded in 1834) and two admirably organized hospitals. The old fortifications (_Schanzen_) have been converted into promenades, which command wonderful views of the snowy Alps of the Bernese Oberland. Just across the Nydeck bridge is the famous bear pit in which live bears are kept, as they are supposed to have given the name to the town; certainly a bear is shown on the earliest known town seal (1224), while live bears have been maintained at the charges of the town since 1513. There is comparatively little industrial activity in the town, the importance of which is mainly political, though of late years it has been selected as the seat of various international associations (postal, telegraph, railway, copyright, &c.). The climate is severe, as the town is much exposed to cold winds blowing from the snowy Alps. In point of population it is exceeded in Switzerland by Zurich, Basel and Geneva, though the number of inhabitants has risen from 27,558 in 1850 and 43,197 in 1880 to 64,227 in 1900. In 1900, 59,698 inhabitants were German-speaking; while 57,144 were Protestants, 6087 Romanists (including Old Catholics) and 655 Jews. The height of the town above the sea-level is 1788 ft. The ancient castle of Nydeck, at the eastern end of the peninsula, guarded the passage over the Aar, and it was probably its existence that induced Berchtold V., duke of Zaringen, to found Bern in 1191 as a military post on the frontier between the Alamannians (German-speaking) and the Burgundians (French-speaking). Thrice the walls which protected the town were moved westwards, about 1250, in 1346 and in 1622, though even at the last-named date the town only stretched a little way to the west of (or beyond) the present railway station. After the extinction of the Zaringen dynasty (1218) Bern became a free imperial city, but it had to fight hard for its independence, which was finally secured by the victories of Dornbuhl (1298) over Fribourg and the Habsburgs, and of Laupen (1339) over the neighbouring Burgundian nobles. In the second battle Bern received help from the three forest cantons with which it had become allied in 1323, while in 1353 it entered the Swiss confederation as its eighth member. It soon took the lead in the confederation, though always aiming at enlarging its own borders, even at great risks (see the article on the canton). In 1528 Bern accepted the religious reformation, and henceforth became one of its chief champions in Switzerland. In the 17th century the number of families by which high offices of state could be held was diminished, so that in 1605 there were 152 thus qualified, but in 1691 only 104, while towards the end of the 18th century there were only 69 such families. Meanwhile the rule of the town was extending over more and more territory, so that finally it governed 52 bailiwicks (acquired between 1324 and 1729), the Bernese patricians being thus extremely powerful and forming an oligarchy that administered affairs like a benevolent and well-ordered despotism. In 1723 Major Davel, at Lausanne, and in 1749 Henzi, in Bern itself, tried to break down this monopoly, but in each case paid the penalty of failure on the scaffold. The whole system was swept away by the French in 1798, and though partially revived in 1815, came to an end in 1831, since which time Bern has been in the van of political progress. From 1815 to 1848 it shared with Zurich and Lucerne the supreme rule (which shifted from one to the other every two years) in the Swiss confederation, while in 1848 a federal law made Bern the sole political capital, where the federal government is permanently fixed and where the ministers of foreign powers reside. AUTHORITIES.--_Die Alp- und Weidewirthschaft im Kant. Bern_ (Bern, 1903); _Archiv d. hist. Vereins d. Kant. Bern_, from 1848, and _Blatter fur bernische Geschichte_, from 1905; _Bernische Biographien_ (Bern, 1898-1906); E. Friedli, _Barndutsch als Spiegel bernischen Volkstums_. vol. i. (_Lutzelfluh_, Bern, 1905), and vol. ii. (Grindelwald, Bern, 1908); _Festschrift zur 7ten Sakularfeier d. Grundung Berns_, 1191 (Bern, 1891); _Fontes Rerum Bernensium_ (to 1378), (9 vols., Bern, 1883-1908); K. Geiser, _Geschichte d. bernischen Verfassung_, 1191-1471 (Bern, 1888); B. Haller, _Bern in seinen Rathsmanualen_, 1465-1565 (3 vols., Bern, 1900-1902); E.F. and W.F. von Mulinen, _Beitrage zur Heimathskunde d. Kantons Bern, deulschen Theils_ (3 vols., Bern, 1879-1894); W.F. von Mulinen, _Berns Geschichte_, 1191-1891 (Bern, 1891); E. von Rodt, _Bernische Stadtgeschichte_ (Bern, 1888), and 6 finely illustrated vols. on Bern in the 13th to 19th centuries (Bern, 1898-1907); L.S. von Tscharner, _Rechtsgeschichte des Obersimmenthales bis zum Jahre 1798_ (Bern, 1908); E. von Wattenwyl, _Geschichte d. Stadt u. Landschaft Bern_ (to 1400), (2 vols.); Schaffhausen and Bern (1867-1872); F.E. Welti, _Die Rechtsquellen d. Kant. Bern_, vol. i. (Aarau, 1902); Gertrud Zuricher, _Kinderspiel u. Kinderlied im Kant. Bern_ (Zurich, 1902). (W. A. B. C.) BERNARD, SAINT (1090-1153), abbot of Clairvaux one of the most illustrious preachers and monks of the middle ages, was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in France. His father, a knight named Tecelin, perished on crusade; and his mother Aleth, a daughter of the noble house of Mon-Bar, and a woman distinguished for her piety, died while Bernard was yet a boy. The lad was constitutionally unfitted for the career of arms, and his own disposition, as well as his mother's early influence, directed him to the church. His desire to enter a monastery was opposed by his relations, who sent him to study at Chalons in order to qualify for high ecclesiastical preferment. Bernard's resolution to become a monk was not, however, shaken, and when he at last definitely decided to join the community which Robert of Molesmes had founded at Citeaux in 1198, he carried with him his brothers and many of his relations and friends. The little community of reformed Benedictines, which was to produce so profound an influence on Western monachism (see CISTERCIANS and MONASTICISM) and had seemed on the point of extinction for lack of novices, gained a sudden new life through this accession of some thirty young men of the best families of the neighbourhood. Others followed their example; and the community grew so rapidly that it was soon able to send off offshoots. One of these daughter monasteries, Clairvaux, was founded in 1115, in a wild valley branching from that of the Aube, on land given by Count Hugh of Troyes, and of this Bernard was appointed abbot. By the new constitution of the Cistercians Clairvaux became the chief monastery of the five branches into which the order was divided under the supreme direction of the abbot of Citeaux. Though nominally subject to Citeaux, however, Clairvaux soon became the most important Cistercian house, owing to the fame and influence of Bernard.[1] His saintly character, his self-mortification--of so severe a character that his friend, William of Champeaux, bishop of Chalons, thought it right to remonstrate with him--and above all, his marvellous power as a preacher, soon made him famous, and drew crowds of pilgrims to Clairvaux. His miracles were noised abroad, and sick folk were brought from near and far to be healed by his touch. Before long the abbot, who had intended to devote his life to the work of his monastery, was drawn into the affairs of the great world. When in 1124 Pope Honorius II. mounted the chair of St Peter, Bernard was already reckoned among the greatest of French churchmen; he now shared in the most important ecclesiastical discussions, and papal legates sought his counsel. Thus in 1128 he was invited by Cardinal Matthew of Albano to the synod of Troyes, where he was instrumental in obtaining the recognition of the new order of Knights Templars, the rules of which he is said to have drawn up; and in the following year, at the synod of Chalons-sur-Marne, he ended the crisis arising out of certain charges brought against Henry, bishop of Verdun, by persuading the bishop to resign. The European importance of Bernard, however, began with the death of Pope Honorius II. (1130) and the disputed election that followed. In the synod convoked by Louis the Fat at Etampes in April 1130 Bernard successfully asserted the claims of Innocent II. against those of Anacletus II., and from this moment became the most influential supporter of his cause. He threw himself into the contest with characteristic ardour. While Rome itself was held by Anacletus, France, England, Spain and Germany declared for Innocent, who, though banished from Rome, was--in Bernard's phrase--"accepted by the world." The pope travelled from place to place, with the powerful abbot of Clairvaux at his side; he stayed at Clairvaux itself, humble still, so far as its buildings were concerned; and he went with Bernard to parley with the emperor Lothair III. at Liege. In 1133, the year of the emperor's first expedition to Rome, Bernard was in Italy persuading the Genoese to make peace with the men of Pisa, since the pope had need of both. He accompanied Innocent to Rome, successfully resisting the proposal to reopen negotiations with Anacletus, who held the castle of Sant' Angelo and, with the support of Roger of Sicily, was too strong to be subdued by force. Lothair, though crowned by Innocent in St Peter's, could do nothing to establish him in the Holy See so long as his own power was sapped by his quarrel with the house of Hohenstaufen. Again Bernard came to the rescue; in the spring of 1135 he was at Bamberg successfully persuading Frederick of Hohenstaufen to submit to the emperor. In June he was back in Italy, taking a leading part in the council of Pisa, by which Anacletus was excommunicated. In northern Italy the effect of his personality and of his preaching was immense; Milan itself, of all the Lombard cities most jealous of the imperial claims, surrendered to his eloquence, submitted to Lothair and to Innocent, and tried to force Bernard against his will into the vacant see of St Ambrose. In 1137, the year of Lothair's last journey to Rome, Bernard was back in Italy again; at Monte Cassino, setting the affairs of the monastery in order, at Salerno, trying in vain to induce Roger of Sicily to declare against Anacletus, in Rome itself, agitating with success against the antipope. Anacletus died on the 25th of January 1138; on the 13th of March the cardinal Gregory was elected his successor, assuming the name of Victor. Bernard's crowning triumph in the long contest was the abdication of the new antipope, the result of his personal influence. The schism of the church was healed, and the abbot of Clairvaux was free to return to the peace of his monastery. Clairvaux itself had meanwhile (1135-1136) been transformed outwardly--in spite of the reluctance of Bernard, who preferred the rough simplicity of the original buildings--into a more suitable seat for an influence that overshadowed that of Rome itself. How great this influence was is shown by the outcome of Bernard's contest with Abelard (q.v.). In intellectual and dialectical power the abbot was no match for the great schoolman; yet at Sens in 1141 Abelard feared to face him, and when he appealed to Rome Bernard's word was enough to secure his condemnation. One result of Bernard's fame was the marvellous growth of the Cistercian order. Between 1130 and 1145 no less than ninety-three monasteries in connexion with Clairvaux were either founded or affiliated from other rules, three being established in England and one in Ireland. In 1145 a Cistercian monk, once a member of the community of Clairvaux--another Bernard, abbot of Aquae Silviae near Rome, was elected pope as Eugenius III. This was a triumph for the order; to the world it was a triumph for Bernard, who complained that all who had suits to press at Rome applied to him, as though he himself had mounted the chair of St Peter (_Ep_. 239). Having healed the schism within the church, Bernard was next called upon to attack the enemy without. Languedoc especially had become a hotbed of heresy, and at this time the preaching of Henry of Lausanne (q.v.) was drawing thousands from the orthodox faith. In June 1145, at the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, Bernard travelled in the south, and by his preaching did something to stem the flood of heresy for a while. Far more important, however, was his activity in the following year, when, in obedience to the pope's command, he preached a crusade. The effect of his eloquence was extraordinary. At the great meeting at Vezelay, on the 21st of March, as the result of his sermon, King Louis VII. of France and his queen, Eleanor of Guienne, took the cross, together with a host of all classes, so numerous that the stock of crosses was soon exhausted; Bernard next travelled through northern France, Flanders and the Rhine provinces, everywhere rousing the wildest enthusiasm; and at Spires on Christmas day he succeeded in persuading Conrad, king of the Romans, to join the crusade. The lamentable outcome of the movement (see CRUSADES) was a hard blow to Bernard, who found it difficult to understand this manifestation of the hidden counsels of God, but ascribed it to the sins of the crusaders (_Ep_. 288; _de Consid_. ii. 1). The news of the disasters to the crusading host first reached Bernard at Clairvaux, where Pope Eugenius, driven from Rome by the revolution associated with the name of Arnold of Brescia, was his guest. Bernard had in March and April 1148 accompanied the pope to the council of Reims, where he led the attack on certain propositions of the scholastic theologian Gilbert de la Porree (q.v.). From whatever cause--whether the growing jealousy of the cardinals, or the loss of prestige owing to the rumoured failure of the crusade, the success of which he had so confidently predicted--Bernard's influence, hitherto so ruinous to those suspected of heterodoxy, on this occasion failed of its full effect. On the news of the full extent of the disaster that had overtaken the crusaders, an effort was made to retrieve it by organizing another expedition. At the invitation of Suger, abbot of St Denis, now the virtual ruler of France, Bernard attended the meeting of Chartres convened for this purpose, where he himself was elected to conduct the new crusade, the choice being confirmed by the pope. He was saved from this task, for which he was physically and constitutionally unfit, by the intervention of the Cistercian abbots, who forbade him to undertake it. Bernard was now ageing, broken by his austerities and by ceaseless work, and saddened by the loss of several of his early friends. But his intellectual energy remained undimmed. He continued to take an active interest in ecclesiastical affairs, and his last work, the _De Consideratione_, shows no sign of failing power. He died on the 20th of August 1153. The greatness of St Bernard lay not in the qualities of his intellect, but of his character. Intellectually he was the child of his age, inferior to those subtle minds whom the world, fired by his contagious zeal, conspired to crush. Morally he was their superior; and in this moral superiority lay the secret of his power. The age recognized in him the embodiment of its ideal: that of medieval monasticism at its highest development. The world had no meaning for him save as a place of banishment and trial, in which men are but "strangers and pilgrims" (Serm. i., Epiph. n. 1; Serm. vii., Lent. n. 1); the way of grace, back to the lost inheritance, had been marked out once for all, and the function of theology was but to maintain the landmarks inherited from the past. With the subtleties of the schools he had no sympathy, and the dialectics of the schoolmen quavered into silence before his terrible invective. Yet, within the limits of his mental horizon, Bernard's vision was clear enough. His very life proves with what merciless logic he followed out the principles of the Christian faith as he conceived it; and it is impossible to say that he conceived it amiss. For all his overmastering zeal he was by nature neither a bigot nor a persecutor. Even when he was preaching the crusade he interfered at Mainz to stop the persecution of the Jews, stirred up by the monk Radulf. As for heretics, "the little foxes that spoil the vines," these "should be taken, not by force of arms, but by force of argument," though, if any heretic refused to be thus taken, he considered "that he should be driven away, or even a restraint put upon his liberty, rather than that he should be allowed to spoil the vines" (Serm. lxiv.). He was evidently troubled by the mob violence which made the heretics "martyrs to their unbelief." He approved the zeal of the people, but could not advise the imitation of their action, "because faith is to be produced by persuasion, not imposed by force"; adding, however, in the true spirit of his age and of his church, "it would without doubt be better that they should be coerced by the sword than that they should be allowed to draw away many other persons into their error." Finally, oblivious of the precedent of the Pharisees, he ascribes the steadfastness of these "dogs" in facing death to the power of the devil (Serm. lxvi. on Canticles ii. 15). This is Bernard at his worst. At his best--and, fortunately, this is what is mainly characteristic of the man and his writings--he displays a nobility of nature, a wise charity and tenderness in his dealings with others, and a genuine humility, with no touch of servility, that make him one of the most complete exponents of the Christian life. His broadly Christian character is, indeed, witnessed to by the enduring quality of his influence. The author of the _Imitatio_ drew inspiration from his writings; the reformers saw in him a medieval champion of their favourite doctrine of the supremacy of the divine grace; his works, down to the present day, have been reprinted in countless editions. This is perhaps due to the fact that the chief fountain of his own inspiration was the Bible. He was saturated in its language and in its spirit; and though he read it, as might be expected, uncritically, and interpreted its plain meanings allegorically--as the fashion of the day was--it saved him from the grosser aberrations of medieval Catholicism. He accepted the teaching of the church as to the reverence due to our Lady and the saints, and on feast-days and festivals these receive their due meed in his sermons; but in his letters and sermons their names are at other times seldom invoked. They were overshadowed completely in his mind by his idea of the grace of God and the moral splendour of Christ; "from Him do the Saints derive the odour of sanctity; from Him also do they shine as lights" (_Ep._ 464). The cause of Bernard's extraordinary popular success as a preacher can only imperfectly be judged by the sermons that survive. These were all delivered in Latin, evidently to congregations more or less on his own intellectual level. Like his letters, they are full of quotations from and reference to the Bible, and they have all the qualities likely to appeal to men of culture at all times. "Bernard," wrote Erasmus in his _Art of Preaching_, "is an eloquent preacher, much more by nature than by art; he is full of charm and vivacity and knows how to reach and move the affections." The same is true of the letters and to an even more striking degree. They are written on a large variety of subjects, great and small, to people of the most diverse stations and types; and they help us to understand the adaptable nature of the man, which enabled him to appeal as successfully to the unlearned as to the learned. Bernard's works fall into three categories:--(1) _Letters_, of which over five hundred have been preserved, of great interest and value for the history of the period. (2) _Treatises_: (a) dogmatic and polemical, _De gratia el libero arbitrio_, written about 1127, and following closely the lines laid down by St Augustine; _De baptismo aliisque quaestionibus ad mag. Hugonem de S. Victore; Contra quaedam capitala errorum Abaelardi ad Innocentem II._ (in justification of the action of the synod of Sens); (b) ascetic and mystical, _De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae_, his first work, written perhaps about 1121; _De diligendo Deo_ (about 1126); _De conversione ad clericos_, an address to candidates for the priesthood; _De Consideratione_, Bernard's last work, written about 1148 at the pope's request for the edification and guidance of Eugenius III.; (c) about monasticism, _Apologia ad Guilelmum_, written about 1127 to William, abbot of St Thierry; _De laude novae militiae ad milites templi_ (c. 1132-1136); _De precepto et dispensatione_, an answer to various questions on monastic conduct and discipline addressed to him by the monks of St Peter at Chartres (some time before 1143); (d) on ecclesiastical government, _De moribus et officio episcoporum_, written about 1126 for Henry, bishop of Sens; the _De Consideratione_ mentioned above; (e) a biography, _De vita et rebus gestis S. Malachiae, Hiberniae episcopi_, written at the request of the Irish abbot Congan and with the aid of materials supplied by him; it is of importance for the ecclesiastical history of Ireland in the 12th century; (f) sermons--divided into _Sermones de tempore; de sanctis; de diversis_; and eighty-six sermons, _in Cantica Canticorum_, an allegorical and mystical exposition of the Song of Solomon; (g) hymns. Many hymns ascribed to Bernard survive, e.g. _Jesu dulcis memoria, Jesus rex admirabilis. Jesu decus angelicum, Salve caput cruentatum_. Of these the three first are included in the Roman breviary. Many have been translated and are used in Protestant churches. St Bernard's works were first published in anything like a complete edition at Paris in 1508, under the title _Seraphica melliflui devotique doctoris S. Bernardi scripta_, edited by Andre Bocard; the first really critical and complete edition is that of Dom J. Mabillon _Sancti Bernardi opp. &c._ (Paris, 1667, improved and enlarged in 1690, and again, by Massuet and Texier, in 1719), reprinted by J.P. Migne, _Patrolog. lat._ (Paris, 1859). There is an English translation of Mabillon's edition, including, however, only the letters and the sermons on the Song of Songs, with the biographical and other prefaces, by Samuel J. Eales (4 vols., London, 1889-1895). See further Leopold Janauschek, _Bibliographia Bernardina_ (Vienna, 1891), which includes 2761 entries, including 120 works wrongly ascribed to Bernard. AUTHORITIES.--The principal source for the life of St Bernard is the _Vita Prima_, compiled, in six books, by various contemporary writers: