mly white on the shadows of the moon-lit plain, linking
each with the Franciscan legend and the passion of Franciscan poetry.
The slopes of San Damiano, the sites of Spello, Bevagna, Cannara; Rivo
Torto, the hovering dome of the Portiuncula, the desolate uplands that
lead to the Carceri; one after another, the scenes and images--grotesque
or lovely--simple or profound--of the vast Franciscan story rose into
life under his touch, till they generated in those listening the answer
of the soul of to-day to the soul of the Poverello. Poverty, misery,
and crime--still they haunt the Umbrian villages and the Assisan
streets; the shadows of them, as the north knows them, lay deep and
terrible in Marion Vincent's eyes. But as the poet spoke the eternal
protest and battle-cry of Humanity swelled up against them--overflowed,
engulfed them. The hearts of some of his listeners burned within them.

And finally he brought them back to the famous legend of the hidden
church: deep, deep in the rock--below the two churches that we see
to-day; where St. Francis waits--standing, with his arms raised to
heaven, on fire with an eternal hope, an eternal ecstasy.

"Waits for what?" said Ferrier, under his breath, forgetting his
audience a moment. "The death of Catholicism?"

Sir James Chide gave an uneasy cough. Ferrier, startled, looked round,
threw his old friend a gesture of apology which Sir James mutely
accepted. Then Sir James got up and strolled away, his hands in his
pockets, toward the farther end of the terrace.

The poet meanwhile, ignorant of this little incident, and assuming the
sympathy of his audience, raised his eyebrows, smiling, as he repeated
Ferrier's words:

"The death of Catholicism! No, Signor!--its second birth." And with a
Southern play of hand and feature--the nobility of brow and aspect
turned now on this listener, now on that--he began to describe the
revival of faith in Italy.

"Ten years ago there was not faith enough in this country to make a
heresy! On the one side, a moribund organization, poisoned by a dead
philosophy; on the other, negation, license, weariness--a dumb thirst
for men knew not what. And now!--if St. Francis were here--in every
olive garden--in each hill town--on the roads and the by-ways--on the
mountains--in the plains--his heart would greet the swelling of a new
tide drawing inward to this land--the breath of a new spring kindling
the buds of life. He would hear preached again, in the