* * * * * * *

Knocking at his heart--not merely buzzing in his brain--the words
kept smiting him, "Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your
purses, neither scrip for your journey, neither two coats, nor yet
staves, for the workman is worthy of his meat!" Once men had changed
the face of the world with no other equipment. Faith then had removed
mountains. Why not again? He threw away his staff and shoes; he went
forth with literally a single garment; he was girt with a common rope
round his loins. He no more doubted of his mission, he no more feared
for the morrow than he feared for the young ravens that he loved and
spake to in an ecstasy of joy.

Henceforth there was "not a bird upon the tree but half forgave his
being human;" the flowers of the field looked out at him with special
greetings, the wolf of the mountains met him with no fierce glare in
his eye. Great men smiled at the craze of the monomaniac. Old men
shook their grey heads and remembered that they themselves had been
young and foolish. Practical men would not waste their words upon the
folly of the thing. Rich men, serenely confident of their position,
affirmed that they knew of only one who could overcome the world--to
wit, the veritable hero, he who holds the purse-strings. St. Francis
did not speak to these. "Oh, ye miserable, helpless, and despairing;
ye who find yourselves so unutterably forlorn--so very, very far
astray; ye lost souls whom Satan has bound through the long weary
years; ye of the broken hearts, bowed down and crushed; ye with your
wasted bodies loathsome to every sense, to whom life is torture and
whom death will not deliver; ye whose very nearness by the wayside
makes the traveller as he passes shudder with uncontrollable horror
lest your breath should light upon his garments, look! I am poor as