and who yet proved as a refuge for the poor distressed, and the succourer of the sons and daughters of affliction. Other instances might be given of the manner in which he championed the common people, but this will suffice to show the character of the man, and the kind of work he did. The latest breath of this pious and popular monk was devoted to the good of others. There were free cities on the Continent; and these frequently came in conflict with the surrounding barons. Bernard, whose influence was felt in all classes of society, often interposed between the sturdy citizens-even then the bulwark of liberty-and the turbulent soldiers, dubbed knights and barons. The men of Metz became thus embroiled with their warlike neighbours. I need not say that such a civil war necessarily entailed the greatest suffering on the peasantry, interfered with commerce, and often led to considerable bloodshed. On the occasion to which I now allude, there were unusual threatenings of slaughter, and forebodings of wide-spread ruin. Bernard, who had passed his three-score years, and whose debilitated frame seemed ready to fall in pieces, lay dying, when the news of these hostilities reached him. Weak and emaciated though he was, he at once determined to appeal to, and separate, the combatants, re-uniting them in the holy bonds of friendship and of peace. Rousing himself, and taking his pilgrim's staff, he hastened to the scene of conflict. The contending armies were drawn up in battle array, regarding each other with deadly hate, and preparing for the fatal charge. Bernard commenced his address. Afraid of the effects of his eloquence, and resolved not to surrender their claim, the barons unceremoniously retired to their tents. But the few words they had heard were enough. The homely thrusts of the dying monk, aided as they were by the almost ghostly appearance of the renowned and saintly oratur, told upon those wild warriors. In the morning they rose wiser men, resolved to return the sword to the scabbard, and anxious to make terms with the citizens. And Bernard, having had the satisfaction of restoring peace to the district, and witnessing the reconciliation of the warlike barons and the trading men of Metz, sought again his couch; and there, at the age of sixty-three, breathed out his life in prayer to the Gop he had served so diligently and so faithfully. "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God." I Among the lessons of such a life as Bernard's, I place this first-the lesson of Christian charity. am not prepared to defend all Bernard said, much less all he did. In many of his controversies, he advocated views which I regard as erroneous, and which on every fitting occasion I should be willing to oppose. The second crusade, of which he was the author and the inspiring genius, was worse than a blunder, and must be regarded as one of the most disastrous movements ever set on foot in Europe. Still, who can doubt the godliness of Bernard ? Most heartily do I wish that not a few of us Protestants, who hate Romanism and abuse the Pope, were more like this monk in the self-denying effort for the good of others, and in the practice of those virtues which constitute the Christian character. Far be it from me to proclaim indifference of opinion; but still it will do us all good to remember, especially in the midst of the peroration of a speech against Papists, and at the meetings of our great Protestant societies, that Bernard was a Roman Catholic, a devoted adherent to the Papacy, and every inch a Churchman. To all good men give the right hand of fellowship, whether belonging to this church or to that, or to no church at all. See, too, what a single life can accomplish. This is an age of organizations. Machinery is all potent. We almost worship societies. It may be that these are doing a good and great work, and in proportion to their We want, usefulness I wish them all prosperity. however, to learn more and more the value of what one man can do. Nearly every thing great and enduring has been the work of single individuals. And I am persuaded that if we could realize our individuality, instead of losing ourselves in the mass; if we felt that we have a power to put forth, and that we cannot delegate the effort to another; if we thoroughly appreciated the truth that our work can only be done by ourself, and that for the doing or leaving it undone we shall have to account, we should be better and more useful men than we are. Don't say, what can one man do? Bernard was but one man, and yet he did much. I don't say that any of us can take a position equal to his, or attain to influ ence such as he wielded; but this I say, that if we will only train ourselves as he trained himself; if we will bring our passions and our wills into subjugation to reason and to GoD; if we will take counsel of the monitor within, the wide world of nature without, and the ever-living Infinite One above us, we shall leave behind us traces of a good and noble life, for which numbers will bless GOD. This is the use of biography. Its mission is to inspire us by its revelation of what others have been and done. For this I have lectured on Bernard. Let it not be in vain. But remember that it is, as Longfellow, in his oft-quoted but never threadbare Psalm of Life, says: "Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, ART OF MAKING MONEY. BY MR. BARNUM. [Abstract of a lecture delivered in London, Manchester, and other places.] A NEW YORK millionaire, after hearing a moralist discourse eloquently for a length of time on the pernicious influence of wealth, calmly replied, "You sneak like an oracle, sir; but I have been poor, and I am rich, and, of the two conditions, I prefer the latter." What had been said of love was no less true of money-"It rules the court, the camp, the grove,' and "makes the world go round." "If money goes before, all ways lie open," observed Shakspeare, of the truth of whose words society was convinced. But as there were fanatics in religion and firebrands in politics, even so there were misers among moneygetters, and their practices were deserving not of praise but reprobation. He would have no man imitate the example of the Boston miser, who, being asked at a dinner-party whether he wished to be helped again, replied, "No, thank you, I don't want any more; but I will take the rest in money, if you please." In this, as in all other pursuits, the happy medium should be observed. Shakspeare was a prudent, sagacious, thrifty man of business, who, when he had acquired a competency by writing plays and acting in them himself, wisely retired into the country, bought an estate, and led the life of an honest yeoman. Ben Jonson, on the contrary, and others of his contemporaries, being imprudent and extravagant, toadied the great, lived dependent, and died penniless. Wellington was remarkable for his economical habits; Turner was of a singularly saving disposition; Franklin, whose money maxims were on every one's lips, was also most cautious and careful in his expenditure; and Washington kept his accounts with an accuracy and a regularity which would have done credit to a merchant's clerk. Having dwelt with much force on the advantages resulting from judicious and systematic economy, and especially from the practice of keeping a correct account of one's daily expenditure, the lecturer enlarged on the necessity of avoiding debt, and commended one of the favourite maxims of the elder Rothschild, that in money matters a man should endeavour to be "at once cautious and bold." People who desired to acquire an honourable independence would do well to engage in no line of business which they did not understand, and to view with horror that reckless speculation which was the bane of business. All descriptions of gambling were to be shunLed, but particularly gambling in matrimony, which was the basest form of the vice. If you were making a fortune, you should not say much about it, lest might tempt somebody else to embark in a similar enterprise, and so injure your own prospects; and if you were in needy circumstances, it would be well to maintain a similar reserve, lest you might find your friends falling off from you. No man should ever pass a day without reading a good reliable newsfor he who neglected to do so would soon find that he could not keep pace with the progress of human knowledge and the current information of the day, Nor should any man endorse bills for others without good security. He himself could speak feelingly and experimentally on the folly of neglecting that precept.-London Paper. paper, |