died and risen, and was alive for evermore. There was no place for
controversy or opinions when here was a mere simple, indisputable,
but most awful fact. Did you want to wrangle about the aspect of the
fact, the evidence, the what not? St. Francis had no mission to argue
with you. "The pearl of great price--will you have it or not? Whether
or not, there are millions sighing for it, crying for it, dying for
it. To the poor at any rate the Gospel shall be preached now as of
old."

To the poor by the poor. Those masses, those dreadful masses,
crawling, sweltering in the foul hovels, in many a southern town with
never a roof to cover them, huddling in groups under a dry arch,
alive with vermin; gibbering _cretins_ with the ghastly wens;
lepers by the hundred, too shocking for mothers to gaze at, and
therefore driven forth to curse and howl in the lazar-house outside
the walls, there stretching out their bony hands to clutch the
frightened almsgiver's dole, or, failing that, to pick up shreds of
offal from the heaps of garbage--to these St. Francis came.

More wonderful still!--to these outcasts came those other twelve, so
utterly had their leader's sublime self-surrender communicated itself
to his converts. "We are come," they said, "to live among you and be
your servants, and wash your sores, and make your lot less hard than
it is. We only want to do as Christ bids us do. We are beggars too,
and we too have not where to lay our heads. Christ sent us to you.
Yes. Christ the crucified, whose we are, and whose you are. Be not
wroth with us, we will help you if we can."

As they spoke, so they lived. They _were_ less than the least,
as St. Francis told them they must strive to be. Incredulous cynicism