sacred gleam of human fellowship,--love purified of all
self-seeking,--tender, visionary, celestial affection, sweetened
their solitary lives."

Legends innumerable, attesting supernormal manifestations regarding
Francis, sprang up and have been perpetuated through the ages. One is as
follows:--

"Hardly more than three years from the moment when the pale
penitent was hooted through Assisi amid the derisive shouts of the
people, and driven with blows and curses into confinement in his
own father's house, we find that it has already become his custom
on Sunday to preach in the cathedral; and that, from his little
convent at the Portiuncula, Francis has risen into influence in the
whole country, which no doubt by this time was full of stories of
his visit to Rome and intercourse with the Pope, and all the
miraculous dreams and parables with which that intercourse was
attended. Already the mind of the people, so slow to adopt, but so
ready to become habituated to, anything novel, had used itself to
the sight of the brethren in their brown gowns, and, leaping from
one extreme to the other, instead of madmen, learned to consider
them saints. The air about the little cloister began to breathe of
miracles,--miracles which must have been a matter of common report
among the contemporaries of the saint, for Celano wrote within
three years of Francis's death. Once, when their leader was absent,
a sudden wonder startled the brethren. It was midnight between
Saturday and Sunday, and Francis, who had gone to preach at Assisi,
was at the moment praying in the canon's garden. A chariot of fire,
all radiant and shining, suddenly entered the house, awaking those
who lay asleep, and moving to wonder and awe those who watched, or
labored, or prayed. It was the heart and thoughts of their leader
returning to them in the midst of his prayer, which were figured by
this appearance."

When Francis died a pathetic scene is thus described:--

"All the clergy of Assisi, chanting solemn hymns, came out to meet
the bier, and thus they climbed the hill to the birthplace of the
saint, the city of his toils and tears and blessing. When they came
to St. Damian an affecting pause was made. Clara within, with all
her maidens, waited the last visit of their father and friend.
Slowly the tri