"The devout army of Christ, therefore, earnestly incited by the example of its king, thinking indeed that the holy places are much more impiously and insufferably polluted by the infidels than when defiled by merchants, abide in the holy house with horses and with arms, so that from that, as well as all the other sacred places, all filthy and diabolical madness of infidelity being driven out, they may occupy themselves by day and by night in honourable and useful offices. They emulously honour the Temple of God with sedulous and sincere oblations, offering sacrifices therein with constant devotion, not indeed of the flesh of cattle after the manner of the ancients, but peaceful sacrifices, brotherly love, devout obedience, voluntary poverty."
"These things are done perpetually at Jerusalem, and the world is aroused, the islands hear, and the nations take heed from afar...."
St. Bernard then congratulates Jerusalem on the advent of the soldiers of Christ, and declares that the holy city will rejoice with a double joy in being rid of all her oppressors, the ungodly, the robbers, the blasphemers, murderers, perjurers, and adulterers; and in receiving her faithful defenders and sweet consolers, under the shadow of whose protection "Mount Zion shall rejoice, and the daughters of Judah sing for joy."
"Be joyful, O Jerusalem," says he, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, "and know that the time of thy visitation hath arrived. Arise now, shake thyself from the dust, O virgin captive, daughter of Zion; arise, I say, and stand forth amongst the mighty, and see the pleasantness that cometh unto thee from thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed _forsaken_, neither shall thy land any more be termed _desolate_.... Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold; all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. This is the assistance sent unto thee from on High. Now, now, indeed, through these is that ancient promise made to thee thoroughly to be performed. 'I will make thee an eternal joy, a glory from generation to generation.'
"HAIL, therefore, O holy city, hallowed by the tabernacle of the Most High! HAIL, city of the great King, wherein so many wonderful and welcome miracles have been perpetually displayed. HAIL, mistress of the nations, princess of provinces, possession of patriarchs, mother of the prophets and apostles, initiatress of the faith, glory of the christian people, whom God hath on that account always from the beginning permitted to be visited with affliction, that thou mightest thus be the occasion of virtue as well as of salvation to brave men. HAIL, land of promise, which, formerly flowing only with milk and honey for thy possessors, now stretchest forth the food of life, and the means of salvation to the entire world. Most excellent and happy land, I say, which receiving the celestial grain from the recess of the paternal heart in that most fruitful bosom of thine, hast produced such rich harvests of martyrs from the heavenly seed, and whose fertile soil hast no less manifoldly engendered fruit a thirtieth, sixtieth, and a hundredfold in the remaining race of all the faithful throughout the entire world. Whence most agreeably satiated, and most abundantly crammed with the great store of thy pleasantness, those who have seen thee diffuse around them (_eructant_) in every place the remembrance of thy abundant sweetness, and tell of the magnificence of thy glory to the very end of the earth to those who have not seen thee, and relate the wonderful things that are done in thee."