It has already been mentioned that the fraternity of St. Bernard was of
very ancient origin. It was founded in the year 962, by Bernard de
Menthon, an Augustine canon of Aoste in Piedmont, for the double purposes
of bodily succor and spiritual consolation. The idea of establishing a
religious community in the midst of savage rocks, and at the highest point
trod by the foot of a man, was worthy of Christian self-denial and a
benevolent philanthropy. The experiment appears to have succeeded in a
degree that is commensurate with its noble intention; for centuries have
gone by, civilization has undergone a thousand changes, empires have been
formed and upturned, thrones destroyed, and one-half the world has been
rescued from barbarism, while this piously-founded edifice still remains
in its simple and respectable usefulness where it was first erected, the
refuge of the traveller and a shelter for the poor.
The convent buildings are necessarily vast, but, as all its other
materials had to be transported to the place it occupies on the backs of
mules, they are constructed chiefly of the ferruginous, hoary-looking
stones that were quarried from the native rock.
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