fast to the miracles
in the lives of the saints, not only because he accepts the evidence,
but because he believes these wonderful stories "add great resplendency
to the merits of the saints, and, consequently, give great weight to the
example they afford us."

It is altogether probable that each one will continue to view the whole
affair as his predispositions and religious convictions direct; some
unconvinced by traditionary evidence and undismayed by charges of
heresy; others devoutly accepting every monkish miracle and marveling at
the obstinacy of unbelief.

Two years after the event just described Francis was carried on a cot
outside the walls of Assisi, where, lifting his hands he blessed his
native city. Some few days later, on October 4, 1226, he passed away,
exclaiming, "Welcome, Sister Death!"

Whatever we may think of the legends that cluster about his life,
Francis himself must not be held responsible for all that has been
written about him. He himself was no phantom or mythical being, but a
real, earnest man who, according to his light, tried to serve his
generation. As he himself said: "A man is just so much and no more as he
is in the sight of God." "Francis appears to me," says Forsyth, "a
genuine, original hero, independent, magnanimous, incorruptible. His
powers seemed designed to regenerate society; but taking a wrong
direction, they sank men into beggars." Through the mist of tradition
the holy beggar and saintly hero shines forth as a loving, gentle soul,
unkind to none but himself. However his biography may be regarded, his
life illustrates the beauty and power of voluntary renunciation,--the
fountain not only of religion but of all true nobility of character. He
may have been ignorant, perhaps grossly so, as Mosheim thinks, but
nevertheless he merits our highest praise for striving honestly to keep
his vow of poverty in the days when worldly monks disgraced their sacred
profession by greed, ambition, and lustful indulgence.

_The Franciscan Orders_

The orders which Francis founded were of three classes:

1. Franciscan Friars or Order of Friars Minor, called also Gray or
Begging Friars. The year in which Francis took the habit, 1208, is
reckoned the first year of the order, but the Rule was not given
until 1210.

This Rule, which has not been preserved, was very simple, and doubtless
consisted of a group of gospel passages, bearing on the vow of poverty,
together with a few prece