His conviction of this duty was so strong that, during one large gathering of the friars, he had this advice written in large letters and posted up.
"Let the brethren avoid ever appearing sombre, sad and clouded, like the hypocrites, but let them always be found joyful in the Lord, gay, amiable, gracious—as is fitting."
Amiability and graciousness he also considered amongst the virtues—courtesy, he called it. And courtesy he always said was akin to charity, her younger sister, who was to go with the elder one and help to open all hearts to her! An historian writes thus of Francis: "He was very courteous and gracious in all things, and possessed a peace and serenity that nothing could disturb. This sympathy and benevolence was expressed on his countenance; his face had in it something angelic."
His songs and hymns were the outcome of his perpetual joy in the Lord. In those days there were no popular religious hymns or songs. People praised God in Latin, with psalms and chants. Francis never found that these gave vent to his feelings, and so, with the help of one of the brothers—Pacificus, a trained musician—he began to write his own; and soon, wherever the friars passed, they left a train of simple melody in their wake. It was Francis, and his brethren, who first turned the Italian language into poetry, and gave it that impetus which has since rendered it the typical language for song.
CHAPTER VIII.
Francis—as a Leader of Men.
"Thou whose bright faith makes feeble hearts grow stronger,
And sends fresh warriors to the great campaign,
Bids the lone convert feel estranged no longer,
And wins the sundered to be one again."
Little did Francis think, as he piled up stone after stone upon the walls of St. Damian, that the day was not far distant when he should begin the building of a spiritual temple, built up of "lively stones," with Christ Himself as the "chief corner-stone." Yet it was even so. That day when, in obedience to the heavenly command, he stripped off his shoes and mantle, he laid the first stone. From that hour his spiritual building proceeded, and he who had fancied his work completed, found that it was but barely begun! Dead souls, in whom the Story of the Cross could no longer arouse even the most transient emotion, were awakened and convicted when they saw it lived out before them—a living epistle. We have seen how souls quickened by Divine power, and led only by God, came and joined themselves to Francis, choosing him as their leader, and accepting as their rule of life the revelation made to him, through the gospel, for that memorable February day. To those that followed Francis, God made no more definite manifestation of His will other than that they were to join themselves to him and lead his life. Manifestly, he was their God-appointed leader, and as simply and obediently as he had pulled off his mantle and shoes, he accepted the human trust bestowed upon him. And well he fulfilled that trust!
To the very last hour of his life, Francis was true to his first principles. Never for one moment did he wander out of the narrow path in which God had set his feet at the beginning of his career as a leader and teacher of men. As literally as it was possible he modelled his life on that of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the most noted Atheist writers of the present century says that in no age has there been so close a copy of the life of Christ as that portrayed by Francis and his followers.