St. Francis of Assisi. By Johannes Jorgenson. Translated by T.
O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. (Longinans and Co. 12s. 6d. net.)— It might bo enough to say of St. Francis that he died at the ago of forty-three and loft the Franciscan Order to the world. When we come to ask what manner of man ho was we are not a little perplexed. As Herr Jorgensen puts it, " to write about St. Francis of Assisi should have been his own affair." His biography cer- tainly leaves us somewhat perplexed. We ask now and again, Could he have done this or said that ? Even his latest biographer, who is anything but critical, finds some of his utterances difficult. When the saint defines holy obedience as that which "makes a man subject to all men here in this world, and not only to all men, but also to all tame and wild beasts, so that they can do with him what they will," ho finds in this conception of the virtue some- thing "almost Buddhistic." This is all the more strange because the saint was in many respects eminently practical—we might almost call him an early pragmatist. He was quite at one with his eminent colleague Brother Giles, who thus praised the "sister (love" : "Thou sayest always; Qua, Qua, not La, La ; here, here on earth and not there, there in heaven are we to serve God." Then, again, the saint was overwhelmed with his own success. He did not know how to deal with the crowds that came to him for help. "It was with him as with the Apostles when the not brake, and his work developed in ways that did not approve themselves to him." The Franciscans followed in the way of the Dominicans, and became a learned Order. Herr Jorgensen has followed out all the details of the saint's life and work with admirable industry. It may be as well to read M. Paul Sabatier's book along with this ; once and again it will be found a useful corrective, but that we have a contribu- tion of the acutest merit to the literature of the subject there can be no doubt. We observe, a remarkable utterance on the sub- ject of Indulgences. What do they really mean ? Here is the saint's idea. (He was asking from the Popo [Honorius II.] an Indulgence for his church at Portiuncula.) " I desire that every one, who with penitence for his sins, comes into this church and confesses his sins, and is absolved by the priest, shall be free from all guilt and punishment for the sins of his life from the day of his baptism to the day when he entered the said church." " Punishment " can be reconciled with the theory that Indulgence means remission of ecclesiastical pains and penalties, but how about " guilt "?
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