There is, of course, a great deal of characteristic egotism in the narrative; but it is amusing rather than offensive, and is, perhaps, not much in excess of the necessary consciousness of a man who has played a prominent part in life.
Francis of Assisi. By Mrs. Oliphant. Macmillan & Co. (Sunday Library.)
Almost the whole of Mrs. Oliphant's story may be read in the charming gossip of 'Alban Butler;' but here the hand of a true artist has arranged the dramatic material furnished by the celebrated biographer of St. Francis. An almost faultless piece of literary work, a cabinet portrait of exceeding beauty and grace, is the result. The authorities on which Mrs. Oliphant relies for her facts are unimpeachably good. The biographies of De Celano and Bonaventura are suffused and interpenetrated with exceeding reverence for the founder of the Friars Minor. They can hardly, indeed, be acquitted of an admiration akin to worship for the hero of their pious romance, and they often leave us in some perplexity as to the respective limits of fact and fiction in this strange and wonderful life. Mrs. Oliphant, however, holds the balance very fairly. Every visitor to Assisi who has tried to drink in the spirit of the scene, or to understand the historic reality that underlies the mythic splendour of the tomb of the great apostle of poverty, must have felt it difficult to free his mind from strange reveries as to the power of the human will not only to compel the obedience of other minds, but to evolve a whole world of facts out of its moral consciousness. Francis was a devout son of the Roman Church, scrupulously obedient to sacerdotal authority, and profoundly anxious to secure the authentication of his 'Order' from the Holy See; and yet his career is a striking illustration of the triumph of the prophetic rather than of the sacramental or priestly power. He was the founder of a religion, the originator of a society, the fashioner and for many years the master of a rule and organization which were absolutely at war with all the passions of the flesh, all the current tendencies of society, and the whole spirit of the so-called Christian world.
Mrs. Oliphant has thrown much light upon the condition of Italy in the thirteenth century, and has used her historic imagination to great effect in portraying the scenes in the early life of her hero, the grand crises of his career, and the extremes of poverty and self-abnegation to which he submitted. She devotes considerable space to the beautiful romance which led to the foundation of his second Order for women, and to the circumstances which induced him to frame a rule for those in secular life who wished to aim at the counsels of perfection. His visit to the East and the attempt he made to convert the Sultan to Christianity by the offer of the ordeal of fire, as well as by other urgent appeals, are told with dramatic force. The history of the success which attended his labours, and the sketch of some of the 'Chapters' of his Order which assembled at his bidding for conference and prayer, bear strong resemblance to some of the legends of Sakya-Mouni Buddha.
The enthusiasm shown by Francis for the beauties of nature, his sense of brotherhood to all created things, his fellowship with birds and beasts and creeping things, atone for the touch of fanaticism with which he addressed even the fire that was to be applied to his own flesh in medical cautery, as Frater Ignis. With deep pathos Mrs. Oliphant tells the 'legend' of the origination of the 'stigmata' of the Lord Jesus in the hands, feet, and side of Francis. She shows the strength of the evidence for the existence of these mysterious marks on the emaciated frame of the pious enthusiast; but she also indicates the silence of any satisfactory eye-witness for the astounding miracle, and proves that, though his disciples assert the fact, they do not say they saw this portentous sign of resemblance to the Saviour of sinners. That St. Francis—in virtue of this supposed imitation in his body of the 'marks' of the Christ—has received an idolatrous reverence, will hardly be denied; but that St. Francis ever called the smallest attention to such a marvel, or mentioned the mysterious circumstance to his dearest friend, cannot be proved. The story is improbable, and to some extent sickening, yet it appears to us the coarse and exaggerated expression which his less spiritual disciples gave to that 'supernatural rapture of love to God in which his history culminates.' Mrs. Oliphant says very justly and beautifully—'The distinction between the active servant of God, who gives up all things to serve Him, and the mystic, who gives up the privilege of serving him in the deeper joy of beholding, is to a great extent a difference of temperament, but in St. Francis occurs the unusual spectacle of the two combined.... No man ever kept his eyes more open to the wants of common humanity, and yet few mystics can show so strange a chapter of absolute communion with the Almighty.' We almost wonder that our author has not given even more ample specimens of the poetic enthusiasm of the great prophet of Assisi. The Italian canticles said to have been written by him, which were published by Wadding in 1623, are full of wild, holy rapture. The closing lines (in Butler's translation) of one may express the true significance of the mysterious stigmata:—
"Grant one request of dying love—
Grant, oh! my God, who diest for me—
I, sinful wretch, may die for thee
Of love's deep wounds; love to embrace—
To swim in its sweet sea! Thy face