coming, and Abbot Joachim's dreams were talked of and his vague
mutterings made the sanguine hope for better days. Among those
mutterings had there not been a speech of the two heavenly witnesses
who were to do--ah! what were they not to do? And these heavenly
witnesses, who were they? When and where would they appear?

Eight years before King Richard was in Sicily a child had been born
in the thriving town of Assisi, thirteen miles from Perugia, who was
destined to be one of the great movers of the world. Giovanni
Bernardone was the son of a wealthy merchant at Assisi, and from all
that appears an only child. He was from infancy intended for a
mercantile career, nor does he seem to have felt any dislike to it.
One story--and it is as probable as the other--accounts for his name
Francesco by assuring us that he earned it by his unusual familiarity
with the French language, acquired during his residence in France
while managing his father's business. The new name clung to him; the
old baptismal name was dropped; posterity has almost forgotten that
it was ever imposed. From the mass of tradition and personal
recollections that have come down to us from so many different
sources it is not always easy to decide when we are dealing with pure
invention of pious fraud, and when with mere exaggeration of actual
fact, but it scarcely admits of doubt that the young merchant of
Assisi was engaged in trade and commerce till his twenty-fourth year,
living in the main as others live, but perhaps early conspicuous for
aiming at a loftier ideal than that of his everyday associates, and
characterized by the devout and ardent temperament essential to the
religious reformer. It was in the year 1206 that he became a changed
man. He fell ill--he lay at Death's door. From the languor and
delirium he recovered but slowly--when he did recover old things had
passed away; behold! all things had become new. From this time