"Is it not in fact true," he would add, "that the servants of God are really like jugglers, intended to revive the hearts of men and lead them into spiritual joy?"
The Francis of the old raptures had come back, the layman, the poet, the artist.
The Canticle of the Creatures is very noble: it lacks, however, one strophe; if it was not upon Francis's lips, it was surely in his heart:
Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara; thou hast made her silent, active, and sagacious, and by her thy light shines in our hearts.
FOOTNOTES
[1.] Thirty-sixth and last strophe of the song
|
Amor de caritade Perche m' hai si ferito? |
found in the collection of St. Francis's works.
[2.] By the Abbé Amoni, at the close of his edition of the Fioretti, Rome, 1 vol., 12mo, 1889, pp. 390-392. We can but once more regret the silence of the editor as to the manuscript whence he has drawn these charming pages. Certain indications seem unfavorable to the author having written it before the second half of the thirteenth century; on the other hand, the object of a forgery is not evident. An apochryphal piece always betrays itself by some interested purpose, but here the story is of an infantine simplicity.
[3.] 2 Cel., 3, 104; Bon., 119; Fior. ii. consid.