Bernard's monks changed the whole face of the country by felling trees and tilling the ground. Their spiritual power rid the valley of Wormwood of its robbers, and the district grew rich and prosperous. Thus Bernard became the most famous man of his time. He was the arbiter in papal elections, the judge in temporal quarrels, the healer of schisms and a powerful preacher of the crusades. He was the embodiment of all that was best in the thought of his age. His weaknesses and faults may largely be explained by the fact that no man can rise entirely above the spirit of his times and absolutely free himself from all pernicious tendencies. "As an advocate for the rights of the church, for the immunities of the clergy, no less than for the great interests of morality, he was fierce, intractable, unforgiving, haughty and tyrannical." There was, however, no note of insincerity in his work or writings, and no tinge of hypocrisy in fervent zeal. He was brave, honest and pure; controlled always by a consuming passion for the moral welfare of the people. Our chief interest in Bernard relates to his monastic work which shed undying luster on his name. Vaughan, in his "Hours with the Mystics," says of him: "His incessant cry for Europe is, Better monasteries, and more of them. Let these ecclesiastical castles multiply; let them cover and command the land, well garrisoned with men of God, and then, despite all heresy and schism, theocracy will flourish, the earth shall yield her increase, and all people praise the Lord.... Bernard had the satisfaction of improving and extending monasticism to the utmost; of sewing together, with tolerable success, the rended vesture of the papacy; of suppressing a more popular and more scriptural Christianity for the benefit of his despotic order; of quenching for a time, by the extinction of Abelard, the spirit of free inquiry, and of seeing his ascetic and superhuman ideal of religion everywhere accepted as the genuine type of Christianity." But in spite of Dunstans, Brunos and Bernards, the monastic institution keeps on crumbling. The edifice will not stand much more propping and tinkering. While we admire this display of moral force, this commendable struggle of fresh courage and new hope against disintegrating forces, the conviction gains ground that something is radically wrong with the institution. There is something in it which fosters greed and desperate ambition. "Is it not a shame," we feel compelled to ask, "that so much splendid, chivalrous courage and magnificent energy should be expended in trying to prevent a structure from falling, which, it seems, could not possibly have been saved?" But while the decay could not be stayed, we must admire the noble aims and pious enthusiasm of the reformers who sought to preserve an institution which to them seemed the only hope of a sinful world.