them, as our Rule ordains, more by our
example than by our speech."[12]

The question whether Francis was right or wrong in his antipathy to the
privileges of the curia does not come within the domain of history; it
is evident that this attitude could not long continue; the Church knows
only the faithful and rebels. But the noblest hearts often make a stand
at compromises of this kind; they desire that the future should grow out
of the past without convulsion and without a crisis.

The chapter of 1217 was notable for the definitive organization of the
Franciscan missions. Italy and the other countries were divided off into
a certain number of _provinces_, having each its provincial minister.
Immediately upon his accession Honorius III. had sought to revive the
popular zeal for the crusades. He had not stopped at preaching it, but
appealed to prophecies which had proclaimed that under his pontificate
the Holy Land would be reconquered.[13] The renewal of fervor which
ensued, and of which the rebound was felt as far as Germany, had a
profound influence on the Brothers Minor. This time Francis, perhaps
from humility, did not put himself at the head of the friars charged
with a mission to Syria; for leader he gave them the famous Elias,
formerly at Florence, where he had had opportunity to show his high
qualities.[14]

This Brother, who from this time appears in the foreground of this
history, came from the most humble ranks of society; the date and the
circumstances of his entrance into the Order are unknown, and hence
conjecture has come to see in him that friend of the grotto who had been
Francis's confidant shortly before his decisive conversion. However this
may be, in his youth he had earned his living in Assisi, making
mattresses and teaching a few children to read; then he had spent some
time in Bologna as _scriptor_; then suddenly we find him among the
Brothers Minor, charged with the most difficult missions.

His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that he was the finest
mind of his century, but unhappily it is very difficult, in the existing
state of the documents, to pronounce as to his actions; learned and
energetic, eager to play the leading part in the work of the
reformation of religion, and having made his plan beforehand as to the
proper mode of realizing it, he made straight for his goal, half
political, half religious. Full of admiration for Francis and gratitude
toward him, he desired