to the
hand of God, for these were to be the daily gift of His giving. So
that when he heard the words of the sacred Gospel read in the little
church of St. Mary of the Angels--"Provide neither gold nor silver nor
brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats,
neither shoes, nor yet staves"--he went out and girt his coarse brown
dress with a piece of cord, and cast away his shoes and went barefoot
thenceforth.

Even to this day the brethren of the great Order of religious men which
he founded are thus clothed, and girt with a cord, and shod with
nakedness. And this Order is the Order of the Lesser Brethren, the
Fratres Minores; and often they are called Franciscans, or the Friars
of St. Francis.

But as to the thought he bestowed on his eating and drinking: once when
he and Brother Masseo sat down on a broad stone near a fresh fountain
to eat the bread which they had begged in the town, St. Francis
rejoiced in their prosperity, saying, "Not only are we filled with
plenty, but our treasure is of God's own providing; for consider this
bread which has come to us like manna, and this noble table of stone
fit for the feasting of kings, and this well of bright water which is
beverage from heaven;" and he besought God to fill their hearts with an
ardent love of the affluence of holy poverty.

[Illustration: _St. Francis of Assisi_]

Even the quiet and blessed peace of the cloister and the hermitage he
denied himself; for he remembered that though the Lord Christ withdrew
into the hills and went into the wilderness to refresh His soul with
prayer and communion with His Heavenly Father, it was among the sons of
men that He had His dwelling all His days. So he, too, the Little
Bedesman, often tasted great happiness among the rocks and trees of
solitary places; and his spirit felt the spell of the lonely hills; and
he loved to pray in the woods, and in their shadow he was consoled by
the visits of Angels, and was lifted bodily from the earth in ecstasies
of joy. But the work which he had set his hands to do was among men,
and in villages and the busy streets of cities.

It was not in the first place to save their own souls and to attain to
holiness that he and his companions abandoned the common way of life.
Long afterwards, when thousands of men had joined his Order of the
Lesser Brethren, he said: "God has gathered us into this holy Order for
the salvation of the world, and between us and the wo