SONS OF FRANCIS.*

Sons of Francis is a book of singular fascination. And this-.

in spite of grave faults of form. It is cumbrous in method and cumbrous also in its physical bulk. The volume is too large and heavy to be conveniently handled, and the method of presentment tends somewhat to confusion. A clear idea of the history of the Franciscans during the thirteenth century is not to be wrung out of Miss Macdonell's pages by even the most fervent or attentive study. But for those who either do not care to possess the story in all its proper detail of dates and developments—or who have already got their clear idea from other sources—these studies of the several Brothers who either shared in or directly inherited. the enthusiasm of Francis of Assisi are full of the most lively interest and instruction. What Miss Macdonell lacks as methodical historian she makes up for as sympathetic critics of character. She has not only read deeply all the authorities on her subject, but she enters instinctively into the secret of the inspiration of Francis, recognising the positive element in his renunciation of worldly possessions,—the. immediate and con- genial gain of freedom in exchange for bondage, the whole- world of open-air Nature in place of property with limits to. be respected and defended. Francis, she tells us over and over again in a delightful variety of expressive phrases, was no ascetic, though he used asceticism as a means to his ends.

His revolt was not against Nature, nor yet against joy, but against material conventions that stifle the soul and fill life.

with sordid cares :—

" The world showed him heavy. burdens, crushing the able— bodied, the rich, the noble, the powerful. Well, what wonder? They were in prison. They were shut out from everything that was worth having by the consciousness of possessions, of the difficulty of keeping them safe against robbers, or insinuating friends, or designing relatives, by the desire of making theta more."

Renunciation is an instinct of self-preservation with natures_ open to this aspect of things. It is the instinct of "escape" which we find in Jean Jacques Rousseau, in Louis Stevenson,. in vagabonds and runaways and eccentrics of every shade of respectability and disrespectability,—the • determination to save one's own soul at the cost of losing the whole of what the world calls "the world." Natures of this complexion do not renounce joy for pain, riches for poverty, or largeness for • sons of Francis. By Anne Maedonell. With Photogravure Frontispiece. ands Illustrations. London : J. X. Dent and Co. 11?-s• 6d-1

narrowness. But the reverse. They rush to exhilarating joy by the way of pain ; they free their hands of the burdens of a little more or less of material wealth in order to embrace the unlimited wealth of their ideals ; by renouncing all claims upon society they emancipate themselves from all society's claims upon them. Saint or sinner, Christian or infidel, a man with the temperament and the virility of Francis was bound to be some sort of impassioned Bohemian. Being a Christian in faith and a saint in ardour, he fell in love with the ideals of his belief, and divined that the most direct way of realising them was to follow at the same time the impulse of his temperament and the example of his Master. In short, we may say of him—without a thought of detracting from his merits—that he was one of those to whom so much

of Christianity as consists in " loving not the world " came naturally. And it is this side of his character,

and his teaching, and his example that Miss Macdonell keeps constantly before her own and her readers' minds when tracing his influence upon his contemporaries. To her it is • perfectly natural and easily intelligible that the first recruit Francis enlisted for his mendicant brotherhood should have been the sober and substantial citizen Bernard de Quintavalle.

• No one, she remarks, appreciates the saint so well as the man of the world ; which is very true, but only because it is so much truer that nobody is ever so thoroughly weary of the world as the man who is to all outward appearances com- pletely " of it." Miss Macdonell tells the beautiful story of Bernard's hospitality to Francis,—of the night in which host and guest in turn feigned sleep from different motives, but with the result that Bernard saw Francis pass the hours in prayer that transfigured him, and so, being convinced of the leader's sincerity, did not hesitate to throw in his lot with him. Bernard's allegiance was given next morning after

Mass, his goods immediately distributed to the poor, and the life of ridiculous and holy adventure adopted:— "M. Sabatier," says Miss Macdonell, "does not find in Bernard the true Franciscan flavour, seems to think he was too old, too `set' for Francis to form. To me, on the contrary, no other brother shows more strikingly the releasing' spirit of the new movement than this grave and weighty magistrate, quitting deliberately his house, his possessions, his dignities, to find a better fulfilment of himself in serving the humble and the sick, in working with his own hands, in begging his bread and the bread of the needy, not in some distant mission field but within sight of his old neighbours. The brothers lived in huts or in the open air, but not hidden away in contemplation. Every other day they would be taking the hill, pacing the streets of the town amid the stares and the mocking of those who had been wont to do them reverence."

But there was another element of attraction to be taken account of. Not the life only, but the man drew powerfully.

Francis had a genius for friendship as well as for saintship and for vagabondage :—

" The idea of an Order at this time cannot be too far banished from our minds. Bernard chose to be the friend of Francis, and to do as he did. Bernard drew Peter after him, and Giles felt the adventurous flavour of the enterprise and joined on too.

• They were good comrades, and life with Francis, though he made , sin and suffering hourly realities to them, and penitence and dis- cipline were conditions of their existence, was yet buoyant and exhilarating. Their master's fellowship in serving they counted a great gain. They waited no longer on the fickle favour of men."

The friendship of Francis meant an atmosphere of affec- tionate comradeship, of tender and courteous consideration, of brotherly emulation and encouragement in all noble dis- positions and aspirations,—just the atmosphere in which simple and chivalrous souls are at their ease and at their best. Many who would never have found courage to make the

great renunciation independently made it blithely under the magnetic influence of the master. How it touched the various natures of the differently dowered and differently circum- stanced men who joined is what this book tells best in

its series of studies. Miss Macdonell understands all the brothers,—Giles, the seer and ecstatic, called by Francis " a paladin of his round table " ; Rufino of the pure soul, whose natural inclination was to the life of the recluse, and who had to be won by the persuasions and stratagems of Francis to share in the genial fellowship of the "companions " ; Masseo, ' the courtly man of fine presence and ready speech who wooed '• the grace of humility with a sort of ferocity,—vowing the eyes out of his bead if he might get it, refusing to know joy till he bad got it; Leo, the gentle little sheep " of the band ;

William of Lisciano, the Court-poet who met Francis in a church in San Severino, read the " call " in his eyes, and threw up everything to follow him ; Santa Clara, the elect sister of the master ; " Brother Jacoba." the other great lady whose glory it was to be his intimate and dearly loved friend. Miss Macdonell understands also the men who carried on the spirit and the principles of the Order after the death of Francis,— John of Parma, scholar and mystic, who strayed into the Joachimite heresy, but was true to the simplicity of the master's rule ; Elias, who abandoned simplicity, repudiated fellowship, lived sumptuously, organised admirably, and built the Sacro Convento and the Church of San Francesco. Irate Elias has been estimated a traitor to the Franciscan ideal ; Miss Macdonell explains it all. He never was a Franciscan. But in youth he was susceptible, and he came across the Franciscan ideal in the person of Francis, and was caught by its beauty, its romance, its charm, the fascination of a fine soul in harmony with the poetry of Nature and religion and art. Prate Elias had not in him the making of either saint or poet, but he had the artist's appreciation of both, and the great organiser's gift, which is akin to the artist's "Elias was a great man wasted—unless we regard with com- placency his magnificent perversion of a spiritual brotherhood into a great engine for the Church. But it is little satisfaction now to call him the Judas of the Order While he was a

poor ambitious lad the world was open to him Francis smiled

on him, blinded him. He lost his way, and was committed to a life of hardship, lightened for the elect by joys he was tempera- mentally debarred from sharing. Personal attachment, employ- ment of a stimulating kind, responsibility, success, kept him for long from seeing how he had lost his own path."

But when the discovery was made, and the opportunity of re- paying himself for mistaken sacrifice was in his hands, he used it boldly. Yet the spirit of the Minorites was too strong for him. It drove him out into the world, into excommunication. He made his submission, however, before the end, and was buried as a " Son of Francis." Miss Macdonell extenuates nothing in the career of Frate Elias. But she confidently claims forgiveness for him from every traveller who, coming along the high road from Perugia, is " rung up" into the sur- prise of Assisi :-

" At first the bells come from nowhere, then from the sky, then from a half-hidden hillside, till a turn and a gap show him the rose-hued, many-coloured, marvellous invention, the Sacro Convents and the Church of San Francesco. Now, if the traveller have a soul, he blesses somebody as he climbs the path to the town. If he knows his Franciscan history, he blesses Frate Elias."

Of the studies which fill the second half of the volume— would that the book were in two volumes, and that all the papers belonging to the time after the death of Francis were in the second !—one is devoted to Salimbene of Parma, the garrulous chronicler of the Minorites ; another to the Fran- ciscan poet Jacopone; and another to Dante in relation to the Order. There is also an abbreviated translation of " The Holy Commerce of the Blessed Francis with Madonna Poverty."

Miss Macdonell takes the motto of her title-page from Heine—.Ritter von dens heiligen Geist—and it is mainly as knights, champions, athletes, spurring themselves and each other on to doughty deeds and extravagant feats in the spiritual arena, that she endeavours to present the first Minorites. They trained themselves for the conquest of heaven as young men train for a boat-race. " They flew at their vices as at an enemy's citadel between them and the country of their desire." And having discovered that the love of the world is not what hinders pure saintliness so much as the fear of the world and its ridicule, they made it their busi- ness to court ridicule. Hence the absurdities of the Fioretti. A knight of Francis's round table must be always overflowing with joy. And this was impossible until he had conquered false shame. But the absurdities, like the austerities, were only means to an end,—and the end was the love of God and the service of man for God's sake. Miss Macdonell's under- standing of the Franciscan spirit is the more remarkable in that throughout her book one feels her to be with the Fran- ciscans may in spirit. She puts herself at their point of yievi. But her own their point of view is not.