st time, to be
interpreted into artistic expression.

The tomb of St. Francis is in the crypt of the church. The stone
sarcophagus containing his body was discovered in 1818, and then placed
here in a little chamber especially prepared, surrounded by an iron
latticework with candles perpetually burning.

From the sacristy of the lower church, stairs ascend to the upper, with
its beautiful nave and transept with a high altar, and the choir stalls.
While the lower church with its great arches is always dark, the upper
is flooded with light from vast windows. There is a series of frescoed
panels on either side, accredited to pupils of Giotto, full of forcible
action and a glow of color. But the upper church, while it is
magnificent, lacks somewhat of that mystic atmosphere one is so swiftly
conscious of in the gloom and mystery of the lower church.

Stretching behind the churches, along the crest of the high hill, is the
colossal monastery itself, with that double row of arches and colonnades
that makes it so conspicuous a feature of all the Umbrian valley.
Formerly hundreds of monks dwelt here; but the Italian government
suppressed this monastery in 1866, and since that time it has been used
as a school for boys.

The ancient Duomo, whose facade is of the twelfth century, has three
exquisite rose windows, and on either side, as one approaches the high
altar, stand the statues of St. Francis and of Santa Chiara. In the
little piazza in front of the church is a bronze copy of Dupre's famous
statue of St. Francis.

The colossal church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its magnificent
dome, is a contrast, indeed, to the primitive little Portiuncula where
Francis knelt in prayer, and which is now preserved in the centre of
this vast cathedral,--the rude structure encased in marble, and
decorated, above the entrance, with a picture by Overbeck, whose motive
is St. Francis as he stands, hushed and reverent, listening to the voice
that tells him to embrace poverty. There is a fine Perugino in the
church, representing the Saviour. The cell in which St. Francis died,
enclosed in the little chapel which St. Bonaventura built over it, is
preserved in this great cathedral.

"And who was he that opened that door in heaven?" questions Canon Knox
Little in reference to St. Francis. "Who was he that gave that fresh
life and thought? Who but the man who had brought down in his own person
the living Christ into his century, who had t