# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/The Sin of Father St. Bernard

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THE SIN OF FATHER ST. BERNARD
IN his native France Father St. Bernard was lacking sympathy for the Revolution, without having either the wealth or the title to justify such an enmity; for he was a second son, and it was his elder brother who would fall heir to the honors and riches of the family. Being a ready and eloquent speaker, and not by instinct a fighter, he had accepted the usual alternative for the army, and entered the Church. At the breaking out of the war against aristocracy and religion in his native land, his friends prevailed on him to seek the peaceful shores of the New World, and, provided ​with letters to eminent prelates in Quebec, he set sail for that city, where he was presently installed as chaplain in the convent of the Ursulines.
The nuns became very prompt in their devotions when the handsome, dark-eyed, rich-voiced young priest entered on his duties, and one of the first offices that fell to him was that of accepting as a member of the order a young woman of rare beauty who, in a season of melancholy following her orphanage, had resolved to take the veil. Her relatives had tried to dissuade her from this step, the mother superior and the priest had cautioned her against a haste that she might repent; but she was firm in the decision to which she had held through her novitiate, and as Sister Louisa she was installed as a member of the holy community. His duties often obliged Father St. Bernard to hold interviews with this nun. Her modesty, gentleness, and innocence commended her to his manhood, as her cultivated mind had appealed to his intellect and her piety to his priestly function. At first unconscious of the reason, he sought more frequent occasions for meeting her than the others, and when at last it dawned upon him that he loved this girl the time had passed for cure. Often while he ministered at the altar his eye roved to the figure he had learned to distinguish among all others of the host, and he lurked in the shadow of columns, prayerfully, greedily watching her as she passed to her devotions or knelt to the Virgin in appeal for strength. ​For in her heart the same battle was being fought that raged in his. She had read love in his eyes and answered it. Nature, that knows no creeds, no law, no prohibition, had put her command on both, and it overbore their promises to heaven. When, with hesitation and shame, he declared himself to her, she left her hand in his and only turned away her head. Could it be, he asked, that she could forgive him, that she could condone, that she could love? She sank against his breast. In a delirium of joy he clasped her in his arms, kissing her again and again, until the ringing of the Angelus brought them to themselves with a shock. It was the last service they attended together in the convent, for they fled that night, were married, and found an asylum in the United States.
Seven years passed,—years of sometime happiness, dimmed with regrets and fears. In their most blissful hours they were tortured by the recollection of an unkept trust and broken vows. Spectres of dishonor walked with them in their garden, and dreams of punishment haunted their sleep. The time came when the hours of repentance out-numbered those of gladness, and their talk fell often on the days in Quebec when they were innocent and served God with clean hearts. "Oh," cried St. Bernard, at last, "is it impossible to conjoin the religious life and human love? Must our passions always be our masters? Hapless partner of my sin, I pray that you may never feel this wretched ​state as I do. God must despise me, for I despise myself."
The violence of this renunciation—for so she construed it—astonished and alarmed the wife, who, with a sobbing cry, fainted on his shoulder. She awoke in a delirium, and several days passed before her reason returned to her. Lying on her pillows, pale and thin, she lifted her sad eyes to him, as he bent anxiously above her, and said, faintly, "We have erred in loving, but reparation is in our power. We must part. Do not weep. Be strong. Be true to your oath."
It was decided to return. He prostrated him-self before the bishop, asking if heaven still held mercy for such as he, and the good old man received him into the Church again, as a shepherd would receive a strayed sheep into the fold. He resumed his robes, and was assigned to missionary duty on the frontier among the Indians, who learned to trust him, and even held him in affection before his days of usefulness were ended. His wife, taking again the name of Sister Louisa, re-entered the convent as a penitent with a truer knowledge of the world than when she had taken the veil, and a softer feeling for transgressors. She became the most sad, most silent, most pious of the sisters, and when she died they buried her, at her own request, in the corner of the convent garden where Father St. Bernard had first clasped her in his arms.