himself, as Judas had done.

St. Antonius remarks that the life of St. Francis was in conformity
with that of Jesus Christ, even in the circumstance of having had an
unworthy disciple. He only became such by his depraved will; but God
in His wisdom made him serve as an example to show that we may be lost
even in the most holy states of life if we cease to labor with fear
and trembling for our salvation. Peter Rodulphus, Bishop of Sinigaglia,
in the Duchy of Urbino, adds, that the loss of one of the first children
of St. Francis, and still more that of Judas in the Apostolic College,
should induce those who are inclined to think ill and contemptibly of
a whole order, on account of the ill-behavior of some individual, to
reform their method of forming their opinions.

Among the instructions which Francis gave to his disciples, he laid
great stress on poverty, the practice of which might appear to them
to be very severe. In order to render them wise herein by experience,
and to make them feel that their subsistence depended on the charity
of the faithful, he took them all into Assisi, and made them beg from
door to door. This voluntary mendicity, which seemed new, and which
had hardly been seen till then, drew down upon them derision, contempt,
rebuffs, and angry words. In one place they were treated as sluggards
and idlers, and turned away with curses; in another they were told
they were fools to have given up their own property to go begging from
other people. The parents and relatives of those who were thus begging,
asserted that their families were dishonored by these practices, and
made loud complaints. There were, however, some who respected their
poverty, and aided them with good will. Such was the feeling of the
public of those times in regard to evangelical poverty, which differs
but little from what it is in our own days.