was put to silence. It was wonderful, it was inexplicable, it was
disgusting, it was anything you please; but where there were
outcasts, lepers, pariahs, there, there were these penniless
Minorites tending the miserable sufferers with a cheerful look, and
not seldom with a merry laugh. As one reads the stories of those
earlier Franciscans, one is reminded every now and then of the
extravagances of the Salvation Army.

The heroic example set by these men at first startled, and then
fascinated the upper classes. While labouring to save the lowest,
they took captive the highest. The Brotherhood grew in numbers day by
day; as it grew, new problems presented themselves. How to dispose of
all the wealth renounced, how to employ the energies of all the
crowds of brethren. Hardest of all, what to do with the earnest,
highly-trained, and sometimes erudite convert who could not divest
himself of the treasures of learning which he had amassed. "Must I
part with my books?" said the scholar, with a sinking heart. "Carry
nothing with you for your journey!" was the inexorable answer. "Not a
Breviary? not even the Psalms of David?" "Get them into your heart of
hearts, and provide yourself with a treasure in the heavens. Who ever
heard of Christ reading books save when He opened the book in the
synagogue, and then _closed_ it and went forth to teach the
world for ever?"

In 1215 the new Order held its first Chapter at the Church of the
Portiuncula. The numbers of the Brotherhood and the area over which
their labours extended had increased so vastly that it was already
found necessary to nominate Provincial Ministers in France, Germany,
and Spain.