He came alone, with quiet eyes, thanking the knights to right and left
because they made way for him, and he passed between them quickly like
a white shadow. So thought pierces matter and the spiritual being
penetrates the terrestrial being and is unchanged.
But when Bernard had ascended the white wooden stage and stood near the
King and Queen, then the hushed stillness became a dead silence, and
the eyes of all that multitude were fastened upon his face and form, as
each could see him. For a moment every man held his breath as if an
angel had come down from heaven, bringing on his lips the word of God
and in his look the evidence of eternal light. He was the holy man of
the world even while he lived, and neither before him nor after him,
since the days of the Apostles, has any one person so stood in the eyes
of all mankind.
The gentle voice began to speak, without effort to be heard, yet as
distinct and clear as if it spoke to each several ear, pleading for the
cause of the Cross of Christ, and for the suffering men who held the
holy places in the East with ever-weakening hands, but still with
undaunted, desperate courage.
"Is there any man among you who has loved his mother, and has received
her dying breath with her last blessing, and has laid her to rest in
peace, in a place holy to him for her sake, and who would suffer that
her grave should be defiled and defaced by her enemies, so long as he,
her son, has in his body blood of hers to shed? Is there any among you
who would not fight, while he had breath, to save his father's dead
bones from dishonour? Do you not daily boast that you will lay down
your lives in a quarrel for the good name of your ladies, as you would
for your own daughters' fair fame and your own wives' faithfulness?
"And now, I say, is not the Church of God your mother, and are not her
temples your most holy places? You boast that you are ready to die for
an honourable cause: yet Christ gave His life for us, not because of
our honour, but because of our dishonour, and our sins which are many
and grievous; and having atoned for us in His Holy Passion, He was laid
at rest after the manner of men.
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