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Today's Featured Biography
St. Bernard
 In 1091, when the career of the Cid was drawing to a close in Spain, a yet greater Christian champion was born in France; greater, if only in this, that the weapons of his warfare were not carnal. That the work was good in itself, we think will be clear from a perusal of the life of the warrior-monk, St. Bernard.
His birthplace was Fontaines, near Dijon, in Burgundy; his father, Tecelin, a knight of honorable reputation, and so absorbed in his profession that he was compelled to leave the care of his seven sons, of whom Bernard was the third, to his wife Aleth. She was a pious and gentle woman, strictly attached to the duties of religion, and anxious for the spiritual rather than the temporal welfare of her children, whom she therefore devoted to the cloister. A dream, it is said, had indicated to her the future fame of her third son, before his birth. He rapidly displayed signs of possessing no ordinary character. His education was undertaken by the then celebrated school of Chantillon and the University of Paris, where he remained some years, actively pursuing his studies. His mother died soon after his return home, and he then proceeded to fulfil her wish, which accorded with his own, of becoming a monk. His father and friends endeavored to dissuade him from this step, but instead, he persuaded five of his brothers and twenty-five other friends to join him in the career which he had chosen. His father and remaining brothers subsequently followed him, and the whole famil...
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