The first definite complaint that reached his ears referred to the dedication of his oratory. Though formally dedicated to the Trinity, it was especially devoted to the Holy Spirit, in the character of Paraclete (Comforter); indeed both it and the later nunnery were known familiarly as ‘the Paraclete.’ Some captious critics had, it appears, raised a question whether it was lawful to dedicate a chapel to one isolated member of the Trinity. The question was absurd, for the Church frequently offers worship to the Holy Spirit, without mentioning the Father and the Son. The cautious Abélard, however, defends his dedication at great length. A second attack was made under the pretext of questioning the propriety of an image of the Trinity which was found in the oratory. Some sculptor in the colony had endeavoured to give an ingenious representation of the Trinity in stone. He had carved three equal figures from one block of stone, and had cut on them inscriptions appropriate to each Person of the Trinity.[20] Such devices were common in the Church, common in all Trinitarian religions, in fact. But Abélard was credited with intentions and interpretations in everything he did. Neither of these incidents proved serious, however. It was not until Abélard heard that Alberic and Lotulphe were inciting ‘the new apostles’ to assail him that he became seriously alarmed. The new apostles were Bernard of Clairvaux and Norbert of Prémontré. [20] The statue was preserved in a neighbouring church until the eighteenth century. It was destroyed at the Revolution. Not many leagues from the merry valley on the Arduzon was another vale that had been peopled by men from the cities. It was a dark, depressing valley, into which the sun rarely struggled. The Valley of Wormwood men called it, for it was in the heart of a wild, sombre, chilly forest. The men who buried themselves in it were fugitives, not merely from the hot breath of the cities and the ugly deeds of their fellows, but even from the gentler inspiration of nature, even from its purest thrills. They had had a vision of a golden city, and believed it was to be entered by the path of self-torture. The narrow windows of their monastery let in but little of the scanty light of the valley. With coarse bread and herbs, and a few hours’ sleep on boxes of dried leaves, they made a grudging concession to the law of living. But a joke was a sacrilege in the Valley of Wormwood, and a song a piece of supreme folly. The only sound that told the ravens and the owls of the presence of man was the weird, minor chant for hours together, that did not even seem to break the silence of the sombre spot. By day, the white-robed, solemn shades went about their work in silence. The Great Father had made the pilgrimage to heaven so arduous a task that they dare not talk by the wayside.