andsome
face, beautiful courteous manners, and full pockets the centre of it.
He had seen life outside Assisi, for he had fought for his country and
suffered imprisonment. He had travelled a little, was fairly well
educated, and what was rare in those days spoke and sang in the French
language. Of God he seems to have had no knowledge whatever. His
kindly, polite nature led him to much almsgiving, but that was merely
the outcome of a disposition which hated to see suffering.

Francis' lack of religion is not much to be wondered at when we look
at the state of the church in his time. Christianity had become old,
its first freshness had worn off, and its primitive teaching had
fallen into decay. A Christian's life was an easy one, and the service
rendered was more of church-going and almsgiving, than purity of heart
and life. In many instances those who filled the office of teacher and
preacher were corrupt, and lived only for themselves, and the whole
tendency of the times was to the most extreme laxity.

When almost twenty-five years old, Francis had a very severe illness.
For weeks he lay at death's door, and for weeks after all danger was
passed, he was confined to the house too weak to move. As his weary
convalescence dragged itself along, one absorbing desire filled his
mind. If only he could get out of doors, and stand once again in the
sunshine, and feast his eyes on the landscape below him! Francis, like
all Italians, was a passionate lover of his native country, and at
last, one day, he wearily and painfully crawled out.

[Sidenote: _Things that Perish._]

But what was the matter? The sunshine was there. It flooded the
country. The breeze that was to bring him new life and vigor played
among his chestnut curls. The mountains towered in their noble
grandeur. The wide Umbrian plain lay stretched out at his feet. The
skies were as blue, and the flowers as gay and sweet, as ever his
fancy painted them. But the young man turned away with a sickening
sense of disappointment and failure.

"Things that perish," he said mournfully to himself, and thought
bitterly of his past life with its gaiety and frivolity. It, too, was
among the "things that perish." Life was a dreary emptiness.

It was the old, old story. "Thou hast made us for Thyself, oh God, and
the heart is restless till it finds its rest in Thee." That tide which
flows at least once in the life of every human being was surging round
Francis. Happy they w