e of most religious observance. He saw the snare that
lies hidden there, for the man who carefully observes all the minutiae of
a religious code risks forgetting the supreme law of love. More than
this, the friar who lays upon himself a certain number of supererogatory
facts gains the admiration of the ignorant, but the pleasure which he
finds in this admiration actually transforms his pious act into sin.
Thus, strangely enough, contrary to other founders of orders, he was
continually easing the strictness of the various rules which he laid
down.[15] We may not take this to be a mere accident, for it was only
after a struggle with his disciples that he made his will prevail; and
it was precisely those who were most disposed to relax their vow of
poverty who were the most anxious to display certain bigoted observances
before the public eye.

"The sinner can fast," Francis would say at such times; "he can pray,
weep, macerate himself, but one thing he cannot do, he cannot be
faithful to God." Noble words, not unworthy to fall from the lips of him
who came to preach a worship in spirit and in truth, without temple or
priest; or rather that every fireside shall be a temple and every
believer a priest.

Religious formalism, in whatever form of worship, always takes on a
forced and morose manner. Pharisees of every age disfigure their faces
that no one may be unaware of their godliness. Francis not merely could
not endure these grimaces of false piety, he actually counted mirth and
joy in the number of religious duties.

How shall one be melancholy who has in the heart an inexhaustible
treasure of life and truth which only increases as one draws upon it?
How be sad when in spite of falls one never ceases to make progress?
The pious soul which grows and develops has a joy like that of the
child, happy in feeling its weak little limbs growing strong and
permitting it every day a further exertion.

The word joy is perhaps that which comes most often to the pen of the
Franciscan authors;[16] the master went so far as to make it one of the
precepts of the Rule.[17] He was too good a general not to know that a
joyous army is always a victorious army. In the history of the early
Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter which ring out high and
clear.[18]

For that matter, we are apt to imagine the Middle Ages as much more
melancholy than they really were. Men suffered much in those days, but
the idea of grief being neve