lesser standard of ultimate achievement than is
involved in the divine command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father in heaven is perfect." This is the soul's ideal, whatever ages
and eternities it may require for it to recognize this trackless path.

St. Francis recognized joy as a factor of the nobler life. "It was his
constant effort," writes one biographer, "that there should be bright
looks and cheerful tones about him. To one of his brethren, who had the
habit of walking about sadly with his head drooping, he said,--it is
evident, with a spark of the impatience natural to his own vivacious
spirit,--'You may surely repent of your sins, my brother, without
showing your grief so openly. Let your sorrow be between God and you:
pray to Him to pardon you by His mercy, and to restore to your soul the
joy of His salvation. But before me and the others be always cheerful,
for it does not become a servant of God to have an air of melancholy and
a face full of trouble.'"

An incident in the early life of St. Francis, which had determining
significance, was his meeting with Dominic. The story is told "that
Dominic, praying in a church in Rome, saw, in a vision, our Lord rise
from the right hand of the Father in wrath, wearied at last with the
contradiction of sinners, with a terrible aspect and three lances in his
hand, each one of which was to destroy from the face of the earth a
distinct class of offenders. But while the dreamer gazed at this awful
spectacle, the Virgin Mother arose and pleaded for the world, declaring
that she had two faithful servants whom she was about to send into it to
bring sinners to the feet of the Saviour; one of these was Dominic
himself, the other was a poor man, meanly clad, whom he had never seen
before. This vision came to the devout Spaniard, according to the
legend, during the night, which he spent, as he was wont, in a church,
in prayer. Next morning, while he mused on the dream which had been sent
to him, his eye fell all at once upon a stranger in a brown tunic, of
aspect as humble and modest as his garb, coming into the same church to
pray. Dominic at once ran to him, fell on his neck, and, saluting him
with a kiss, cried, 'Thou art my companion: thy work and mine is the
same. If we stand by each other, nothing can prevail against us.'"

No magic mirror, however, revealed to Francis the wonderful panorama of
his future. No sibyl turned the leaves of the records yet to unfold.