Come away, come away, come to the tryst, Come in, MacGaradh, from east and from west! "MacGaradh! MacGaradh! MacGaradh, come forth! real history is quite well known, to the more perplexed pedigrees of the Highland clans, with the decorations he then liberally imparted to the harphantasmagoria of their variegated tartans-which to the purest of the Anglo-Norman houses conspicnessed spearmen of the southern border, and even uous in the authentic annals of Scotland-yea, even at last encouraged to produce in a tangible shape to Bruce, Hamilton, and Lyndsay!-until he was this more ambitious invention of the Iolair Dhearg Come Stuart! come Stuart! set up thy white-announcing openly to the dandies of the Celtic Come from your bowers, from south and from Come in all Gowrie, Kinoul, and Tweedale! mail! rose! Killour and Buckcleugh, bring thy bills and thy bows! Come in, MacGaradh! come arm'd for the fray! "The Hay! the Hay! the Hay! the Hay! that "they have yet a KING!" From the Edinburgh Review. 1. Histoire de Saint François d'Assise, (1182— 1226. Par EMILE CHAVIN DE MALAN. Paris: 1845. 2. St. François d'Assise. Par E. J. DELECLUSE. Paris: 1844. It was a noble design which died with Robert Southey. His History of the Monastic Orders would not perhaps have poured a large tribute of philosophy, divine or human, into the ocean of knowledge; but how graceful would have been the The author of the other poems comprised in the flow of that transparent narrative, and how would volume-Mr. John Hay Allan, now Mr. John So- it have reflected and enhanced the beauty of every bieski Stuart tells us in his notes that he copied rich champaign and of every towering promontory this piece "from an old leaf pasted into an old MS. along which it would have swept! Peremptory history of the Hays," and that he had "seen a ver- and dogmatical as he was, he addressed himself to sion of the first stanza in Gaelic." The first and the task of instructing his own and future gensecond stanzas he considers decidedly ancient; the erations, with a just sense of the dignity and of the remaining verses as having been composed by a cer- responsibilities of that high office. He was too tain Captain James Hay in 1715. It is further ex-brave a man, and too sound a Protestant, to shrink plained to us, apparently from the same MS. histo- from any aspect of truth; nor would he ever have ry, that "MacGaradh" was the ancient name of supposed that he could promote a legitimate object the Hays, "Garadh" signifying in Gaelic "a dike of ecclesiastical history by impairing the well-earned or barrier," and being therefore nearly synonymous fame of any of the worthies of the church, because with the French "haie," a "hedge.' The pat- they had been entangled in the sophistries or the ronymic of the chief, we are told, was " Mac Mhic superstitions of the ages in which they flourished. Garadh Mor an Sgithan Dearg"-" the son of the son of Garadh the Great of the red shields." Of this "old MS. history" we know no more than is contained in the above references to it in the editorial notes of 1822-but the "Gathering" is so manifestly an imitation of Scott's "Pibroch of Donuil Dhu," composed in 1816, enriched with an occasional touch from the popular song of "The Campbells are coming," that the youngest Miss Hay who fingers a pianoforte cannot suppose it really ancient; and we have no doubt from this, and from the unnatural association of Gaelic names and phrases with the purely Lowland family of the Hays, that, were the "old MS. history of the Hays" itself before us, it would prove a genuine elder brother of the Vestiarium "from the Douay papers." It is tolerably obvious, in short, that our ingenious manipulator, whoever he may be, has arrived by cautious degrees at the crowning of his imposture. In the poetical compilation of 1822, there occurred indeed an intimation that the gentle-bonne, conversant with the arts and literature of man named on its title-page claimed a descent in some way from the Stuarts, (p. 97,) but we were left without any explanation on that subject-while the MS. history of the Hays and the Gathering of the MacGaradh were brought prominently forward. Encouraged by the success of those smaller experiments, the artist appears to have advanced from his mystifications about a single noble family, whose *See "The Bridal of Caolchairn, and other Poems," by John Hay Allan, Esq. London, Hookham; and Edinburgh, Tait. 8vo. 1822. M. Chavin de Malan has adopted the project of our fellow-countryman, and is publishing his Monastic History in a series of fragments, among which is this volume on the founder and the progress of the Franciscan Order. Though among the most passionate and uncompromising devotees of the Church of Rome, M. Chavin de Malan also is in one sense a Protestant. He protests against any exercise of human reason in examining any dogma which that church inculcates, or any fact which she alleges. The most merciless of her cruelties affect him with no indignation, the silliest of her prodigies with no shame, the basest of her superstitions with no contempt. Her veriest dotage is venerable in his eyes. Even the atrocities of Innocent the Third seem to this all-extolling eulogist but to augment the triumph and the glories of his reign. If the soul of the confessor of Simon de Montfort, retaining all the passions and all the prejudices of that era, should transmigrate into a Doctor of the Sor our own times, the result might be the production of such an ecclesiastical history as that of which we have here a specimen-elaborate in research, glowing in style, vivid in portraiture, utterly reckless and indiscriminate in belief, extravagant, up to the very verge of idolatry, in applause, and familiar, far beyond the verge of indecorum, with the most awful topics and objects of the Christian faith. The episode of which M. Chavin de Malan disposes in this book, is among the most curious and important in the annals of the church, and the ma In terials for the Life of Francis of Assisi are more | restored the tone and vigor of his nerves, his than usually copious and authentic. First in order thoughts, reverting to the lower world, wandered are his own extant writings, consisting chiefly of in search of victories of another order. letters, colloquies, poems, and predictions. His Walter of Brienne was in arms in the Neapolitan earliest biographer, Thomas of Celano, was his fol-states against the emperor; the weak opposed to the lower and his personal friend. Three of the intimate powerful; the Italian to the German; the Guelph associates of the saint (one of them his confessor) to the Ghibelline; and Francis laid him down compiled a joint narrative of his miracles and his to sleep, resolved that, with the return of day, he labors. Bonaventura, himself a general of the would join the "Gentle Count," as he was usually Franciscan order, wrote a celebrated life of the called, in resisting the oppressor to the death. founder, whom in his infancy he had seen. And his slumbers a vast armory seemed to open to his lastly, there is a chronicle called Fioretti di San view; and a voice commanded him to select, from Francisco, which, though not written till half a the burnished weapons with which it was hung, century after his death, has always been held in such as he could most effectually wield against the much esteem by the hagiographers. Within the impious enemy of the church. The dreamer last thirty years a new edition of it has been pub- awoke; and in prompt submission to the celestial lished at Verona. On these five authorities all the mandate, laid aside the serge gown and modest more recent narratives are founded. Yet the bonnet of his craft, and exhibited himself to his adworks of Thomas de Celano and of the "Tres miring fellow-citizens armed cap-à-pie, and urging Socii," with the writings of Francis himself, are on his war-horse towards the encampment of his the only sources of contemporary intelligence strict-destined leader. At Spoleto fatigue arrested his ly so called; although Bonaventura and the chron-course. Again he slept, and again the voice was icler of the Fioretti had large opportunities of heard. It announced to him that the martial imascertaining the reality of the facts they have re-plements of his former vision were not, as he had lated. How far they availed themselves of that supposed, such as are borne beneath a knightly advantage, may be partly inferred from the following brief epitome of those occurrences. banner against a carnal adversary, but arms of spiritual temper, to be directed, in his native city, against the invisible powers of darkness. He listened and obeyed; and Assisi reöpened her gates to her returning warrior, resolute to break a lance with a more fearful foe than was ever sent by the emperor into the field. The city of Assisi, in Umbria, was a mart of some importance in the latter half of the 12th century. At that period it could boast no merchant more adventurous or successful than Pietro Bernadone di Mericoni. Happy in a thriving trade, and happier still in an affectionate wife, he was above To superficial judges it probably appeared as if all happy in the prospect of the future eminence of that dread antagonist had won an easy triumph over his son Francisco. The foremost in every feat of his young assailant, For Francis was seen once arms, and the gayest in every festival, the youth more, the graceful leader of the civic revels, bearing was at the same time assiduous in the counting-in his hand the sceptre of the king of frolic, and folhouse; and though his expenditure was profuse, it still flowed in such channels as to attest the princely munificence of his spirit. The brightest eyes in Assisi, dazzled by so many graces, and the most reverend brows there, acknowledging such early wisdom, were alike bent with complacency towards him; and all conspired to sustain his father's belief, that, in his person, the name of Bernadone would rival the proudest of those whom neither transalpine conquerors, nor the majesty of the tiara, disdained to propitiate in the guilds of Venice or of Pisa. 66 lowed by a joyous band, who made the old streets echo with their songs. As that strain arose, however, a dark shadow gathered over the countenance of the leader, and amid the general chorus his voice was unheard. "Why so grave, Francis? art thou going to be married?" exclaimed one of the carollers. I am," answered Francis," and to a lady of such rank, wealth, and beauty, that the world cannot produce her like." He burst from the jocund throng in search of her, and was erelong in her embrace. He vowed to take her "for his wedded wife, for better for worse, to love and to cherish till death should them part." The lady was Poverty. The greatest poet of Italy and the greatest orator of France have celebrated their nuptials. But neither Dante nor Bossuet was the inventor of the parable. It was ever on the lips of Francis himself, that Poverty was his bride, that he was her devoted husband, and the whole Franciscan order their offspring. Uniform, alas! is the dirge of all the generations of mankind, over hopes blossoming but to die. In a combat with the citizens of Perugia, Francis was taken prisoner; and after a captivity of twelve months, was released only to encounter a disease, which, at the dawn of manhood, brought him within view of the gates of death. Long, earnest, and inquisitive was his gaze into the inscrutable abyss on which they open; and when at length he returned to the duties of life, it was in the awe-stricken His fidelity to his betrothed lady was inviolate, spirit of one to whom those dread realities had been but not unassailed by temptation. Pleasure, wealth, unveiled. The world one complicated imposture, ambition, were the sirens who, with witching all sensible delights so many polluting vanities, hu- looks and songs, attempted to divert him from his man praise and censure but the tinkling of the cym- | Penelope; and when he could no longer combat, bals-what remained but to spurn these empty he at least could fly the fascination. Wandering shadows, that so he might grasp the one imperish-in the Umbrian hills, he wept and fasted, and comable object of man's sublunary existence? His alms became lavish. His days and nights were consumed in devout exercises. Prostrate in the crowded church, or in the recesses of the forest, his agitated frame attested the conflict of his mind. He exchanged dresses with a tattered mendicant, and pressed to his bosom a wretch rendered loathsome by leprosy. But as he gradually gathered strength from these self-conquests, or as returning health muned with the works of God; till, raised to communion with their Maker, he knelt in a rustic church which the piety of ancient times had consecrated there to the memory of St. Damiano. The voice which directed his path in life was heard again. "Seest thou not," it cried, "that my temple is falling into ruins? Restore it." Again the spirit of interpretation failed him. Instead of addressing himself to renovate the spiritual, he undertook the repairs of the material fabric-an | providently gathered up. Why should a youth who arduous task for the future spouse of Poverty! despised all treasures, but those laid up in heaven, But obedience was indispensable. Rising from his retain his prospective right to a sublunary inheriknees, he hastened to his father's warehouse, laded tance? A renunciation of it was at once drawn up, a stout palfrey with silks and embroideries, sold signed, and placed in his hands. Why should a both horse and goods at the neighboring town of candidate for cowl and scapulary retain the goodly Foligno, and laid down the money at the feet of the apparel in which he had reached his place of officiating priest of St. Damiano. The more cau- refuge? In a few moments the young probationer tious churchman rejected the gold. Francis indig-stood before him in his shirt. Carefully packing up nantly cast it into the mire; and vowed that the the clothes, the parchment, and the gold, the merbuilding so solemnly committed to his care should chant returned to accumulate more gold at Assisi. become his dwelling-place and his home, till the And here history takes her leave of him; without divine behest had been fulfilled. regret and without applause, but not without a sullen acknowledgment, that, after all, it was from the mortal Pietro that the immortal Francis derived one inheritance which he could not renounce the inheritance of that inflexible decision of purpose which elevated the father to distinction among the worshippers of Mammon, and the son to eminence among the saints of Christendom. During all this time hallucinations of his own, though of a far different kind, had haunted the brain of the respectable Pietro Bernadone. Grouping into forms ever new and brilliant, like spangles shaken in a kaleidoscope, the ideas of bales and bills of lading, of sea risks and of supercargoes, had combined with those of loans to reckless crusaders and of the supply of hostile camps, to form one gorgeous Eldorado, when intelligence of the loss of his draperies, his pack-horse, and his son, restored him to the waking world and to himself. The goods and the quadruped were gone irrevocably. But as the exasperated father paced the streets of Assisi, a figure emaciated with fasts and vigils, squalid with dirt, and assailed by the filthy missiles of a hooting rabble, approached him, and as it moved onwards with a measured tread, an uplifted eye, and a serene aspect, it revealed to the old merchant, in this very sorry spectacle of dignified suffering, the long-cherished object of his ambitious hopes. What biographer even now can tell the sequel without a blush! Francis was hurried away from his persecutors and his admirers, in the grasp of the elder Bernadone, and, from his vigorous arm, received that kind of chastisement under which heroism itself ceases to be sublime. The incensed judge then passed a chain round the body of the youth, and left him in a kind of domestic prison, there to satiate his love for penances, until his own return from a journey to which the inexorable demands of his commerce had summoned him. Wiser far and more gentle was the custody to which Francis was transferred, and a voice was heard in his penitentiary full of a more genuine inspiration than any of those by which his steps had been hitherto guided. It was the voice of his mother, soothing her half-distracted child in accents as calm and as holy as those which first broke the silence of Eden. It spoke to him of maternal love, of reconciliation, and of peace. But it addressed him in vain. He was bound to leave father and mother, and to cleave to his betrothed wife, and to the duties of that indissoluble alliance. Convinced at length of the vanity, perhaps trembling at the impiety, of any further resistance, his mother threw open his prison doors, and permitted him to escape to his sanctuary at St. Damiano. In those hallowed precincts Francis found courage to oppose, and constancy to disarm, the rage with which he was pursued by his father. Gradually, but surely, the mind of the old man embraced the discovery, that, though dwelling on the same planet, he and his son were inhabitants of different worlds. From that conviction he advanced with incomparable steadiness to the practical results involved in it. Why, he inquired, should a churchman, to whom all earthly interests were as the fine dust in the balance, retain the price of the pack-horse and of his pack? The priest of St. Damiano immediately restored the scattered gold, which he had It was indeed, "an obstinate hill to climb." An orphan with living parents, a beggar entitled to a splendid patrimony, he traversed the mountains with the freedom of soul known only to those for whom the smiles of fortune have no charm, and her frowns no terror. Chanting divine canticles as he went, his voice attracted the banditti who lurked in those fastnesses. They tossed the worthless prize contemptuously into a snow-drift. Half frozen, he crawled to a neighboring monastery, and was employed by the monks as a scullion. He returned to the scene of his former revels, and obtained the cloak, the leathern girdle, and the staff of a pilgrim as an alms from one who, in those brilliant days, had confessed his superiority in every graceful art, and in every feat of chivalry. With the dress he assumed the spirit of a pilgrim, and devoted himself to the relief of the sorrows of those who, like himself, though for a very different reason, were estranged from a cold and a fastidious world. Into all the countries embracing the Mediterranean, the crusaders had at this period introduced the leprosy of the East. A ritual was compiled for the purpose of celebrating with impressive solemnity the removal of the victims of that fearful malady from all intercourse with their fellow Christians. It was a pathetic and melancholy service, in which the sternest interdict was softened by words of consolation and of pity. Nor were they words of empty ceremonial. A sentiment of reverence towards those miserable sufferers was widely diffused throughout the whole of Europe. The obscurity which hung over the origin, the nature, and the cure of the disease, and the mysterious connection in which it stood to the warfare for the Holy Sepulchre, moved that wonder-loving age to invest it with a kind of sacred character. The churchmen of the times availed themselves skilfully and kindly of this popular feeling. They taught that Christ himself had regarded the leprous with peculiar tenderness; and not content to enforce this lesson from those parts of the evangelic narrative which really confirm it, they advanced by the aid of the Vulgate further still, and quoted from the 53d chapter of Isaiah, a prophecy in which, as they maintained, the Messiah himself was foretold under the image of a leper. "Nos putavimus eum quasi Leprosum, percussum a Deo, et humiliatum." Kings and princes visited, countesses ministered to them, saints (as it was believed) wrought miracles for their cure, and almost every considerable city erected hospitals for their detention and relief. Some time before his betrothment to Poverty, Francis, crossing on horseback the plain which sur- of her captains, the most sumptuous of her merrounds Assisi, unexpectedly drew near to a leper. chants. Assisi had her witty men who jeered, her Controlling his involuntary disgust, the rider dis- wise men who looked grave, and her respectable mounted, and advanced to greet and to succor him, men who were scandalized, as this strange apparition but the leper instantaneously disappeared. St. invoked their alms in the names of the Virgin and Bonaventura is sponsor for the sequel of the tale. of St. Damiano. Solemn heads were shaken at the He who assumed this deplorable semblance was in sight, in allusion to the supposed state of the brain reality no other than the awful being whom the of the mendicant. But the sarcasms of the facetious, typical language of Isaiah had adumbrated. Little and the conclusive objections of the sensible, fell on wonder, then, that after his vows had been plighted Francis like arrows rebounding from the scales of to his austere bride, Francis had faith to see, and Behemoth. His energy silenced and repelled them charity to love, even in the leprous, the imperisha- all. Insuperable difficulties gave way before him. ble traces of the divine image in which man was The squalid lazar became the inspiring genius of created, and the brethren of the divine sufferer by the architect, the paymaster of the builders, the whom man was redeemed. menial drudge of the workmen. Sometimes he came with money in his hand, sometimes with stones and mortar on his back. At his bidding, nave, chancel, arches, roof, and towers, rose from their foundations. The sacred edifice appeared in renovated splendor. The heavenly precept was obeyed. ates. Yet, despite this triumph of the spiritual discernment over the carnal sense, neither faith nor charity could subdue his natural terror in the prospect of a continued and familiar intercourse with such associSome distinct disclosure of the divine will was still requisite to such a self-immolation; and such disclosures were never long denied to him. The now familiar voice was heard anew. "Hate what thou hast hitherto loved," it cried; "Love what thou hast hitherto hated." He listened, and became an inmate of the Leprous Hospital at Assisi. With his own hands he washed the feet and dressed the sores of the lepers; and once at least reverently applied his lips to such a wound. The man (so says St. Bonaventura) instantly became whole. "Whether shall we most admire," he exclaims, "the miraculous power, or the courageous humility of that kiss?" A question to be asked of those who believe in both. But even they who reject the miracle, will revere the loving-kindness of such a sojourn among such unhappy outcasts. In later days Francis became the father and the apostle of the leprous; and when weightier cares withdrew him in person from that charge, his heart still turned towards them with a father's yearnings. Among his numerous followers, were some who, though destitute of the higher gifts of intellect, were largely endowed with the heroism of self-denying love. James, surnamed the Simple, was amongst the most conspicuous of them, and in those abodes of woe he earned the glorious title of steward and physician of the leprous. It happened that, in his simplicity, James brought one of his patients to worship at a much frequented church, and there received from Francis the rebuke so well merited for his indiscretion. The heart of the sick man was oppressed as he listened to the censure of his benefactor; and the heart of Francis was moved within him to perceive that he had thus inadvertently added to the burden of the heavy laden. He fell at the leper's feet, implored his forgiveness, sat down with him to eat out of the same dish, embraced and dismissed him! Had he grasped every subtle distinction of the Summa Theologiæ itself, or had he even built up that stupendous monument of the learning of his age, it would have been a lower title to the honors of canonization. The church of St. Damiano still lay in ruins. The command to rebuild it was still unrevoked. Ill success had followed the attempt to extract the requisite funds from the hoards of the old merchant. Plutus, his inexorable father, had been invoked in vain. Poverty, his affianced wife, might be more propitious. He wooed her in the form she loves best. In the dress and character of a beggar he traversed the city through which he had been wont to pass, the gayest of her troubadours, the bravest Prompt and decisive was the reaction of popular feeling. Instead of debating whether this strange mortal was rogue or maniac, it was now argued that he must be either a necromancer or a saint. The wiser and more charitable opinion prevailed. Near to the city was a ruined church sacred to the prince of the apostles. Confident in his late success, Francis rather demanded, than implored, contributions for rebuilding it. Purses were emptied into his hands, and speedily the dome of St. Peter's looked down in all its pristine dignity on the marts and battlements of Assisi. There were no church-building commissioners in those days. In their stead, a half-starved youth in the rags of a beadsman moved along the streets of his native city, appealing to every passer-by, in quiet tones and earnest words, and with looks still more persuasive, to aid him in reconstructing the chapel of La Porzioncula; a shrine of Our Lady of Angels, of which the remains may yet be seen, at once hallowing and adorning the quiet meadow by which Assisi is surrounded. "He wept to think upon her stones, it grieved him to see her in the dust." Vows were uttered, processions formed, jewels, plate, and gold were laid at the feet of the gentle enthusiast; and Mary with her attendant angels rejoiced (so at least it was devoutly believed) over the number and the zeal of the worshippers who once more thronged the courts erected in honor of her name. From that devout company he was not often absent, by whose pious zeal the work had been accomplished. As he knelt before the altar the oracular voice so often heard before again broke in upon the silence of his soul. It cried, 66 Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither bread nor money, neither have two coats apiece." A caviller, in the plight to which Francis was reduced already, might have evaded such an injunction. But Francis was no caviller. The poor fragment left to him of this world's goods, his shoes, his staff, his leathern girdle, and his empty purse, were abandoned; and in his coarse cloak of serge, drawn round him with a common cord, he might defy men and devils to plunge him more deeply in the lack of this world's wealth, or to rekindle in his heart the passion for it. And now were consummated his nuptials with his betrothed spouse. Dante has composed the Epithalamium in the eleventh Canto of the Paradiso: "Not long the period from his glorious birth, For sake of her whom all at death detest, His father, too, he took her for his own: But lest my language be not clearly seen, Know, that in speaking of these lovers twain, distrust of the real sanctity of his fellow-townsman. Bernard therefore brought him to his house, laid himself down to rest in the same chamber, and pretended to sleep while he watched the proceedings of his guest. He saw him rise and kneel, extend his arms, weep tears of rapture, and gaze towards heaven, exclaiming repeatedly, "My God, and my all!" At this sight all doubts were dissipated. "Tell me," said Bernard to his friend, when they met shortly afterwards, "if a slave should receive from his master a treasure which he finds to be useless to him, what ought he to do with it?" "Let him restore it," said Francis, "to his master." "Lo, then," replied Bernard, "I render back to God the earthly goods with which He has enriched me." "We will go together to church," rejoined the spouse of Poverty, Nor did Bossuet himself disdain to emulate this 'and, after hearing mass, we will ascertain his part of the "divine comedy." In the panegyric will." In their way thither they were joined by bestowed on the saint by the great orator, Francis Peter of Catania, who, though a canon of the is introduced thus addressing his bride :cathedral church of Assisi, was another aspirant "Ma chère Pauvreté, si basse que soit ton ex-after the same sublime self-sacrifice. traction selon le jugement des hommes, je t'estime depuis que mon mâitre t'a épousée. Et certes," proceeds the preacher, "il avait raison, Chrétiens! Si un roi épouse une fille de basse extraction, elle devient reine; on en murmure quelque temps, mais enfin on la reconnaît: elle est ennoblie par le mariage du prince." "Oh pauvres! que vous êtes heureux parce qu'à vous appartient le royaume de Dieu. Heureux donc mille et mille fois, le pauvre François; le plus ardent, le plus transporté, et, si j'ose parler de la sorte, le plus désespéré amateur de la pauvreté qui ait peut être été dans l'église." Art contributed her aid to commemorate this solemn union. In one of the churches of Assisi may yet be seen a fresco by Giotto, of Francis and his bride; he placing the nuptial ring on her finger, and she crowned with light and roses, but clothed in sordid apparel, and her feet torn by the sharp stones and briars over which she is passing. As often as the rising sun had in former days lighted up the spires of Assisi, it had summoned the hard-handed many to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows; and the prosperous few to drive bargains, or to give them legal form; to chant masses, or to assist at them; to confess, or to lay up matter for confession; to arrange their toilettes, or to sit in judgment on the dresses and characters of others; to sleep through the sultry noon, and to while away the long soft summer nights with dice, music, scandal, or lovers' vows; till, after some few circuits through the zodiac, the same sun looked down on their children's children sauntering at the same listless pace, along the same flowery road, to the same inevitable bourne. But no sooner had these prolific nuptials been celebrated, than the great mass of human existence at Assisi began to heave with unwonted agitation. In her streets and public walks and churches, might be daily encountered the presence of one, most merciless to himself, most merciful to others. His few, simple, and affectionate words, penetrated those cold and frivolous minds; for they were uttered in the soul-subduing power of a sneer, whose wide horizon embraces the sublime objects visible to the eye of faith, though hidden from the grosser eye of sense. Of the union of Francis and Poverty, Bernard de Quintavalle was the first fruits. He was a man of wealth and distinction, and had cherished some *Wright's Dante. The three knelt together before the altar; and when the mass had been sung, the officiating priest, at their request, made the sign of the cross over the missal, and then devoutly opened it. Once on behalf of each of them were these sortes sanctorum tried. To the first inquiry, the response of the oracle was, " If ye will be perfect, go and sell all that ye have." To the second it answered, Take nothing for your journey." To the third and last was returned the admonition, "He that would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." "Ye have heard, my brethren,' ,"exclaimed Francis, "what must be our rule of life, and the rule of all who shall join us. Let us obey the divine command." It was obeyed implicitly. Bernard and Peter sold all they had, and gave it to the poor; and having stripped themselves of all temporal wealth, as absolutely as their leader, they assumed his austere dress, and avowed themselves his disciples. A great event had happened in an unconscious world. Though but three had thus met together, yet the order of Minorites or Franciscan brethren was constituted. Six centuries have since passed away; and it still flourishes, one of the elements of life, if not of progress, in the great Christian commonwealth. The grain of mustard-seed soon began to germinate. Francis, Bernard, and Peter retired together to a hut in the centre of the plain of Rivo Torto; so called from a serpentine stream which wanders through it. With what authority the founder ruled even these, his first followers, may be inferred from the fact (attested by the usual evidence) that after the death of Peter, such prodigies of healing were wrought at his tomb, as much disturbed the devout retirement of his surviving friends. "Brother Peter, you always obeyed me implicitly when you were alive," at length exclaimed the much perplexed Francis-"I expect from you a similar submission now. The visitors to your tomb annoy us sadly. In the name of holy obedience I command you to work no more miracles." Peter at once dutifully desisted from his posthumous works of mercy. "So obedient," observes M.Chavin de Malan, writing in this nineteenth after death." century, were the family of Francis even 66 At Rivo Torto, Egidius, another rich citizen of Assisi, sought out and joined the new society. Famous for many graces, and for not a few mira |