The enemy of the
soul for him as for Jesus was avarice, understood in its largest
sense--that is to say, that blindness which constrains men to consecrate
their hearts to material preoccupations, makes them the slave of a few
pieces of gold or a few acres of land, renders them insensible to the
beauties of nature, and deprives them of infinite joys which they alone
can know who are the disciples of poverty and love.

Whoever was free at heart from all material servitude, whoever was
decided to live without hoarding, every rich man who was willing to
labor with his hands and loyally distribute all that he did not consume
in order to constitute the common fund which St. Francis called _the
Lord's table_, every poor man who was willing to work, free to resort,
in the strict measure of his wants, to this table of the Lord, these
were at that time true Franciscans.

It was a social revolution.

There was then at that time neither one Order nor several.[13] The
gospel of the Beatitudes had been found again, and, as twelve centuries
before, it could accommodate itself to all situations.

Alas! the Church, personified by Cardinal Ugolini, was about, if not to
cause the Franciscan movement to miscarry, at least so well to hedge
about it that a few years later it would have lost nearly its whole
original character.

As has been seen, the word poverty expresses only very imperfectly St.
Francis's point of view, since it contains an idea of renunciation, of
_abstinence_, while in thought the vow of poverty is a vow of liberty.
Property is the cage with gilded wires, to which the poor larks are
sometimes so thoroughly accustomed that they no longer even think of
getting away in order to soar up into the blue.[14]

From the beginning St. Damian was the extreme opposite to what a convent
of Clarisses of the strict observance is now; it is still to-day very
much as Francis saw it. We owe thanks to the Brothers Minor for having
preserved intact this venerable and charming hermitage, and not spoiling
it with stupid embellishments. This little corner of Umbrian earth will
be for our descendants like Jacob's well whereon Christ sat himself down
for an instant, one of the favorite courts of the worship in spirit and
in truth.

In installing Clara there Francis put into her hands the Rule which he
had prepared for her,[15] which no doubt resembled that of the Brothers
save for the precepts with regard to the missionary life. He acco