Contemporary with St. Dominic was his great compeer in ecclesiastical fame, St. Francis, who was to rival, and even exceed, the Spanish monk in celebrity. He was a native of Assisi, a town of Central Italy. The many absurd legends which crowd the pages of his Franciscan biographers need not be referred to; they are really blasphemous. Such was their enthusiastic frenzy, that they impiously maintained that St. Francis was a second christ; that the stigmata, or wounds of the Savior, were miraculously impressed upon his body, in imitation of the crucified body of Jesus; and this imposture they dared to found on the text, "From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." (Gal. 6:1717From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. (Galatians 6:17).)
During a year's captivity in Perugia, and other bodily afflictions, he became the subject of the most extraordinary visions and raptures, by which he was encouraged to go forth into the world as a servant of God, and as a savior of mankind. The feverish dreams of his weak mind were divine revelations to the Catholics.
Francis now began to talk mysteriously about his future bride—that bride was poverty. He exchanged his dress for rags. He was raised up, he said, "to oppose truth to error, poverty to the desire of wealth, and humility to ambition." He begged at the gates of monasteries; he discharged the most menial offices; he devoted himself to the care of lepers; he washed their feet and dressed their wounds. "His mother," we read, "heard and beheld all his strange acts with a tender and prophetic admiration: but his father was ashamed of him, and treated him as a madman." But though
at first he was mocked and pelted in the streets of Assisi, he was believed in by the church, sheltered by the bishop, and soon followed by a crowd of imitators.
Francis was now openly wedded to poverty by an oath never to be broken; and it was to be poverty in its lowest form—beggary. He accepted from an old friend "a hermit's attire, a short tunic, a leathern girdle, a staff, and slippers;" but this was too much fine and comfortable for the ideas of the young fanatic. Making the worst use of the Savior's instructions to His disciples in Matt. 10 and Luke 10, he threw away all he had, excepting a coarse dark gray tunic, which he tied round him with a rope, and set out through the city, calling all to repentance.
Such strange but fervent piety or fanaticism, at that period of dark superstition and ignorance, could not fail to kindle the zeal of others. The essence of the gospel as taught by Jesus Christ, he affirmed, consisted in the most absolute poverty of all things—that there was no safe path to heaven unless by the destitution of all earthly possessions. "Wonder grew into admiration, admiration into emulation, emulation into a blind following of his footsteps. Disciples, one by one, began to gather round him. He retired with them to a lonely spot in the bend of the river, called Rivo Torto. A rule was wanting for the young brotherhood. The Gospels were opened. Francis read three texts. 1. 'If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.' 2. 'Take nothing for your journey.' 3. `If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.' (Matt. 19:2121Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. (Matthew 19:21); Mark 6:88And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: (Mark 6:8); Matt. 16:2424Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Matthew 16:24).) Francis made the sign of the cross, and sent forth his followers into the neighboring cities, to the east and west, the north and south."
Such was the origin, and such the character, of the new orders. Though somewhat different in their first constitution, they were very nearly assimilated in character, and even in profession, and entered upon the same career with almost the same objects in view and the same principles of action. Itinerant preachers under the vow of poverty characterized both. In their identification with the lowest of mankind they were entirely agreed. The enemy saw what the Poor Men of Lyons, or the Waldenses, were doing; and these were to be the poor men of the papacy, who were to meet the heretics on their own ground, and outdo them in poverty, humility, labor, and suffering. Having received the formal sanction and protection of the pope, Francis sent forth his followers, vowed to the service of God, to the extirpation of heretics, to chastity, poverty, and obedience.
The new orders included nuns, or a sisterhood, founded in connection with each of the brotherhoods. There was also a grade connected with the mendicant friars, called Tertiaries, who continued to be engaged in the common occupations of the world, and added greatly to the popularity and influence of the friars. It was an avowed link between the world and the church. A few words as to the habits of the preaching friars, in contrast with the earlier monastic orders, will be the simplest way of giving the reader a clear view of both. And, as we have no doubt, the new orders were permitted of God to uphold the tottering fabric of the Romish church, and to hinder the accomplishment of the Reformation for three hundred years, great interest is connected with their history. But the saints of God had a long education to pass through, and the true church of Christ to be enriched with a noble army of martyrs, before that glorious end was gained.