r to uphold faith, and that by them the mystery of thy
gospel may be accomplished. Who will take their place if,
instead of fulfilling their mission and being shining examples
for all, they are seen to give themselves up to works of
darkness? Oh! may they be accursed by thee, Lord, and by all the
court of heaven, and by me, thine unworthy servant, they who by
their bad example overturn and destroy all that thou didst do in
the beginning and ceasest not to do by the holy Brothers of this
Order."[10]

This passage from Thomas of Celano, the most moderate of the
biographers, shows to what a pitch of vehemence and indignation the
gentle Francis could be worked up.

In spite of very natural efforts to throw a veil of reserve over the
anguish of the founder with regard to the future of his spiritual
family, we find traces of it at every step. "The time will come," he
said one day, "when our Order will so have lost all good renown that its
members will be ashamed to show themselves by daylight."[11]

He saw in a dream a statue with the head of pure gold, the breast and
arms of silver, the body of crystal, and the legs of iron. He thought it
was an omen of the future in store for his institute.[12]

He believed his sons to be attacked with two maladies, unfaithful at
once to poverty and humility; but perhaps he dreaded for them the demon
of learning more than the temptation of riches.

What were his views on the subject of learning? It is probable that he
never examined the question as a whole, but he had no difficulty in
seeing that there will always be students enough in the universities,
and that if scientific effort is an homage offered to God, there is no
risk of worshippers of this class being wanting; but in vain he looked
about him on all sides, he saw no one to fulfil the mission of love and
humility reserved for his Order, if the friars came to be unfaithful to
it.

Therefore there was something more in his anguish than the grief of
seeing his hopes confounded. The rout of an army is nothing in
comparison with the overthrow of an idea; and in him an idea had been
incarnated, the idea of peace and happiness restored to mankind, by the
victory of love over the trammels of material things.

By an ineffable mystery he felt himself the Man of his age, him in whose
body are borne all the efforts, the desires, the aspirations of men;
with him, in him, by him humanity yearns to be renew