FOOTNOTES:
[9] June 30. 1315.
[10] Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.
CHAPTER IV
FRANCIS CŒUR-DE-LION
(St. Francis of Assisi)
A.D. 1181-1226
(Date of Incident, 1219)
I
The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars that seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively group of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up the steep street of the little city of Assisi.
As they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of their country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in French.
"That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would say to another, nodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native Italian, but also in French.
"He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a cloth merchant,—rich though the merchant be."
So the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling about Francis, the wild spendthrift. For young Francis dressed in silk and always in the latest fashion; he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand. He loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He would ride a long way round to avoid seeing the dreadful face of a poor leper, and would hold his nose in his cloak as he passed the place where the lepers lived.
He was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight and finely shaped.
When he laughed he showed even, white, closely set teeth between thin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, black beard. His arms were shortish; his fingers long and sensitive. He was lightly built; his skin was delicate.
He was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful and sonorous, yet sweet-toned and very clear.
For him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the gossips of Assisi all wrong—as though a grey goose had hatched out a gorgeous peacock.
The song of the revellers passed down the street and died away. The little city of Assisi slept in quietness on the slopes of the Apennine Mountains under the dark clear sky.
A few nights later, however, no song of any revellers was heard. Francis Bernardone was very ill with a fever. For week after week his mother nursed him; and each night hardly believed that her son would live to see the light of the next morning. When at last the fever left him, he was so feeble that for weeks he could not rise from his bed. Gradually, however, he got better: as he did so the thing that he desired most of all in the world was to see the lovely country around Assisi;—the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, the blue skies, the dainty flowers.
At last one day, with aching limbs and in great feebleness, he crept out of doors. There were the great Apennine Mountains on the side of which his city of Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks pointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep street with the houses built of stone of a strange, delicate pink colour, as though the light of dawn were always on them. There were the dark green olive trees, and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian flowers were blooming.
Stretching away in the distance was one of the most beautiful landscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian Plain with its browns and greens melting in the distance into a bluish haze that softened the lines of the distant hills.
How he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being in the sunshine, to feeling the breeze on his hot brow! But what—he wondered—had happened to him? He looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all seemed dead and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors again, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that he would never feel again "the wild joys of living."
As Francis went back to his bed he began to think what he should do with the rest of his life. He made up his mind not to waste it any longer: but he did not see clearly what he should do with it.
A short time after Francis begged a young nobleman of Assisi, who was just starting to fight in a war, if he might go with him. The nobleman—Walter of Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid trappings for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His armour and his horse's harness were more splendid than even those of Walter. So they went clattering together out of Assisi.
But he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten again by fever. After sunset one evening he lay dreamily on his bed when he seemed to hear a voice.
"Francis," it asked, "what could benefit thee most, the master or the servant, the rich man or the poor?"
"The master and the rich man," answered Francis in surprise.
"Why then," went on the voice, "dost thou leave God, Who is the Master and rich, for man, who is the servant and poor?"
"Then, Lord, what will Thou that I do?" asked Francis.
"Return to thy native town, and it shall be shown thee there what thou shall do," said the voice.
He obediently rose and went back to Assisi. He tried to join again in the old revels, but the joy was gone. He went quietly away to a cave on the mountain side and there he lay—as young Mahomet had done, you remember, five centuries before, to wonder what he was to do.
Then a vision came to him. All at once like a flash his mind was clear, and his soul was full of joy. He saw the love of Jesus Christ—Who had lived and suffered and died for love of him and of all men;—that love was to rule his own life! He had found his Captain—the Master of his life, the Lord of his service,—Christ.
Yet even now he hardly knew what to do. He went home and told his friends as well as he could of the change in his heart.
Some smiled rather pityingly and went away saying to one another: "Poor fellow; a little mad, you can see; very sad for his parents!"
Others simply laughed and mocked.
One day, very lonely and sad at heart, he clambered up the mountain side to an old church just falling into ruin near which, in a cavern, lived a priest. He went into the ruin and fell on his knees.
"Francis," a voice in his soul seemed to say, "dost thou see my house going to ruin. Buckle to and repair it."
He dashed home, saddled his horse, loaded it with rich garments and rode off to another town to sell the goods. He sold the horse too; trudged back up the hill and gave the fat purse to the priest.
"No," said the priest, "I dare not take it unless your father says I may."
But his father, who had got rumour of what was going on, came with a band of friends to drag Francis home. Francis fled through the woods to a secret cave, where he lay hidden till at last he made up his mind to face all. He came out and walked straight towards home. Soon the townsmen of Assisi caught sight of him.
"A madman," they yelled, throwing stones and sticks at him. All the boys of Assisi came out and hooted and threw pebbles.
His father heard the riot and rushed out to join in the fun. Imagine his horror when he found that it was his own son. He yelled with rage, dashed at him and, clutching him by the robe, dragged him along, beating and cursing him. When he got him home he locked him up. But some days later Francis' mother let him out, when his father was absent; and Francis climbed the hill to the Church.
The bishop called in Francis and his father to his court to settle the quarrel.
"You must give back to your father all that you have," said he.
"I will," replied Francis.
He took off all his rich garments; and, clad only in a hair-vest, he put the clothes and the purse of money at his father's feet.
"Now," he cried, "I have but one father. Henceforth I can say in all truth 'Our Father Who art in heaven.'"
A peasant's cloak was given to Francis. He went thus, without home or any money, a wanderer. He went to a monastery and slaved in the kitchen. A friend gave him a tunic, some shoes, and a stick. He went out wandering in Italy again. He loved everybody; he owned nothing; he wanted everyone to know the love of Jesus as he knew and enjoyed that love.
There came to Francis many adventures. He was full of joy; he sang even to the birds in the woods. Many men joined him as his disciples in the way of obedience, of poverty, and of love. Men in Italy, in Spain, in Germany and in Britain caught fire from the flame of his simple love and careless courage. Never had Europe seen so clear a vision of the love of Jesus. His followers were called the Lesser Brothers (Friars Minor).
All who can should read the story of Francis' life: as for us we are here going simply to listen to what happened to him on a strange and perilous adventure.
II
About this time people all over Europe were agog with excitement about the Crusades. Four Crusades had come and gone. Richard Cœur-de-Lion was dead. But the passion for fighting against the Saracen was still in the hearts of men.
"The tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem is in the hands of the Saracen," the cry went up over all Europe. "Followers of Jesus Christ are slain by the scimitars of Islam. Let us go and wrest the Holy City from the hands of the Saracen."
There was also the danger to Europe itself. The Mohammedans ruled in Spain as well as in North Africa, in Egypt and in the Holy Land.
So rich men sold their lands to buy horses and armour and to fit themselves and their foot soldiers for the fray. Poor men came armed with pike and helmet and leather jerkin. The knights wore a blood-red cross on their white tunics. In thousands upon thousands, with John of Brienne as their Commander-in-Chief (the brother of that Walter of Brienne with whom, you remember, Francis had started for the wars as a knight), they sailed the Mediterranean to fight for the Cross in Egypt.
They attacked Egypt because the Sultan there ruled over Jerusalem and they hoped by defeating him to free Jerusalem at the same time.
As Francis saw the knights going off to the Crusades in shining armour with the trappings of their horses all a-glitter and a-jingle, and as he thought of the lands where the people worshipped—not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—but the "Sultan in the Sky," the Allah of Mahomet, his spirit caught fire within him.
Francis had been a soldier and a knight only a few years before. He could not but feel the stir of the Holy War in his veins,—the tingle of the desire to be in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the Crusaders; he heard of a great victory over the Saracens.
Francis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men more than he wanted anything on earth; but he knew that men are only conquered by Jesus Christ if their hearts are changed by Him.
"Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, still they are not saved," he said to himself.
As he thought these things he felt sure that he heard them calling to him (as the Man from Macedonia had called to St. Paul)—"Come over and help us." St. Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe; and had suffered prison and scourging and at last death by the executioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis be ready to take the same message back again from Europe to the Near East and to suffer for it?
"I will go," he said, "but to save the Saracens, not to slay them."
He was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart a plan that needed him to be braver and more full of resource than any warrior in the armies of the Crusades. He was as much a Lion-hearted hero as Richard Cœur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed more powerful.
So he took a close friend, Brother Illuminato, with him and they sailed away together over the seas. They sailed from Italy with Walter of Brienne, with one of the Crusading contingents in many ships. Southeast they voyaged over the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Francis talked with the Crusaders on board; and much that they said and did made him very sad. They squabbled with one another. The knights were arrogant and sneered at the foot soldiers; the men-at-arms did not trust the knights. They had the Cross on their armour; but few of them had in their hearts the spirit of Jesus who was nailed to the Cross.
At last the long, yellow coast-line of Egypt was sighted. Behind it lay the minarets and white roofs of a city. They were come to the eastern mouth of the Nile, on which stood the proud city of Damietta. The hot rays of the sun smote down upon the army of the Crusaders as they landed. The sky and the sea were of an intense blue; the sand and the sun glared at one another.
Francis would just be able to hear at dawn the cry of the muezzin from the minarets of Damietta, "Come to prayer: there is no God but Allah and Mahomet is his prophet. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep."
John of Brienne began to muster his men in battle array to attack the Sultan of Egypt, Malek-Kamel, a name which means "the Perfect Prince."
Francis, however, was quite certain that the attempt would be a ghastly failure. He hardly knew what to do. So he talked it over with his friend, Brother Illuminato.
"I know they will be defeated in this attempt," he said. "But if I tell them so they will treat me as a madman. On the other hand, if I do not tell them, then my conscience will condemn me. What do you think I ought to do?"
"My brother," said Illuminate, "what does the judgment of the world matter to you? If they say you are mad it will not be the first time!"
Francis, therefore, went to the Crusaders and warned them. They laughed scornfully. The order for advance was given. The Crusaders charged into battle. Francis was in anguish—tears filled his eyes. The Saracens came out and fell upon the Christian soldiers and slaughtered them. Over 6000 of them either fell under the scimitar or were taken prisoner. The Crusaders were defeated.
Francis' mind was now fully made up. He went to a Cardinal, who represented the Pope, with the Crusading Army to ask his leave to go and preach to the Sultan of Egypt.
"No," said the Cardinal, "I cannot give you leave to go. I know full well that you would never escape to come back alive. The Sultan of Egypt has offered a reward of gold to any man who will bring to him the head of a Christian. That will be your fate."
"Do suffer us to go, we do not fear death," pleaded Francis and Illuminato, again and again.
"I do not know what is in your minds in this," said the Cardinal, "but beware—if you go—that your thoughts are always to God."
"We only wish to go for great good, if we can work it," replied Francis.
"Then if you wish it so much," the Cardinal at last agreed, "you may go."
So Francis and Illuminato girded their loins and tightened their sandals and set away from the Crusading Army towards the very camp of the enemy.
As he walked Francis sang with his full, loud, clear voice. These were the words that he sang:
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
As they walked along over the sandy waste they saw two small sheep nibbling the sparse grass growing near the Nile.
"Be of good cheer," said Francis to Illuminato, smiling, "it is the fulfilling of the Gospel words 'Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.'"
Then there appeared some Saracen soldiers. They were, at first, for letting the two unarmed men go by; but, on questioning Francis, they grew angrier and angrier.
"Are you deserters from the Christian camp?" they asked.
"No," replied Francis.
"Are you envoys from the commander come to plead for peace?"
"No," was the answer again.
"Will you give up the infidel religion and become a true believer and say 'There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet?'"
"No, no," cried Francis, "we are come to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Sultan of Egypt."
The eyes of the Saracen soldiers opened with amazement: they could hardly believe their ears. Their faces flushed under their dark skins with anger.
"Chain them," they cried to one another. "Beat them—the infidels."
Chains were brought and snapped upon the wrists and ankles of Francis and Illuminato. Then they took rods and began to beat the two men—just as Paul and Silas had been beaten eleven centuries earlier.
As the rods whistled through the air and came slashing upon their wounded backs Francis kept crying out one word—"Soldan—Soldan." That is "Sultan—Sultan."
He thus made them understand that he wished to be taken to their Commander-in-Chief. So they decided to take these strange beings to Malek-Kamel.
As the Sultan sat in his pavilion Francis and Illuminato were led in. They bowed and saluted him courteously and Malek-Kamel returned the salute.
"Have you come with a message from your Commander?" said the Sultan.
"No," replied Francis.
"You wish then to become Saracens—worshippers of Allah in the name of Mahomet?"
"Nay, nay," answered Francis, "Saracens we will never be. We have come with a message from God; it is a message that will save your life. If you die under the law of Mahomet you are lost. We have come to tell you so: if you listen to us we will show all this to you."
The Sultan seems to have been amused and interested rather than angry.
"I have bishops and archbishops of my own," he said, "they can tell me all that I wish to know."
"Of this we are glad," replied Francis, "send and fetch them, if you will."
The Sultan agreed; he sent for eight of his Moslem great men. When they came in he said to them: "See these men, they have come to teach us a new faith. Shall we listen to them?"
"Sire," they answered him at once, "thou knowest the law: thou art bound to uphold it and carry it out. By Mahomet who gave us the law to slay infidels, we command thee that their heads be cut off. We will not listen to a word that they say. Off with their heads!"
The great men, having given their judgment, solemnly left the presence of the Sultan. The Sultan turned to Francis and Illuminato.
"Masters," he said to them, "they have commanded me by Mahomet to have your heads cut off. But I will go against the law, for you have risked your lives to save my immortal soul. Now leave me for the time."
The two Christian missionaries were led away; but in a day or two Malek-Kamel called them to his presence again.
"If you will stay in my dominions," he said, "I will give you land and other possessions."
"Yes," said Francis, "I will stay—on one condition—that you and your people turn to the worship of the true God. See," he went on, "let us put it to the test. Your priests here," and he pointed to some who were standing about, "they will not let me talk with them; will they do something. Have a great fire lighted. I will walk into the fire with them: the result will shew you whose faith is the true one."
As Francis suggested this idea the faces of the Moslem leaders were transfigured with horror. They turned and quietly walked away.
"I do not think," said the Sultan with a sarcastic smile at their retreating backs, "that any of my priests are ready to face the flames to defend their faith."
"Well, I will go alone into the fire," said Francis. "If I am burned—it is because of my sins—if I am protected by God then you will own Him as your God."
"No," replied the Sultan, "I will not listen to the idea of such a trial of your life for my soul." But he was astonished beyond measure at the amazing faith of Francis. So Francis withdrew from the presence of the Sultan, who at once sent after him rich and costly presents.
"You must take them back," said Francis to the messengers; "I will not take them."
"Take them to build your churches and support your priests," said the Sultan through his messengers.
But Francis would not take any gift from the Sultan. He left him and went back with Illuminato from the Saracen host to the camp of the Crusaders. As he was leaving the Sultan secretly spoke with Francis and said: "Will you pray for me that I may be guided by an inspiration from above that I may join myself to the religion that is most approved by God?"
The Sultan told off a band of his soldiers to go with the two men and to protect them from any molesting till they reached the Crusaders' Camp. There is a legend—though no one now can tell whether it is true or not—that when the Sultan of Egypt lay dying he sent for a disciple of Francis to be with him and pray for him. Whether this was so or not, it is quite clear that Francis had left in the memory of the Sultan such a vision of dauntless faith as he had never seen before or was ever to see again.
The Crusaders failed to win Egypt or the Holy Land; but to-day men are going from America and Britain in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi the Christian missionary, to carry to the people in Egypt, in the Holy Land and in all the Near East, the message that Francis took of the love of Jesus Christ. The stories of some of the deeds they have done and are to-day doing, we shall read in later chapters in this book.
Book Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS
CHAPTER V
THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP
The Duff
(Date of Incident, 1796)
A ship crept quietly down the River Thames on an ebb-tide. She was slipping out from the river into the estuary when suddenly a challenge rang out across the grey water.
"What ship is that?"
"The Duff," was the answer that came back from the little ship whose captain had passed through a hundred hairsbreadth escapes in his life but was now starting on the strangest adventure of them all.
"Whither bound?" came the challenge again from the man-o'-war that had hailed them.
"Otaheite," came the answer, which would startle the Government officer. For Tahiti[11] (as we now call it) was many thousands of miles away in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean. Indeed it had only been discovered by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in 1768. The Duff was a small sailing-ship such as one of our American ocean liners of to-day could put into her dining saloon.
"What cargo?" The question came again from the officer on the man-o'-war.
"Missionaries and provisions," was Captain Wilson's answer.
The man-o'-war's captain was puzzled. He did not know what strange beings might be meant by missionaries. He was suspicious. Were they pirates, perhaps, in disguise!
We can understand how curious it would sound to him when we remember that (although Wilfrid and Augustine and Columba had gone to Britain as missionaries over a thousand years before The Duff started down the Thames) no cargo of missionaries had ever before sailed from those North Sea Islands of Britain to the savages of other lands like the South Sea Islands.
There was a hurried order and a scurry on board the Government ship. A boat was let down into the Thames, and half a dozen sailors tumbled into her and rowed to The Duff. What did the officer find?
He was met at the rail by a man who had been through scores of adventures, Captain Wilson. The son of the captain of a Newcastle collier, Wilson had grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as a soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel trading with India, and was then captured and imprisoned by the French in India. He escaped from prison by climbing a great wall, and dropping down forty feet on the other side. He plunged into a river full of alligators, and swam across, escaping the jaws of alligators only to be captured on the other bank by Indians, chained and made to march barefoot for 500 miles. Then he was thrust into Hyder Ali's loathsome prison, starved and loaded with irons, and at last at the end of two years was set free.
This was the daring hero who had now undertaken to captain the little Duff across the oceans of the world to the South Seas. With Captain Wilson, the man-o'-war officer found also six carpenters, two shoemakers, two bricklayers, two sailors, two smiths, two weavers, a surgeon, a hatter, a shopkeeper, a cotton factor, a cabinet-maker, a draper, a harness maker, a tin worker, a butcher and four ministers. But they were all of them missionaries. With them were six children.
All up and down the English Channel French frigates sailed like hawks waiting to pounce upon their prey; for England was at war with France in those days. So for five weary weeks The Duff anchored in the roadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven vessels, she could sail down the channel and across the Bay of Biscay protected by British men-o'-war. Safely clear of the French cruisers, The Duff held on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights of Madeira hove in sight.
Across the Atlantic she stood, for the intention was to sail round South America into the Pacific. But on trying to round the Cape Horn The Duff met such violent gales that Captain Wilson turned her in her tracks and headed back across the Atlantic for the Cape of Good Hope.
Week after week for thousands and thousands of miles she sailed. She had travelled from Rio de Janiero over 10,000 miles and had only sighted a single sail—a longer journey than any ship had ever sailed without seeing land.
"Shall we see the island to-day?" the boys on board would ask Captain Wilson. Day after day he shook his head. But one night he said:
"If the wind holds good to-night we shall see an island in the morning, but not the island where we shall stop."
"Land ho!" shouted a sailor from the masthead in the morning, and, sure enough, they saw away on the horizon, like a cloud on the edge of the sea, the island of Toobonai.[12]
As they passed Toobonai the wind rose and howled through the rigging. It tore at the sail of The Duff, and the great Pacific waves rolled swiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and tossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, and, as the wind dropped, and they looked ahead, they saw, cutting into the sky-line, the mountain tops of Tahiti.
It was Saturday night when the island came in sight. Early on the Sunday morning by seven o'clock The Duff swung round under a gentle breeze into Matavai[13] Bay and dropped anchor. But before she could even anchor the whole bay had become alive with Tahitians. They thronged the beach, and, leaping into canoes, sent them skimming across the bay to the ship.
Captain Wilson, scanning the canoes swiftly and anxiously, saw with relief that the men were not armed. But the missionaries were startled when the savages climbed up the sides of the ship, and with wondering eyes rolling in their wild heads peered over the rail of the deck. They then leapt on board and began dancing like mad on the deck with their bare feet. From the canoes the Tahitians hauled up pigs, fowl, fish, bananas, and held them for the white men to buy. But Captain Wilson and all his company would not buy on that day—for it was Sunday.
The missionaries gathered together on deck to hold their Sunday morning service. The Tahitians stopped dancing and looked on with amazement, as the company of white men with their children knelt to pray and then read from the Bible.
The Tahitians could not understand this strange worship, with no god that could be seen. But when the white fathers and mothers and children sang, the savages stood around with wonder and delight on their faces as they listened to the strange and beautiful sounds.
But the startling events of the day were not over. For out from the beach came a canoe across the bay, and in it two Swedish sailors, named, like some fishermen of long ago, Peter and Andrew. These white men knew some English, but lived, not as Christians, but as the natives lived.
And after them came a great and aged chief named Haamanemane.[14] This great chief went up to the "chief" of the ship, Captain Wilson, and called out to him "Taio."[15]
They did not know what this meant, till Peter the Swede explained that Haamanemane wished to be the brother—the troth-friend of Captain Wilson. They were even to change names. Captain Wilson would be called Haamanemane, and Haamanemane would be called Wilson.
So Captain Wilson said "Taio," and he and the chief, who was also high priest of the gods of Tahiti, were brothers.
Captain Wilson said to Haamanemane, through Peter, who translated each to the other:
"We wish to come and live in this island."
Haamanemane said that he would speak to the king and queen of Tahiti about it. So he got down again over the side of the vessel into the canoe, and the paddles of his boatman flashed as they swept along over the breakers to the beach to tell the king of the great white chief who had come to visit them.
All these things happened on the Sunday. On Tuesday word came that the king and the queen would receive them. So Captain Wilson and all his missionaries got into the whale-boat and pulled for the shore. The natives rushed into the water, seized the boat and hauled her aground out of reach of the great waves.
They were startled to see the king and queen come riding on the shoulders of men. Even when one bearer grew tired and the king or the queen must get upon another, they were not allowed to touch the ground. The reason was that all the land they touched became their own, and the people carried them about so that they themselves might not lose their land and houses by the king and queen touching them.
So at that place, under the palm trees of Tahiti, with the beating of the surf on the shore before them, and the great mountain forests behind, these brown islanders of the South Seas gave a part of their land to Captain Wilson and his men that they might live there.
The sons of the wild men of the North Sea Islands had met their first great adventure in bringing to the men of the South Sea Islands the story of the love of the Father of all.