the educated classes, and sure of being understood wherever Latin,
the universal medium of communication among scholars, was in daily
and hourly use--the Dominicans could have little or no difficulty in
getting an audience such as they were qualified to address. It was
otherwise with the Franciscans. If the world was to be divided
between these two great bands, obviously the Minorites' sphere of
labour must be mainly among the lowest, that of the Preaching Friars
among the cultured classes.

When the Minorites preached among Italians or Frenchmen they were
received with tumultuous welcome. They spoke the language of the
people; and in the vulgar speech of the people--rugged, plastic, and
reckless of grammar--the message came as glad tidings of great joy.
When they tried the same method in Germany, we are told, they
signally failed. The gift of tongues, alas! had ceased. That, at any
rate, was denied, even to such faith as theirs. They were met with
ridicule. The rabble of Cologne or Bremen, hoarsely grumbling out
their grating gutturals, were not to be moved by the most impassioned
pleading of angels in human form, soft though their voices might be,
and musical their tones. "Ach Himmel! was sagt er?" growled one. And
peradventure some well-meaning interpreter replied: "Zu suchen und
selig zu machen." When the Italian tried to repeat the words his
utterance, not his faith, collapsed! The German-speaking people must
wait till a door should be opened. Must England wait too? Yes! For
the Franciscan missionaries England too must wait a little while.

But England was exactly the land for the Dominican to turn to.
Unhappy England! Dominic was born in the same year that Thomas a
Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral; Francis in the year
before the judgment of the Most High began to fall upon the guilty