They would not remain in this valley of bitterness; they would return to Citeaux. Bernard, seeing they had lost their trust in God, reproved them no more; but himself sought in earnest prayer for release from their difficulties. Presently a voice from heaven said, 'Arise, Bernard, thy prayer is granted thee.' Upon which the monks said, 'What didst thou ask of the Lord?' 'Wait, and ye shall see, ye of little faith,' was the reply; and presently came a stranger who gave the abbot ten livres." William of St. Thierry, the friend and biographer of St. Bernard, describes the external aspect and the internal life of Clairvaux. We extract it as a sketch of the highest type of monastic life, and as a corrective of the revelations of corrupter life among the monks which find illustration in these pages. "At the first glance as you entered Clairvaux by descending the hill you could see it was a temple of God; and the still, silent valley bespoke, in the modest simplicity of its buildings, the unfeigned humility of Christ's poor. Moreover, in this valley full of men, where no one was permitted to be idle, where one and all were occupied with their allotted tasks, a silence deep as that of night prevailed. The sounds of labour, or the chants of the brethren in the choral service, were the only exceptions. The order of this silence, and the fame that went forth of it, struck such a reverence even into secular persons that they dreaded breaking it--I will not say by idle or wicked conversation, but even by pertinent remarks. The solitude, also, of the place--between dense forests in a narrow gorge of neighbouring hills--in a certain sense recalled the cave of our father St. Benedict, so that while they strove to imitate his life, they also had some similarity to him in their habitation and loneliness.... Although the monastery is situated in a valley, it has its foundations on the holy hills, whose gates the Lord loveth more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of it, because the glorious and wonderful God therein worketh great marvels. There the insane recover their reason, and although their outward man is worn away, inwardly they are born again. There the proud are humbled, the rich are made poor, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and the darkness of sinners is changed into light. A large multitude of blessed poor from the ends of the earth have there assembled, yet have they one heart and one mind; justly, therefore, do all who dwell there rejoice with no empty joy. They have the certain hope of perennial joy, of their ascension heavenward already commenced. In Clairvaux they have found Jacob's ladder, with angels upon it; some descending, who so provide for their bodies that they faint not on the way; others ascending, who so rule their souls that their bodies hereafter may be glorified with them.