assisted bj-^ him, she eloped from her friends. "Al- though a saint, Francis was obviously deficient in the moral sense. They fled to the Portiuncula, a church which the Benedictines had now given to the Francis- cans. He was in his thirtieth, she in her nineteenth year. She was welcomed by the monks and attended by her spiritual guide, and took sanctuary in the neighboring church of St. Paul until arrangements could be made for her reception in a convent. Fran- cis, regardless of filial duty and parental authority, induced her two sisters, Agnes and Beatrice, notwith- standing the agony of her father, to follow her in her flight, and to partake of her seclusion. Tlic church of St. Damian became the convent of the Order of Poor Sisters thus established. It was at first the design of Francis and his associates to study how they might die to the world, living in poverty and solitude. But, now that he had reaclied a summit of renown and in- fluence, he imagined that he had a further commis- sion. He consulted Silvester and Clara, who declared that it was revealed to them that the founder of their order should go forth to preach. And the Franciscans became a preaching order, though the founder was an illiterate man. He persevered in his devotion to pov- erty, though man)' of his followers soon showed an in- clination to appropriate to themselves some of the comforts of life. He would not permit even his churches to be richly decorated : they were to be low and unadorned. He was continually devising new methods of afflicting and mortifying his bndj'. If any part of his rough habit seeiued too toft, he sewed it with packthread. Unless he was sick he rarely ate anything that was dressed with fire, and when he did he usually put water or ashes upon it. He fasted rig- orously eight Lents in the year" (Hook, s. v.).
It is unnecessary to record the miracles he was said to have performed. In Reman Catholic phrase, he had a singular devotion to the Virgin Jlary, whom he chose for the patroness of his order, and in whose hon- or he fasted from the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul to that of the Assumption. Poman writers tell us that he was endowed with an extraordinary gift of weep- ing; his eyes seemed two fountains of tears, which were almost continually falling from them, insomuch that at length he almost lost his sight. " When the physician prescribed that, in order to drain off the hu- mors by an issue, he should be burnt with a hot iron, Francis was very well pleased, because it was a pain- ful operation and a wholesome remedy ; when the sur- geon was about to f.pply the searing iron, Francis spoke to the fire, saying, 'Brother fire, I beseech thee, burn me genth*, that I may be able to endure thee :' he was seared very deep from the ear to the eyebrow, but showed no sign of pain !"
At length, finding Europe insufficient for his zeal, he resolved to preach to the INIohammedans. With this view he embarked, in the sixth year after his con- version, for Syria, but a tempest drove him upon the coast of Dalmatia, and he was forced to return to An- cona. In 1214 he set out for Morocco, to preach to the famous Jlohammcdan king Miramclin, and went on his way ; but in Spain he was detained bj' a fit of sick- ness, and by various accidents, so that he could not go into IMauritania. But he wrought several pretended miracles in Spain, and founded there some convents, after which he returned through Languedoc into Ital}-. Ten years after the first institution of the order in 1219, Francis held near the Portiuncula the famous general chapter called the 5Iatts, because it was as- sembled in booths in tlie fields. Five thousand friars met on the occasion. The growing ambition of the order showed itself in their praying Francis to obtain from the pojie a license to preach everywhere, without the leave of the Uishops of each diocese. Francis re- buked them, but employed the more ambitious spirits on foreign missions. He reserved for himself the mis- sion to Syria and Egypt, but the afi'airs of his order
FRANCIS OF ASSIST
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FRANCIS OF PAULA