Letters415 Letter CDXV. To a certain man, who had broken a promise he had given.

Bernard exhorts him to break through the yoke of carnal pleasures, and to fulfil his promise to enter into religion.

You may be forgetful of yourself, but I am not forgetful of you: because I love you; and my grief on your account is equal to my love. I love you too well not to be grieved on your account: and my grief keeps me from forgetting you. But alas how bitter and sorrowful is that remembrance to me! I cannot but wonder what has withheld you, that you did not come to us, as you had promised. For I could not believe that you had broken your promise, and such a solemn promise too, for any light reason: since I had ever found you, even from your boyhood, thoroughly faithful and truthful. Nor was I wrong: the reason which withheld you was emphatically a grave and a weighty one. It was the very same as overcame David, in spite of his valour, and deceived Solomon, in spite of his wisdom. But what shall one who falls, never be helped to rise again? How many and needful things I have to say to you but to write them would take too long. This only I will say shortly. If any spark of your former affection for me remains: if LETTER CDXVI.

you retain the least hope of ever breaking through that miserable captivity in which you are held; if finally, you do not wish to destroy and render useless the confidence, which it is said, in all your irregularities, you have ever had in my prayers and in the friendship of this community; do not put off the revisiting Clairvaux, if you are still sufficiently free, and sufficiently master of yourself, to be absent even for a time from that cruel beast which revels daily on your goods and will one day take the life of your soul. Otherwise there will be no more henceforth of your friendly intimacy with our brotherhood, and it is in vain that you plume yourself on the society of good men: it is certain that they will think you unworthy of their society, if you refuse to follow their counsels. But if you do not delay to come, I trust that through the mercy of God, you will be freed from the fetters of death, before you depart from us.