and
humility."

Hearing this, the brethren began to be agitated. St. Francis
said to them: "Have no fear, for very soon many nobles and
learned men will come to you; they will be with you preaching to
kings and princes and to a multitude of peoples. Many will be
converted to the Lord, all over the world, who will multiply and
increase his family."

After he had thus spoken he blessed them, saying to each one the word
which was in the future to be his supreme consolation:

"My brother, commit yourself to God with all your cares, and he
will care for you."

Then the men of God departed, faithfully observing his
instructions, and when they found a church or a cross they bowed
in adoration, saying with devotion, "We adore thee, O Christ,
and we bless thee here and in all churches in the whole world,
for by thy holy cross thou hast ransomed the world." In fact
they believed that they had found a holy place wherever they
found a church or a cross.

Some listened willingly, others scoffed, the greater number
overwhelmed them with questions. "Whence come you?" "Of what
order are you?" And they, though sometimes it was wearisome to
answer, said simply, "We are penitents, natives of the city of
Assisi."[16]

This freshness and poetry will not be found in the later missions. Here
the river is still itself, and if it knows toward what sea it is
hastening, it knows nothing of the streams, more or less turbid, which
shall disturb its limpidity, nor the dykes and the straightenings to
which it will have to submit.

A long account by the Three Companions gives us a picture from life of
these first essays at preaching:

Many men took the friars for knaves or madmen and refused to
receive them into their houses for fear of being robbed. So in
many places, after having undergone all sorts of bad usage, they
could find no other refuge for the night than the porticos of
churches or houses. There were at that time two brethren who
went to Florence. They begged all through the city but could
find no shelter. Coming to a house which had a portico and under
the portico a bench, they said to one another, "We shall be very
comfortable here for the night." As the mistress of the house
refused to let them enter, they humbly asked her permission to
sleep upon the bench.

She was about to grant them permiss