nows above
him, and an intelligence keen and clear as the mountain-air. The whole
temper of the man was painted in a dream of his youth. It seemed to him
as though heaven lay, a stately palace, amid the gleaming hill-peaks,
while the women reaping in the corn-fields of the valley became
harvest-maidens of its king. They reaped idly, and Anselm, grieved at
their sloth, hastily climbed the mountain side to accuse them to their
lord. As he reached the palace the king's voice called him to his feet
and he poured forth his tale; then at the royal bidding bread of an
unearthly whiteness was set before him, and he ate and was refreshed. The
dream passed with the morning; but the sense of heaven's nearness to
earth, the fervid loyalty to the service of his Lord, the tender
restfulness and peace in the Divine presence which it reflected lived on
in the life of Anselm. Wandering like other Italian scholars to Normandy,
he became a monk under Lanfranc, and on his teacher's removal to higher
duties succeeded him in the direction of the Abbey of Bec. No teacher has
ever thrown a greater spirit of love into his toil. "Force your scholars
to improve!" he burst out to another teacher who relied on blows and
compulsion. "Did you ever see a craftsman fashion a fair image out of a
golden plate by blows alone? Does he not now gently press it and strike
it with his tools, now with wise art yet more gently raise and shape it?
What do your scholars turn into under this ceaseless beating?" "They turn
only brutal," was the reply. "You have bad luck," was the keen answer,
"in a training that only turns men into beasts." The worst natures
softened before this tenderness and patience. Even the Conqueror, so
harsh and terrible to others, became another man, gracious and easy of
speech, with Anselm. But amidst his absorbing cares as a teacher, the
Prior of Bec found time for philosophical speculations to which we owe
the scientific inquiries which built up the theology of the Middle Ages.
His famous works were the first attempts of any Christian thinker to
elicit the idea of God from the very nature of the human reason. His
passion for abstruse thought robbed him of food and sleep. Sometimes he
could hardly pray. Often the night was a long watch till he could seize
his conception and write it on the wax tablets which lay beside him. But
not even a fever of intense thought such as this could draw Anselm's
heart from its passionate tenderness and love.